That is chockfull of fancy words like "marxist", "historiography", "social", "hostile", "analysis", etc, but what it essentially boils down to is that this is a French School of History that places emphasis on using the methods of Social Science within History, and working against the predominant political/diplomatic/economic history that came before. Done.
Now, why I'm posting about this? The French Annales school had a way to break down the idea of time. I'm going to COPY said breakdown (imagine an ocean), and apply it to what I personally believe is the WLU "mentalite" - a French word meaning a group of thought processes and social standards pertaining to a community.
Alright. Here we go!
Picture an ocean. Here's one if it helps!
Alright. The FIRST Level. The French Annales School classifies the deepest level as being the "Long Duree" - the movements of geographical time. Movements of mountains, rivers, oceans, etc affect agriculture and where people settle. Cycles of the Long Duree happen over centuries of time.
This will be classified in the Laurier Annales School as being the Presidential/Faculty Area. Decisions are made at the highest level - construction, implementation of new programs/courses, future ideas, etc - that will affect students down the road - as well as the overall university in the long haul - but will not affect immediate students. However, an interesting thing to note: Laurier students tend to care about this like people care about geographic ideas. They get wrong information, and then get outraged about it - then realize they probably can't do anything. Thats when they get the RIGHT information, and these movements silently peter out.
The SECOND level, known to the French Annales school, deals with Social History. Currents of movements and ideas - all dealing with people - are associated with population fluctuations and both are affected and affect both the upper layer of time and the lower layer of time. This area, the "Medium layer of time", is the social/cultural part, and moves in currents of 10-15 years.
This will be classified as being the greater student body. Trends occur (both overpopulation and underpopulation), and they both affect the decisions being made at the "long duree - presidential area" as well as the upper layer, or WLUSU (soon to be explained). So, we the Students are at this layer - and we divide up ourselves based on how much we THINK we can get done or how much we try to ACTUALLY get something done.
The THIRD layer is the one that is closest to us. It is the foam that is on top of the ocean, and it is classified by the French Annales School by being called "Histoire Evenementielle", or a history of events. Just as foam on the ocean has no affect on the ocean itself, this history of events has no affect on time itself. It moves in sequences of 5-10 years, and is relatively unimportant - and the French put political and diplomatic history here.
I'm going out on a limb here, but I firmly believe that WLUSU and Campus Clubs go here. As much history as each of the student activities has, or campus clubs, or WLUSU itself, they do not really have an overall affect on the running of the university. I'm not saying they are useless - in fact, having a venue for students to participate is amazing - but in terms of governance and effect, having an Executive Board that switches every year as well as the constant influx of new students who will replace said Executive board doesn't really allow for any major significant chagnes taht aren't already authorized by the Executives of the University itself. Chances are, if its too big to be completed in one year, its too big to be fully authorized by WLUSU itself.
So yeah, thats my analysis. I hope y'all enjoyed it... and that you DONT shoot me - that would be a bad idea.
All the best, good luck with everything!
Barry
PS: LET THE FLAMES BEGIN!!!!!
