Delivered by Peter O’Brien, Public Orator, May 29, 2025
Domina Cancellaria; praesento vobis Aerealensem Elvinum Dexter, ut admittatur ad gradum Doctoris in Jure Civili (honoris causa).
King’s students who study Latin know that the adjective dexter means “right,” as distinguished from sinister, meaning “left.” One might wonder then, how a man called Dexter should have served the cause of the political left in Nova Scotia so long and so ably. The answer surely lies in the secondary nuances of that same Latin adjective, which include “handy,” “skilful,” and “opportune.” Those attributes are manifest in Mr. Dexter’s deft negotiation of the obstacles of faction, historical circumstance, and chance that culminated in his premiership in Nova Scotia’s first ever NDP government. And yet, Darrell Dexter’s public service career cannot be reduced to an abstract skillset. Accordingly, his surname also connotes what is “proper,” “fitting,” and “fortunate,” reminding us of the deep care for communal equity and prosperity that pushed him to politics in the first place.
Mr. Dexter spent his childhood and adolescence in both Halifax, where his father was a sheet-metal worker at the shipyards, and in the Queen’s County village of Milton, on the banks of the river Mersey. The first in his family to attend university, Mr. Dexter obtained degrees in Arts and Journalism from King’s, as well as in Education and Law from Dalhousie. As a young man he served in the Royal Canadian Navy as a communications officer and wrote for the Halifax Daily News. For a time he practised law, before entering electoral politics as a Dartmouth City councillor in 1994. First elected MLA for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour in 1998, Mr. Dexter would be re-elected to that seat five times between 1999 and 2009, a period in which he became the provincial NDP’s 8th leader, leader of the Official Opposition, and finally, between 2009 and 2013, Nova Scotia’s 27th Premier. The accomplishments of Mr. Dexter’s government include a renewable energy strategy, progressive social policy, controlled spending and a reduction in small business taxes. His leadership in environmental policy was recognized at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and as Chair of the Council of the Federation in 2012-2013, he led the nation’s other premiers in such initiatives as increasing trade with China, establishing the Pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, and improving inter-provincial trade. Since leaving politics, he has led election-monitoring missions in Tunisia and Europe. He is currently Vice-Chair of Global Public Affairs, a firm that provides expert services in government relations and strategic communications. At Dalhousie, he is an Honorary Distinguished Fellow with the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance.
Mr. Dexter’s majority government enjoyed support across traditional party lines. This speaks not only to his political finesse, but to the deepest of bonds to people and principles in his home province. Darrell once famously distinguished himself from his Progressive Conservative and Liberal opponents by joking that he was a “conservative progressive.” In addition to a fine wit, the quip exposes the profound communitarianism that has always inspired the best of Nova Scotian politicians, regardless of party. Through its history, King’s has helped students to find their own paths to public service. Darrell himself can claim to have cut his electoral teeth here, having served the King’s Students Union as External VP. The college has been honoured to honour two Nova Scotian premiers with King’s roots twice before at this ceremony: Dr. Russell MacLellan, a Liberal, and Dr. John Hamm, a Progressive Conservative. Is it not fitting, Madame Chancellor, that we close the non-partisan circle by so honoring Mr. Dexter? For dexterity of service in all its connotations, I therefore ask you, in the name of King’s College, to bestow upon Darrell Dexter the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws, honoris causa.
Read Darrell Dexter’s President’s Dinner Speech
Domina Cancellaria; praesento vobis Aemiliam Rosam Carolinam Wilson, ut admittatur ad gradum Doctoris in Jure Civili (honoris causa).
The herald, or κῆρυξ, is a badly neglected figure in Homer’s epics. When one thinks of the Iliad and Odyssey, stories of gods, heroes and monsters instantly spring to mind: how Zeus’ eternal will is done within the brief mortal lifespan of Achilles; how Odysseus reaches home after years of wandering, battling sirens and cyclopes on his way. But heralds are crucial in these narratives because they make communication possible in impossible circumstances. Heralds are the intermediaries who convey messages between irreconcilably warring armies; in their presence, physical conflict ceases. When the heralds step back, they make space for combatants to reflect together and converse: in language, they find common meaning amidst vast gulfs of difference. In Homer’s world, the herald’s boundary-crossing was so essential he was personally inviolable. Εven the gods had their herald: Hermes, who connected minds across the greatest of cosmic borderlines between heaven and earth and the living and the dead. Readers of Homer today are separated from his stories of love, politics and brutal warfare by a chasm of more than 28 centuries, as well as a no-longer-spoken dialect of Greek. The heralds who cross that breach and connect us with ancient hearts and brains are the literary translators. When their hard labour is done, they, like their ancient counterparts, recede and allow language to work its varied paths to meaning.
Emily Wilson is among the best known of Homeric heralds today. She is justly celebrated for her verse translations of the Odyssey (2017) and the Iliad (2023), which critics call “clear and brisk,” “propulsive,” “buoyant and expressive.” Her versions are lauded for busting precious clichés that veil the realities of enslavement and misogyny in earlier translations. Notably, she is the first woman to have published complete translations of Homer’s poems. A linguistic master, Dr. Wilson makes difficult ancient texts accessible, helping “to shake ourselves out of the idea that the contemporary world is the only one.” Beyond verbal accuracy or scholarly acuity, she describes empathy as the crucial element in helping her to encode “every character and […] the whole social structure and mythical world” of Homer into her translations. Her hope is that an attentive, empathetic reader can understand such things as “the complexity of gender as one strand in the Homeric representation of people and societies, both mortal and divine.” Emily Wilson’s academic κῦδος is not limited to her work on Homer. Educated at Oxford and Yale and with degrees in Classics, Comparative Literature, and Renaissance English, she has taught since 2002 at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is Professor of Classical Studies and College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities (an impressive, if un-Homeric, epithet!). In addition to her versions of Homer, she has published translations of Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca, as well as edited volumes and monographs on ancient and modern tragedy, the death of Socrates, and the life of the Roman philosopher Seneca. Her many awards and recognitions include MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships.
Homer is one of the first authors encountered by students in the Foundation Year Program. In an expression of their enthusiasm for the ancient author and his 21st-century herald, King’s students chose Emily Wilson to deliver the 10th Alex Fountain Memorial Lecture on March 6, 2024. The audience’s anticipation that evening could have rivalled any heroic contest of chariot or foot, and Homer himself might have envied their rapt attention as Dr. Wilson spoke on “Re-Translating Homer: Why it Matters.” Madame Chancellor, for heralding past to present and present to past, for serving the cause of humanity with learning and empathy, I ask you, in the name of King’s College, to bestow upon Professor Emily Wilson the degree of Doctor of Civil Laws (honoris causa).
Read Dr. Wilson’s Convocation Address