Academic and General Interests

Dan Brown's academic interests (stuff he has written about) include traditional schools, public schools of choice, school enterprise, school volunteers, and school-based management. He's gained some notoriety from his report on his study of two traditional schools (see www.saee.bc.ca) and his willingness to speak about them. A recent project is a study of a landmark public-private partnership to build a public school. His current preoccupation is how secondary schools market themselves and compete for students. None of these topics is controversial and all have the complete endorsement of the educational establishment. Dan also pursues other subjects when time allows. They are independent schools, constitutional issues, and multiculturalism. Again, these are topics that never upset folks who are of a liberal persuasion.

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Current Work, Teaching and Supervision

Dan Brown is part of the Educational Administration and Leadership Group in the Department. He has served as its Coordinator (where he exercised his modest administrative skills) and in other minor roles to keep the Department Head happy. He regularly teaches a core course on educational organizations, which he regards as the basics for aspiring administrators (like scales to musicians), and a course on research that is designed to develop their critical skills. He occasionally teaches the courses on educational finance and school-community relations. Dan's students, called Martians, write their graduate papers on a large variety of topics that are usually related to his interests. Please consult his students for their own opinions of him, there are about 100 of his former supervisees "out there." Unlike his valued colleagues, Dan persists in wearing a jacket and tie most days, mostly for his own morale.

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General Outlook on Life

Dan Brown is a social and economic conservative. You might suppose that such positions were not allowed in faculties of education, but rare exceptions may be uncovered. As an economic conservative, he believes that the individual is the site of creativity and invention. Individuals have the potential to grow and demonstrate great promise. People are smart. They make choices and sacrifices, realizing their rewards and failures. As a social conservative, Dan adheres to traditional Canadian values such as hard work, the centrality of the family, civility, and respect for Canadian institutions and history. These libertarian and communitarian views, when asserted, never run contrary to prevailing egalitarian policies or sentiments at UBC, of course. Neither are they mutually conflicting.

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Personal and Employment History

Dan Brown was born into a family of modest means in New Westminster during World War II and was raised in Maple Ridge and Victoria. After attending UVic and UBC, he served as an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy. Destined for dry land, he studied at the University of Chicago and taught for six years at the State University of New York at Buffalo, coming to UBC in 1977. He's married to Marnie, an elementary school marm in Richmond, and they have two children, Trevor and Leanne, who are "emerging" adults making their way in the world. Dan's hobbies include photography (usually while camping in wild places), travel, cycling around Vancouver, participating in the Society of St. George by welcoming British immigrants, and the requisite household maintenance which accompanies family life.

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