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Four to Receive Honorary Degrees at Convocation
University to confer some 800 degrees, diplomas
U of G will award nearly 800 degrees and diplomas during seven convocation ceremonies Feb. 19 to 22 in War Memorial Hall. The University will also present honorary degrees to James Lockyer, founding director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted; Andrew Pipe, a medical doctor instrumental in founding the Canadian Centre for Ethics; ground-breaking plant scientist Christopher Somerville; and Canadian business leader Gabriel Tsampalieros. In addition, retired sociology professor Lynn McDonald will be named University professor emerita.
Convocation begins Feb. 19 at 2:30 p.m. with a ceremony for the College of Management and Economics. Tsampalieros, who is owner and chairman of Second Cup Limited and former chief executive officer of Cara Operations Limited, will receive a doctorate of laws and address the graduating class. Tsampalieros is no stranger to U of G: he served on Board of Governors, was instrumental in raising the funds needed for the teaching kitchen facility in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, and led the way in developing distance MBA programs.
The ceremony for the College of Arts is Feb. 20 at 10 a.m., with college dean Don Bruce giving the convocation address. Prof. Tony Vannelli, new dean of the College of Physical and Engineering Science, will address students graduating from CPES at the 2:30 p.m. ceremony.
Two ceremonies for the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences are slated for Feb. 21. Lockyer, who taught law at McGill University and the University of Windsor before launching a private practice as a criminal lawyer in 1977, will receive an honorary doctorate of laws and deliver the convocation address at the morning event. He has been involved in exposing more than 10 wrongful convictions in Canada, including the cases of Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Clayton Johnson and Gregory Parson. He is currently working on behalf of Steven Truscott, whose 1959 murder conviction is under review, and Robert Baltovich, who is awaiting a new trial after his murder conviction was quashed by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
McDonald will be honoured at the afternoon ceremony. The author of the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, she has been writing about Nightingale and other female theorists since her 1993 book, Early Origins of the Social Sciences. McDonald is also a public health advocate. As a Toronto MP, she succeeded in getting the Non-Smokers' Health Act adopted in 1988 as a private member's bill. She also served as president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.
On Feb. 22, Pipe will receive an honorary doctorate of laws and address the graduands at the morning ceremony for the College of Biological Science. Division director of the Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, he is a leader in ethical issues in sport and preventive health care. He was a driving force behind Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada and has been its director since 1983. Pipe also helped found the Canadian Centre for Drug-Free Sport. He is a member of the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada.
At the afternoon ceremony, Somerville will receive a doctor of science degree and address students graduating from the Ontario Agricultural College and the Ontario Veterinary College.
Prior to the 1980s, the identity and function of plant genes were virtually unknown until Somerville pioneered the development of a species, Arabidopsis, that could be grown in a petri dish to make rapid advances in the understanding of crop genes. As a result of his efforts, Arabidopsis was the first plant species to have its DNA sequenced and all of its genes mapped. Somerville is senior editor of Science magazine and has been director of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's plant biology department since 1994.