Forty years ago tomorrow, the Peterborough Examiner printed a letter from Reg Faryon, then president of Quaker Oats Company of Canada, that would ignite the Peterborough community behind a crusade for a university in the city. On the same day, the paper's lead editorial called for a university-oriented college, not a "glorified vocational school," says Alf Cole in his history of Trent. Other letters poured in supporting the idea and the newly elected mayor John Dewart set up a committee to study the possibility.