Remembering Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980): The Medium and the Message

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. A few years back Diane Lucas, then the campus archivist as well as a member of the Lavery Library staff, mentioned to me in passing that Marshall McLuhan\u27s daughter Stephanie had been doing research in our archives on her father\u27s work. Marshall McLuhan?! I was astonished to hear that name mentioned, as it had been years since I\u27d thought about the communications guru who had coined the phrases the Global Village and the Medium is the Message. But more to the point, what possible connection did he have with St. John Fisher College? To my astonishment, Diane told me that McLuhan, who had been a faculty member at the Basilian-run St. Michael\u27s College at the University of Toronto, was closely connected with Father Charles Lavery, the former president of St. John Fisher College, for whom the library is named. McLuhan was also active in helping to found our Department of Communication and Journalism, and often came to campus to give talks and meet with the faculty and students. Stephanie McLuhan was here, in fact, to do research on a book she later edited of her father\u27s unpublished lectures, some of which were first delivered here