Five to receive honorary degrees

During Fall Convocation ceremonies, the university will award honorary degrees recognizing the outstanding accomplishments of five individuals in fields ranging from nursing to public sector management.

Honorary degrees are UVic's highest form of recognition and are awarded by the Senate based on an exceptional record of achievement in scholarship, research, teaching, the creative arts or public service.

This fall's recipients will be recognized at each of the four convocation ceremonies, and their acceptance remarks will be available online http://communications.uvic.ca/podcasting/convocation/ soon after the ceremony.

Dr. Jean Watson
Honorary Doctor of Science in Nursing (10 a.m., Nov. 10)

Clinical nurses and academic programs throughout the world rely on Dr. Jean Watson's published works on the philosophy and theory of human caring and the art and science of caring in nursing. A distinguished professor of nursing at the University of Colorado Denver, Watson has authored or co-authored 14 books on topics ranging from empirical measurements of caring to new postmodern philosophies of caring and healing.

Her approach to "caring science" is interdisciplinary and includes human caring processes, phenomena and experiences. It has relevance to all health, education and human service fields and professions.

Watson has also demonstrated a strong commitment and contribution to the development of the University of Victoria School of Nursing at a time, from 1989–94, when it was in the process of creating a new curriculum. She provided—without charge—her time, energy, innovation and creativity. She challenged the faculty members to create a curriculum based on human science and caring, which they achieved.

She is recognized as one of the first nurse-theorists to articulate the distinction between nursing and medicine. As a result, Watson has inspired nurses throughout the world to embrace caring science in their research, practice and education.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Honorary Doctor of Laws (10 a.m., Nov. 10)

Sheila Watt-Cloutier is a brave and tenacious defender of the human rights of the Inuit, particularly in the face of global climate change that threatens the way of life of thousands of her people.

Born in Kuujjuaq, Quebec, and raised in the traditional Inuit lifestyle for the first 10 years of her life, Watt-Cloutier has upheld this tradition in her life's work. She has made the health and the emotional, spiritual and cultural well being of the Inuit her primary focus.

In 1995, she became president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. The ICC represents 160,000 Inuit living in the Arctic regions of Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia. In this capacity she has become increasingly involved in the climate change debate, arguing that global warming is a violation of the human rights of Inuit, who are contending with thinning sea ice, altered migration routes and other changes to their physical surroundings.

Among her past honours, Watt-Cloutier has received the Rachel Carson Prize and the Mahbub ul Haq Human Development Award and, in 2007, Norwegian parliamentarians publicly nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Hon. Lorna Marsden
Honorary Doctor of Laws (2:30 p.m., Nov. 10)

Raised in Sidney, Dr. Lorna Marsden attended Victoria College and went on to earn her PhD at Princeton. What followed was an academic and political career that led her to the presidencies of two Canadian universities and an appointment to the Canadian Senate.

A brilliant sociologist, a gifted and articulate statesperson, and a natural leader in Canadian post-secondary education, Marsden joined the University of Toronto in 1972 where she taught economic sociology and progressed to vice-provost (arts and science).

She was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1984 by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and resigned her seat in 1992 to return to academic life, becoming president of Wilfrid Laurier University that year. In 1997 she accepted the position of president and vice-chancellor of York University, remaining there for the next decade.

In her research, Marsden has been largely concerned with the major structural forces that cause social change in Canada and, particularly, the way women make a living and how that has evolved over time.

A past recipient of the UVic Alumni Association's Distinguished Alumni Award, Marsden has received numerous other accolades, including being named a Member of the Order of Canada and receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.

Dr. Norman Riddell
Honorary Doctor of Laws (10 a.m., Nov. 12)

In leading the former Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, Dr. Norman Riddell influenced support for post-secondary students in their pursuit of education and training and expanded the foundation's mandate to include state-of-the-art research on its programs.

In his 10 years with the foundation, Riddell led various programs in cooperation with provincial and territorial governments that provided access to education and reduced student debt. The foundation disbursed nearly $2.5 billion in the form of non-refundable financial support to about 650,000 students.

At the University of Victoria, more than 14,000 awards totaling roughly $47 million were received. In addition, the university collaborated with the foundation on the LE,NONET (pronounced "le-non-git") pilot project for improving the success rate of Aboriginal students. The foundation provided 80 per cent of the project's $4.5-million budget. Support programs coupled with financial aid helped to reduce the withdrawal rate of Aboriginal students by 67 per cent and improve graduation rates by 20 per cent.

Earlier in his career, at the University of Alberta, Riddell was associate vice-president of international affairs. He also held deputy minister positions in the Saskatchewan and Quebec governments, and was a foreign service officer in the federal government.

Hon. Kevin Lynch
Honorary Doctor of Laws (2:30 p.m., Nov. 12)

By the time he retired in 2009 as clerk of the Privy Council, secretary to cabinet and head of the public service of Canada, Dr. Kevin Lynch had established a well-deserved reputation for unfailing energy, rigorous intellectual capacity and an exceptional commitment to a strong public policy process and public service. Above all, Lynch is recognized for his consistent belief in the power of Canadian research and innovation to become key drivers of a stronger economy.

Raised in Nova Scotia, he earned his PhD in economics at McMaster University where he became known as a brilliant but practical scholar who combined business acumen with extensive knowledge of economic theory and international finance.

As deputy minister of Industry Canada, he was central to the inception and implementation of the innovation agenda, which effectively stemmed the brain drain from Canada. University-based research was a key component of Lynch's vision. He fostered such programs as the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Canada Research Chairs—both of which have gained international acclaim as models for investing in research infrastructure and intellectual capital.

Many researchers—at the University of Victoria and across Canada—have benefited from Lynch's efforts to create a more productive and competitive country through investment in research and technology.