gardens of the mind gardens of the mind - St. Michael's College ...

BOOK & MEDIA STUDIES
From Gutenberg
to Google
10 Spring 2009 St. Michael’s
SMC’s Book and Media Studies program attracts students
to examine the media that carry the message
BY PHILIP MARCHAND 6T9
ARSHALL MCLUHAN, THE CELebrated
St. Michael’s College professor,
once stated that the medium was the message.
His benign ghost—surely he still frequents
the college he loved so much in
life—is doubtless pleased to witness the success
of the College’s Book and Media Studies
(BMS) program. More to the point, students
also love the program. Launched in
2002 as a minor College Academic Program,
with thirteen enrolments, BMS is
now a major program with 268 students
from all across the Uof T campus.
Nobody predicted this success. “When
we launched this idea in the spring of 2002,
we got some pretty strange looks,” recalls
Mark McGowan, Principal of St. Michael’s
College and head of the program. “‘Book
history? Are you crazy? The book is dead.’”
McGowan pauses and glances at his own
office, full of books and documents. “These