The Freedom Square plaque has been returned to SFU’s Burnaby campus after appearing and disappearing multiple times since its installation 47 years ago.
The Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) finally managed to track down this elusive piece of SFU history after beginning the search last year. It was restored to Freedom Square earlier this October.
The uncovered area east of Convocation Mall was given the name Freedom Square for its history of student political action.
In 1967, 2,500 students and faculty engaged in a sit-down protest in the area to demonstrate their opposition to the firing of five teaching assistants. The staff were reinstated as a result of the demonstration.
The plaque was installed the following year in commemoration of that protest and to recognize the spot as an important place for student activism, but has since spent more time away from SFU than at its home in Freedom Square.
UBC engineering students stole the plaque shortly after its installation in 1968, replacing it with an antagonizing ‘Fool’s Square’ plaque.
The plaque went on to reside in a UBC fraternity house for many years and eventually served as a TV stand for the UBC alumnus who returned it to SFU in 1990.
After its return, the Freedom Square plaque was rededicated in fall of 2000, only to disappear soon after.
The SFSS recently discovered that the plaque made its way into a storage space under a staircase in Convocation Mall. Facilities services told the SFSS that it was there for at least 10 years.
The plaque spent some years as a TV stand before being returned.
“It was a bit of a challenge to get it remounted, because nobody actually knew where it went,” explained SFSS president Chardaye Bueckert.
She also commented on the SFSS connection to the plaque: “It’s actually kind of cool. [The group that installed the plaque] was the equivalent then of the SFSS. They called themselves the SFU Student Council, but it was actually the student union who paid for it and mounted it in the first place.”
From the April 5 1967 minutes of the SFU Students Council as reported in The Peak. “Engleson / Korbin moved: “that a plaque be installed in the cement on the Mall to read ‘Freedom Square, in constant memory of the rallies which took place in this square in the defence of Academic Freedom*.” The motion was carried. Lyn Bowman was placed in charge of the Freedom Square project. “