Ian Burgess, former teacher and Speirs Medalist, dies in Toronto

G. C. Ian Burgess, a long-serving, beloved and influential member of the Selwyn House faculty, died suddenly at his home in Toronto on September 6, of cardiac arrest, with his wife, Joanne, at his side. He is also survived by his son William G. I. Burgess, daughter-in-law Tanya Webster Burgess, nine-month-old granddaughter Kate, and his brother, Father F. Graham Burgess.

Ian Burgess taught at Selwyn House School from 1966 to 1979, serving as Head of the English Department for a decade. He received the Speirs Medal, the highest honour the school can bestow, in 2001.

While at Selwyn House, Ian introduced an enriched writing program, as well as a curriculum for critical approaches to the study of traditional and contemporary literature. He wrote and printed support materials for the School, including an English Handbook and a Style Sheet. These programs contributed to an outstanding success rate for students.

In addition to coaching football, hockey, and track, Ian initiated, typeset and published a 300-page literary anthology of students’ work, The Fourth Dimension, and developed a strong photography and literary section for the Yearbook. He established an active photography club and designed the School’s first darkroom, introduced multimedia presentations, and set up a television workshop group that operated and aired programs from the Cable Television studio in Montreal. He introduced students to anima¬tion techniques and promoted their production of films. He got students involved in radio scripting and encouraged them to enter a national CBC competition, where six of the seven Selwyn House groups won prizes.

Ian launched and managed three book fairs, and was instrumental in getting our library restructured and catalogued. He was actively involved in Selwyn House Canada Day programs, in which major Canadian writers visited the School.

Ian’s accomplishments outside Selwyn House include serving as an Independent School representative on the Secondary Language Arts Committee of Quebec.

In 1974, Ian created a small publishing house that distributed titles purchased by the Canadian government for distribution worldwide through its embassies. That same year, he had a collection of poems, Black Lunacy, published by Valley-Mosaic Press. He set up the first Véhicule Poetry Reading Series, funded by the Canada Council, and was elected, along with Louise Gareau DuBois and Margaret Atwood, to the executive of P.E.N. International, a world-wide organization of poets, essayists and novelists.

In 1977, he was named, in a national competition, as one of a team of thirty-seven teachers from across Canada to be involved in the development and publication of ten resource guides for the teaching of Canadian literature. During this project, he co-authored two books, Quebec Literature in Translation, and Images of Biculturalism, which were published by the Writers’ Development Trust, and were adopted by every ministry of education in Canada.

“Ian Burgess was a very popular teacher who had a huge impact on a lot of students,” says Alexis Troubezkoy, who served as headmaster during most of Ian’s Selwyn House years.

“I was lucky enough to be hired by Dr. Speirs, and three years later became Head of the English Department at the tender age of twenty-five,” Ian recalled when invited back to Selwyn House to receive the Speirs Medal in 2001. “Inspired as I was by the ever-present examples of outstanding educational and administrative excellence, I requested—and was given—every opportunity to grow,” he said. “There was not one major challenge I sought to undertake that was refused or limited. My activities, ventures and achievements at Selwyn House bear witness to the truth of this statement.”

At his acceptance speech on the evening of his receiving the Speirs Medal, Ian had this to say about Selwyn House: “In my experience…the Selwyn House graduate is unique. Other schools may occasionally approach the excellence, which Selwyn House upholds so consistently, in both French and English. But beyond that, it is desire of so many of you to cherish and foster what is of worth in yourselves, to uphold the highest standards of personal integrity, to give back to this community in your maturity the strength and means to continue the tradition.

“Selwyn House has never lost sight that a school is educating for twenty, thirty, forty years from now. To accomplish that end, it has the courage to adopt relevant, farsighted curricula – French immersion and strong IT programs that were embraced early, and funded well.”

After leaving Selwyn House, Ian taught at Ridley College for three years and served as Principal of the High School at Toronto French School for sixteen years. After his retirement, he worked in supplementary education.

Ian’s friends and colleagues are invited to a Memorial Service in Celebration of the Life of Ian at St. John York Mills Anglican Church on Old Yonge Street north of York Mills (19 Don Ridge Drive) on Saturday, Oct. 1, at 3:00 p.m. If desired, donations may be made to Sunnybrook Foundation Research Fund, or to Selwyn House School Foundation to establish the G. C. Ian Burgess Creative Writing Award.