Citations of Distinguished Service Award Recipients who passed away prior to September 2011 are not available in electronic format.
Leslie Dal Cin - 2022
Your time at Queen’s provided you with the opportunity to impact students in every program, at every level, from everywhere. From those who stepped into the Athletics and Recreation Centre once or twice to use a rowing machine all the way to two-sport varsity athletes, your unwavering commitment to the benefits of recreation and sport made lives better.
Not content to merely deliver a vast range of recreation and athletic services, you also chose to implement initiatives supporting mental health and wellbeing; equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigeneity; leadership; and active living. You and your team worked tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure options were available for students as often and as soon as possible, whether they be online or safely in person.
Your impact will live on through Queen’s enhanced facilities, its renewed sport model, and the reinvigorated Athletics and Recreation brand, all of which were significant undertakings.
We wish to express our appreciation for your dedication and commitment to Queen’s and to the health of its community with the presentation of this Distinguished Service Award.
Merv Daub - 2019
The roles you have held at Queen’s span an incredibly diverse number of fields.
You have been a student, an athlete, a faculty member, an Emeritus Professor, a trustee and university councillor, an author, a coach,
a construction committee chair, and more. Through them all you have exemplified what this award is all about:
recognizing individuals who have made the university a better place through their extraordinary contributions.
The many individuals who supported your nomination all noted that you consistently went above and beyond in your roles and that your work has left a legacy at the university. They used words such as “profound”, “lasting”, “engaged”, and “passionate“, while also noting that they found it difficult to put the importance of your work into words.
It seems you have been able to achieve the delicate balance between being a strong leader and selfless follower in all you have done. Your gentle guidance and wisdom have served as an example for many, from your time as captain of the Queen’s football team, to your professorship in the School of Business, membership on the university’s Board of Trustees and chair of its Audit Committee, and leadership of the committee dedicated to building Goodes Hall.
Your work and words will continue to live on at Queen’s through your histories of the university’s football
team and business education, the revitalization of Richardson Stadium and sports fields,
and the organization of various scholarships for both business and law.
We are thrilled to recognize all of your work with the Queen’s Distinguished Service Award.
Michael R. L. Davies - 1997
The ultimate Queen's alumnus in his devotion to good causes who shows us that together we can make a difference.
University Council, Queen's Fund Council, and the University's Board of Trustees all have benefited from his long active membership and guidance. A legacy of thoughtful leadership and kindness persists and strengthens Queen's in many unseen ways.
Because of his deep interest in the wider community: orchestras flourish, theatres are re-built, actors perform, museum exhibits come alive for people, and competitive rowers can take to the water. And because of his personal energy and effort: important community projects move forward, local hospitals are stronger, and their foundation activities gain from his insight and wise counsel.
His remarkable philanthropy and volunteerism in higher education, healthcare, and the arts is recognized by his city, his country, by international organizations, and with this award, by his own alma mater.
Janice Deakin - 2014
You have served the university community with dedication and distinction, first as an undergraduate student in the Departments of Psychology and Physical Education at Queen’s, and later as a professor and administrator in a number of capacities: Director of the School of Physical and Health Education, Dean of Student Affairs, and Associate Vice-Principal and Dean of Graduate Studies.
During your 24-year tenure at Queen’s, you worked tirelessly to get things done, advocating for actions to assist students and promote the university’s academic mission. While at Queen’s, you championed for the promotion and provision of physical health, wellness and sport as an important aspect of campus life and as an important tool for extracurricular education.
As Director of the School of Physical and Health Education, you led the completion of several initiatives that resulted in it becoming one of the most successful units at Queen’s and in Canada, including the introduction of two new degrees in Kinesiology and Health Studies. That initiative allowed the School to double its faculty complement in five years and to attract two Queen’s National Scholars. You also played a key role in championing for a new building to house the School, as well as advocating for the Queen’s Centre.
You were also instrumental in making recommendations which have transformed athletics into an excellence-based sports model while growing recreational and intermural opportunities – the result being the increased success of our athletes at the provincial and national levels.
On your off-hours, you also achieved great success as a basketball official. Recognized as among the world’s best, you have officiated at every level of championship, including at the Olympic games. You were also the first woman to referee at the CIS National Championship.
For these and many other contributions to Queen’s and to our community, we are pleased to present you with a Distinguished Service Award.
Peter Klaus Dorn - 1991
Founding Director of Queen's Graphic Design Unit, trained in both his native Germany and his avidly adopted Canada, Member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art, Fellow of the Graphic Designers of Canada, and a well-documented genius.
Over two decades, he has energetically and ebulliently revolutionized the way Queen's presents itself to the world through posters, programmes and pamphlets, calendars, catalogues and certificates, through tidied-up type styles, polished publications, a logo already crowned with tradition, and the unfurling of new flags, ties and banners -- much to the gratification of this Council's Colours Committee.
He designs for now and for ever. The distinction of his service to Queen's lies not just in physical evidence from stamps to building signs, but especially in the reflected glory of the prizes and praise heaped upon his work by his national and international peers.
He is Queen's doyen of design -- and probably Canada's most passionate printer.
Sarah Jane Dumbrille - 2018
When you arrived at Queen’s in the early 1960s as an undergraduate student, you likely had no idea of the enormous effect you would have on this university through your unparalleled dedication to service.
You have served Queen’s as an incredibly active alumna volunteer, spending nine years on University Council and 14 years on the Board of Trustees. You have undertaken continued work with the Brockville Alumni Branch since 1988 and were also an active member of the Board of Directors of the Kingston General Hospital.
You were instrumental in the development of the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts and played a key role in the success of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, providing strategic and thoughtful guidance on its Advisory Board from 2003 to this year, resulting in the doubling of its attendance and endowment values among other important milestones. Perhaps the most challenging task of all was convening a dinner for 65 key Art Centre supporters - at your own home, no less!
You have contributed to ensuring Queen’s history is kept for future generations by undertaking detailed documentation of the 1991 royal visit by their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales.
Indeed, your initiatives have impacted the very structure of Queen’s itself through leading the charge to preserve the front entrance of 11 Arch Street, arranging for it to be placed in the new medical education building to inspire students with “the importance of balancing medical competence with an ability to listen to and treat the patient with compassion”.
Your tireless dedication to this university and your long-lasting impact cannot be overstated.
I am thrilled to present you with this Distinguished Service Award in recognition of your outstanding efforts.
Elizabeth Jane Errington - 2023
How can one give justice to your contributions to Queen’s with a nomination form containing the words “awe-inspiring”, “pathbreaking”, and “enduring” in just the first sentence? Indeed, its first paragraph finishes by remarking on your service as a shining example of a truly complete academic.
This service has included exemplary achievements in research, teaching, supervision, and service to the profession and community. Almost 70 graduate students have been supervised by “Dr. E.”, benefitting in many ways from your advice and encouragement. Your teaching innovations have reached students and colleagues far and wide, as has your broader service as a committee member and chair, reviewer, editor, juror, and consultant.
While dedicating yourself to this work, you also managed to author five monographs, edit five books and numerous articles and chapters, while also being awarded the Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, the Cowan Prize for Excellence in Research, and numerous other prizes and awards.
Although humble among these many achievements, we are honoured to present you with a
Queen’s Distinguished Service Award.
John Fisher - 2018
You have been an exemplary model of service to, and stewardship of, Queen’s University over the past 35 years.
Your contributions have gone far beyond that which may be expected of a professor and academic, and have encompassed significant administrative duties, international travel, active research, thoughtful mentorship, dedicated teaching, and service on numerous editorial and granting agency committees and boards.
Your close to 40 students and trainees have described you as a thoughtful, engaged, and invested supervisor with an immense generosity of spirit who leads by example and cultivates a culture of respect and support. Those in your lab speak of being supported, valued, encouraged, and guided proactively toward success, and noted you as the formative influence in the development of their own academic and research careers.
Your colleagues have described your wise counsel, your willingness to help, your thoughtful contributions as defining experiences in their own lives. You have always stepped up to serve, including in roles such as Head of the Department of Physiology, and Acting Vice-Dean and Director of Research in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Most recently, you suspended a planned and fully-booked sabbatical abroad to stay in Kingston and assume the challenging and demanding role of Interim Vice-Principal (Research), an appointment that lasted slightly longer than you may have expected. Your leadership during this time resulted in numerous successes for Queen’s as a whole, including the approval of a renewed Strategic Research Plan.
For your true dedication to the university, and to your profession, colleagues, and students, please accept this Distinguished Service Award with our thanks.
Leslie Flynn - 2022
Your accomplishments and legacy at Queen’s extend back several decades and will also be felt by many members of our community for years to come, which is fitting given the multitude of roles you have had at the university, including those of an undergraduate and graduate student, faculty member, clinician, and administrator.
Your dedication to the pursuit, improvement, and championing of education at all levels should be lauded. Your foresight resulted in the creation of Health Sciences’ Office of Professional Development and Educational Scholarship, which serves the needs of the entire Faculty, improving collaboration, developing high quality programming, and servicing a wide range of leaders and health care professionals inside and outside the university.
Colleagues point to your astounding work ethic, careful thought, and respectful nature as keys to your success, noting your role as a steadfast leader and mentor. Your counsel has assisted many who have relied upon you in times of need and consider you a cherished colleague and friend.
Although humble among these many achievements, we are honoured to present you with Queen’s Distinguished Service Award.
Suzanne Fortier - 2005
Your impressive record of service has shown that it is possible to become a talented teacher and mentor, an award-winning scientist, and an outstanding leader of both the research and academic portfolios of a university. And while quietly accomplishing these extraordinary combinations of activities at Queen’s, you managed to serve the broader university community through your active participation in -- and leadership of -- major federal and provincial scientific councils, advisory boards, and strategic review organizations. Always an enthusiastic champion for research, you played a central role in laying the foundation for the expansion of research, giving encouragement to the community and improving the climate for research and innovation at Queen’s.
Your vision in dealing with complex matters in administration often called for innovative roadmaps and renewed levels of consensus. And you responded by working with others to inspire and develop new academic structures and programs aimed at quality and excellence achieved during periods of severe financial constraint that never clouded your optimism.
Your wisdom and tenacious advocacy of Queen’s international study initiative ensured its solid progress over the last several years toward both academic and financial viability. You have faced the tough decisions in trying times with courage tempered by compassion. And your passion is tempered by common sense, and a personal toughness mitigated by charm, integrity and your wonderful sense of humour.
In gratitude for your uncommon devotion to Queen’s, and for your enormous intellectual and organizational legacy, it is an honour to present you with an award for distinguished service.
Sue Fostaty-Young - 2021
As your nomination expressed, your contributions to Queen’s success have been expansive since joining the university a student in the late 1990s. While your academic and professional focus has been centred on teaching and learning, you have also broken ground with your research and written works on the “ICE” approach
– ideas, connections, and experiences.
This approach to maximizing student learning has not only swept across the Queen’s campus, but has become incredibly popular internationally as well, with students and faculty remarking on its positive influence in their lives.
While researching and writing, you also managed to personally mentor graduate students and colleagues, sit on masters and doctoral committees, teach courses and workshops, lead roundtables, and ensure that those with whom you interact know you care about their wellbeing and will do all you can to support their success.
We are so fortunate to have you as a member of the Queen’s community and wish to express our thanks for all you have done with this award.
C.E.S. (Ned) Franks - 2007
For half a century your service to the Queen’s community has been distinguished in and beyond the classroom with great benefit to students, scholars in public administration, and all those who seek to understand the workings of parliamentary government and the challenges of whitewater canoeing.
But it is your fifty years of exemplary voluntary service we celebrate on this special ceremonial occasion.
As an advisor on student life matters and a passionate supporter of student self-government you have served as a mentor to generations of student leaders in the Alma Mater Society. In an unprecedented fashion on two occasions, they appointed you their honorary president.
Your leadership, advocacy and personal support for the arts has profoundly enriched the permanent collection and the programs for acquisition and research at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, where your valued insight and experience were pivotal in the Centre’s transformation through a major renovation and expansion program. And your guidance in exploring models for site art at universities is now expressed in policy recommendations for the future, linking public art at Queen’s with the planning and development of the campus.
Perhaps the most extraordinary milestone of your service to the University is the immense contribution you’ve made to the several incarnations of campus planning and development committees - for almost forty years you have unfailingly offered a passion for excellence in planning and architecture.
With gentle humor, positive reinforcement and comprehensive knowledge you have presided and offered wise counsel as the University sought to improve planning activities for the practice of commissioning buildings, and procedures for selecting leading architects and adopting competitive processes. The results may be found in the record of award-winning structures renewing one of Canada’s historic institutions.
Ned, it is a pleasure to cite this legendary stewardship of the University environment – its grounds, its buildings, its trees, and its art – a remarkable contribution which we proudly recognize as we honour you with a richly deserved award for distinguished service.
Daphne Franks - 1994
For unselfishly supporting the goals of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre through its Art Rental and Sales Gallery for two decades, the last five as one of the most remarkable, effective and well loved directors in the Gallery's history.
Known as the Gallery's warm and moving spirit, she is a true patron of the arts, a woman of common sense, good humour and diplomacy, and altogether a person superbly suited to co-ordinating and leading the Gallery's cadre of volunteers and organizing their calendar of gala events.
She relates as well to artists as to those who rent and buy their work, utterly convincing each side that their interests are the ones closest to her heart.
Working up to 40 hours a week, she has involved herself deeply in selecting, acquiring and displaying works by more than a hundred artists -- dealing with agents and galleries in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa helping to raise thousands of dollars annually for the work of the Art Centre -- and always "being there" to answer questions with a patience and knowledge that have been called "awe-inspiring".
By this tribute, we thank a generous Queen's alumna for long years of energetic friend -- and fund-raising, through which she has heightened the interest between the community and the university in the very best Agnes Etherington tradition.
Mary Fraser - 2002
We recognized that your wonderful career in the visual arts at Queen's has also included a generous voluntary career in the art of advocacy that you have refined to a very high degree. Your reputation as quintessential staff activist is well earned. It is endorsed by the countless members of the Queen's community who respect you as a governance guru and claim you as their representative, all the while consistently assured by your attendance on their behalf. Your purposeful presence and unfailing good judgment have been warmly welcomed for more than a decade on the Board of Trustees. Continued success in your labour of love, as an advocate for equity and fairness in staff relations, helped to build harmony over a quarter century of growth, change and challenge.
We are grateful, too, for your leadership, counsel and support of Queen's community fundraising campaigns. In warm appreciation of your many contributions, Queen's honours you this evening with an award for distinguished service.
Bettyanne Gargaro - 2009
Bettyanne, it is a great pleasure to pay tribute to your 36-year labour of love dedicated to improving the administrative operations of the University, affecting in very positive ways the life and work of Queen’s students, faculty and staff members.
While serving most recently as Associate University Registrar for student records and services, you collaborated with others, generously offering your own revered brand of leadership, tenacity and perseverance to identify, design and implement important student service enhancements.
We recognize these activities as the essential nuts and bolts of a smooth running academic infrastructure set up to record the academic activities of students from admission to graduation.
In these critical services you have been our perpetual human multiplier effect: inventor of the Fee Blue Book, master of the art of classroom allocation, guru of degree regulations, a timetable reformer and a catalyst for transforming long embedded administrative practices, oft referred to as sacred cows.
At the forefront, faced with constant change in computing and software design, you have consistently led the charge to improve services at Queen’s in ways that are now cited as rivaling the very best practices among institutions across the country.
You have patiently managed and mentored staff colleagues in the ways of change and instilled by example your own set of tricolor values along with your belief in the sanctity of the academic record, ensuring that at Queen’s, the collection, storage, access and reporting of student record information is fair, safe and secure.
Your wonderful legacy will inspire and guide the future architects of administrative renewal and reform. Queen’s is delighted to share your success and honoured to present you with an award for distinguished service.
David Ginsburg - 2013
Innovative educator, generous mentor, inspiring leader, you have touched the lives of thousands of students, both undergraduate and graduate. With a teaching style both uniquely respectful and effective, you are known as a compassionate and inspirational teacher who got the best out of medical students, residents and junior faculty by inspiring them to meet the standards that you exemplified.
You fostered a culture in which research and education were integrated into the clinical realm – early recognition of what has become Translational Medicine, enabling students to acquire the interviewing, and clinical examination skills needed to practice medicine.
Your leadership and contributions to the growth of the Kingston Regional Cancer Centre were significant during a time of major expansion.
In addition to your research, you brought humanity and compassion to your practice of medicine. To find the words to speak openly of death and dying was, in the 1970s, a rarity in North American medicine. Your gentle and honest approach to these most intimate of life’s moments were instructive to all those who worked with you.
With this award, we honour a life of service, distinguished by your caring and concern for others.
Eleanor M. (Lin) Good - 1985
The University's dedicated Associate Librarian for the past seven of her 36 years on staff and the person responsible for the complex day-to-day operations of 18 branches.
An articulate, outspoken (though soft-spoken) and eternally optimistic proponent of women's rights since Cambridge University days and a crusader by word and example against media stereotyping, she was a natural choice to chair the Principal's pioneering Advisory Committee on the Status of Women at Queen's in 1973. She was a good and fair friend to Queen's as an early appointee to Ontario's Advisory Council on University Affairs. When the Centenary of Queen's Women was celebrated in 1984, she sounded the keynote. When the University was forced to ask its faculty and staff for a million dollars, it was Lin Good they recruited to co-chair that Appeal.
She is involved in the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She has worked on the Ontario Council on the Status of Women, been a City Alderman, active on area planning boards, first woman president of the Community Planning Association of Canada, a founder of Kingston's Women Electors, a Governor of St. Lawrence College, and, though matriarch of a distinguished Queen's family, a worker for women in prison, Anglican missions, city shut-ins and the Red Cross. Her many informed interests and services have greatly enriched the University community, and Queen's now shows its pride in her continuing commitment to higher education in general and to the work of this university in particular.
John R.M. Gordon - 2007
As an outstanding academic administrator, scholar, and teacher you have made exceptional contributions to the life and work of Queen’s University and business school education across Canada.
Your success as a superb award-winning teacher, was the result of engaging students intensively and energetically using a variety of teaching methods and a rare ability to sense and ‘read’ student difficulties and respond effectively.
Now as an emeritus professor your teaching skills and your wise counsel are very welcome ingredients in a variety of programs in the school.
Over the years and usually behind the scenes and without fanfare, you offered your characteristic, genuine and intense interest in student extracurricular activities, giving them encouragement and guidance as they developed the fledgling conferences that have become the hallmarks of the popular undergraduate competitions that now influence the curricula of Canadian business schools.
Your decade of service as dean of business was celebrated for its openness to creative innovation in program development, renewal, and expanded research and scholarship, all this at a time of competitive challenge for transformation in business education. And your timely interest, experience and leadership in cross-disciplinary research and teaching was no doubt instrumental to the consideration of imaginative changes for Queen’s in executive education, enterprise development and graduate business programs in science and technology.
At a crucial time in its formative cycle your leadership service as chair of the MBA for Science and Technology strengthened a prominent and vitally important faculty program.
And your exceptional contributions through voluntary service have helped to strengthen numerous important business and community organizations at the local, provincial and national level involving healthcare, banking, workplace safety, conservation, and municipal governance.
In so many ways, your years within the limestone reflect a level of loyalty, insight and caring that inspires the essence of community at Queen’s and we celebrate your contributions and honour you with a an award for distinguished service.
William Ronald Hackett - 1994
Deputy Chief of Kingston Police Services for a good part of a long career devoted to the citizens of Kingston;
A quiet, wise, and generally unheralded friend of Queen's University and generations of her students, who hopes never to attend another street party, but whose survival of forty Queen's Orientations and forty Alumni Weekends is an impressive measure of his great staying power.
And an exemplar of sportsmanship and fair play over more than three decades of active commitment to junior athletics.
Although the organization, playing and coaching of hockey was his vehicle, and contributing to the youth of Kingston was his purpose, his reward turned out to be an unusual insight into the attitudes and behaviour of the young. It was this rare rapport, fully reflected in the conduct of his professional duties, which gave to his constructive relationship with Queen's a sensitivity to, an appreciation for, and an understanding of the exuberance of youth and of the high spirits for which Queen's students are legendary. A bonus to us was his empathy for the challenge they present to the University.
Now that his lengthy, distinguished and hard-working years among "Kingston's Finest" are drawing to a close, Queen's and Queen's students will hope for a continuation in his successor of the attitude, understanding, and standards established by Deputy Hackett.
He is about to exchange a life of stressful days and overtime nights for well-earned time to putter, to master another bit of World War Two history, or share more leisure with Lois and his four grandchildren. Bill takes with him the appreciation of the Queen's community, symbolized by a special award from this grateful Council and its official welcome into the Queen's Family.
Gordon Hall – 2006
Master actuary par excellence, wise and insightful financial communicator and prodigious pension planner, you have consistently and generously provided the Board of Trustees and the University with wisdom and guidance for more than a decade.
At fifty Board meetings and countless committee meetings, where you served as a committee chair, vice-chair and member, you arrived early, asked tough searching questions, shared your understanding, and clarified complex spreadsheet fog surrounding financial information.
In an environment of public concern for accountability and accelerating regulatory interest, you worked with university staff and applied Golden Gael gold letter diligence and leadership in helping Queen’s achieve the gold standard for comprehension and transparency in financial reporting, and to be tops among Canadian universities.
Your insight, vision and focus on improving university governance during times of intense financial constraint and reinvestment led Queen’s to embrace and adopt ‘best practices’ in university operations.
Your paper on the 20 questions directors should ask about their roles in pension governance has set the standard for individuals who serve on pension committees.
And you managed to blend your wonderful sense of humour with your sense of purpose to create audit meetings considered an interesting and even enjoyable experience for all committee members, a feat unequalled in boardrooms around the globe.
In grateful appreciation for your dedication and your immense contributions to the University, Queen’s is proud to honour you with an award for distinguished service.
Roberta Hamilton - 2009
Roberta, in your landmark biography of legendary Queen’s Registrar, Jean Royce, you write of her important role in the “Shaping of Queen’s University”. This phrase also reflects your own extraordinary impact on the institution.
For twenty-five years, in all your many activities as teacher, scholar, academic administrator and Queen’s citizen, your contributions have been by intellectual action: independence matched with integrity, passion with analytic power, and engagement balanced with wise skepticism – an unconditional commitment to teaching but a primary desire to discover new ways and new ideas to help us understand reality and break from the conventions of tradition.
Testimonials tell us that to a huge fan club of former students you have been an outstanding and compelling teacher and a patient mentor who cares, listens and inspires.
As an academic pioneer of feminism and an advocate for social justice, you set a new agenda for Queen’s, initiating the emergence of interdisciplinary teaching and research, reaching out and drawing on the strengths of several departments to found and then build a Women’s Studies program.
As a department head, you provided timely leadership in restoring and revitalizing a department challenged with severe financial constraint, inspiring colleagues with courage and tenacity.
As an associate dean you were uncommonly prescient in dealing sensitively with faculty issues and upheavals, respected for asking unusual questions and solving problems hidden in academic fog.
Roberta, you have been variously described as a “builder of bridges” a “beacon of sanity, strength and support” and a much-needed “shot in the arm” for Queen’s, and the University is proud to recognize your many accomplishments and honoured to present you with an award for distinguished service.
Paul Hand & Vicki Gilliatt-Hand
As dedicated Queen’s alumni, you have served for years as tireless volunteers, committed leaders, and generous benefactors to the University community.
You have both, in your own way, made considerable contributions to campus. Paul, you have served as a member of the School of Business’ Campaign Cabinet and on the Advisory Board Committee. Vicki, you were the president of the Alumni Association’s New York branch. Together you have supported scholarships and awards for student athletes, the construction of Goodes Hall, and the Dean’s Innovation Fund. You were student athletes yourselves at Queen’s, Paul on the Football team and Vicki in Synchronized Swimming. You continued your support for Athletics and Recreation after graduating and together you have done much to build both the reputation and quality of Queen’s sports.
Perhaps your greatest contribution to the university has been the leadership role you have jointly taken in the Fields and Stadium Campaign Cabinet. Under your leadership, Queen’s has seen the construction of three new fields, and it is in large part thanks to your efforts and dedication that the Richardson Revitalization Project was such a success. In the face of numerous challenges and roadblocks, you remained steadfast and committed.
As former Gaels, you understand the importance of physical activity for students’ health and academic and personal success. You believe that the lessons learned through sport transcend the field or pool, and that they help students learn leadership, discipline, goal-setting, and working with peers to achieve a common goal.
As alumni and parents, you represent the best of the Queen’s spirit of initiative, tradition, and giving back to the community.
It is for these, and many other reasons, that we are pleased to present you both with this award for distinguished service.
Doug Hargreaves - 1995
Dubbed by the press "the Professor of Pigskin" and "one of the winningest coaches in Canadian college history," Coach Hargreaves' 110-59-3 win-loss-tie record itself speaks eloquently of his outstanding service to Queen's, as do his Canadian and Ontario coaching awards, two Vanier Cups for his underdog Gaels, and those tense, three-hour lifetimes endured every autumn weekend for the past 19 years.
But this recognition is for more than the great games. He has distinguished himself as a graduate of Queen's and Dalhousie, high school and university teacher, avid aircrew captain, the moving spirit behind Queen's Football Club and Hall of Fame, and an enormous influence on the certification of coaches everywhere.
As gifted and colourful a speaker as he is a coach, he has travelled on Queen's behalf across the country, recruiting prospective players, turning parents into fans, and pumping up alumni enthusiasm. He has also carried Queen's name and fame across the Atlantic as a respected ambassador to Europe for North American style football.
Most significantly, he has been a builder of Queen's through the building of young men's character, skills and academic abilities. Despite the pressures and pleasures of winning, he has always set a higher value on the quality of play and integrity of the players. To his teams and co-workers alike, he has been a source of optimism, encouragement and positive energy, a man of uncommon modesty, respectful of every person and respected in turn.
We hereby signify Queen's gratitude to have had the Old Coach as a player in promoting Queen's academic mission and enhancing her international reputation. His name is forever engraved in the history of Queen's and written in the hearts of his beloved Golden Gaels.
D. Jill Harris - 1994
For showing us, during 25 years as a uniquely valuable and valued member of the Queen's community, that job titles are small matters compared with job descriptions. She has gone the extra two miles.
She was the first Executive Assistant to Principal Deutsch. To him and to principals since, she has been a helpful adviser on the status of women, pay equity, resource planning and grievance procedures -- a treasury of factual history, a guide through labyrinthine systems, and a well-spring of common sense and plain speaking.
She has been Associate Secretary of Senate, recording secretary of both Senate and Board, and secretary to a broad spectrum of Senate committees dealing with issues vital to both faculty and students. Due to superb time-management skills, she was also founder and twice president of the Staff Association and an early Premier's appointee to the Ontario Council on University Affairs. Most recently, her onerous role in the review of Orientation practices has been particularly important and appreciated. What has energized her through all this work is her trademark concern that everyone -- faculty, staff or student -- be treated with dignity, compassion and justice.
If there was a special Queen's thesaurus, Jill Harris would be cross-referenced with the words intellectual rigor, absolute discretion, unfailing integrity, capacious knowledge, accessible and flexible, loyal, dependent and wise, cheerful, caring and competent.
She recently left the University. She left it a fairer place to work. She left a legacy of accurate, lucid, richly informed, even elegant, minutes and records. She left the Art Centre richer for her voluntarism and expertise. She left an indelible, distinctive mark on two decades of change and progress. Queen's is grateful.
Tom Harris - 2019
How can your impact on this institution be summarized in only a few words? From student, to faculty member, department head to dean, Vice-Principal to Provost, it has been a remarkable ride since you arrived on campus in 1971.
Your hard work, dedication, and leadership of Queen’s Initiative Campaign will benefit the university community far into the future. Contributions totalled $640 million, surpassing the goal of $500 million and especially astounding given the world was dealing with a new reality after the 2008 financial meltdown. These funds were directed to a myriad of causes, including student financial assistance, the endowment, research, and building construction.
You have truly left a mark on the campus in many ways. You have also left your mark on thousands of students, staff, and fellow faculty. Many have described you as a mentor, someone who is always willing to lend an ear and provide sage advice. Others liken you to an advocate or a coach, an individual who expresses complete belief and confidence in others and their ability to succeed, often in trying times.
What we all know is that your sincere commitment to the student experience at this university is most often your primary motivation. Your time as a faculty member garnered you teaching awards, your time as dean cemented your dedication to the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, and your current tenure as Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) has given you the chance to demonstrate your commitment to students in all disciplines.
We hope that this award serves to demonstrate our immeasurable thanks for all you have done for Queen’s.
George A. Harrower – 1979
President of Lakehead University, who has for twenty-two years contributed to Queen's his considerable talents as physicist, professor, analyst of teaching and learning, and administrator with foresight and flexibility.
He came to Queen's as a specialist in physical electronics and laid the foundation for this University's strength in the discipline of radio-astronomy. He became Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science in a period of difficult and rapid expansion marked by substantial changes in curriculum, organization and space requirements. As a Vice-Principal he contributed significantly to those policies which opened University government to the further participation of faculty members and students.
His many learned publications, his representation of Canada at international conferences, and his development of notable radio astronomers, through graduate studies, have all reflected distinction on Queen's.
The Council is pleased to acknowledge the depth and diversity of his contributions.
Donald Heyding - 1991
For total and self-effacing commitment to this University for a quarter-century as Chemistry professor and Department Head, mentor to students, influential counsellor to QUESSI and its bookstore, contributory member of Senate and uncountable committees, and all at some cost to his research career;
For testing the times and turning his department's focus more strongly toward research through productive external liaisons;
For communicating to his "Tads" with contagious enthusiasm the most up-to-date knowledge of Chemistry and allied fields, constantly freshening his lectures and challenging his students, one by one, to give their personal best;
And for being the kind of teacher who is at the heart of Queen's renowned spirit, the forger of strong and enduring alumni bonds and one of this limestone institution's most human faces -- friendly, patient, wise and kind, warm and humorous, and eminently approachable.
In the words of a graduate, "There are many citizens in this country who have walked with Don Heyding; they have gone farther than they would otherwise have done." We pay him tribute as the embodiment of the Queen's philosophy that promotes academic excellence, integrity, tradition, doctrina et sapienta.
Kanonhsyonne Janice Hill - 2017
We acknowledge the work you've done in peace, with strength and a good mind, and we all offer you our greetings.
Your relationship with Queen’s began when you worked your way to an adjunct faculty position in the Faculty of Education, where you were the Co-Director of the innovative Aboriginal Teacher Education Program in 1997 and 1998. Practicing what you preached, you were awarded your own Bachelor of Education degree in 1999.
After some time away, during which you established a private high school rooted in Haudenosaunee culture and an alternative program for at-risk Mohawk students, as well as a term as Academic Dean at First Nations Technical Institute. You returned to Queen’s in 2005 to assume the position of Director of the Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre, and you have been changing lives here ever since.
Your dedication to creating a safe and welcoming place for all of Queen’s Indigenous students, faculty, and staff is remarkable. You have spent countless hours collaborating with individuals, likely in almost every one of Queen’s units, to raise up Indigenous knowledge and presence. The Aboriginal Council has been revitalized and renewed, an Indigenous Languages certificate program has been established, and an Indigenous Minor now exists as an option for students.
As many of us know, you also lend your time to an astonishing number of committees, working groups, and advisory bodies on campus and across the country, ensuring that the voices of those from Indigenous communities are heard. Your ideas and goals appear to be never-ending, ranging from the broad and ambitious, to those few moments spent with a new student and their family that may change their lives forever.
The commitment you have shown to both the region’s and country’s Indigenous communities as well as the Queen’s community as a whole is a model for all of us to learn from and follow. You've helped create a better place for people from all four directions who have found their way to this place of learning.
Please accept this Distinguished Service Award with our thanks for the remarkable change you have created and continue to support.
Tekwanonhwerá:tons Kanonhsyón:ni
George N. Hood - 2007
We recognize, warmly appreciate and pay tribute to your phenomenal success in ‘advancing’ the interests of Queen’s University. Your extraordinary flair for inspiring generosity and inspiring others has been welcomed around the globe by friends of Queen’s.
In so many ways, the mindset of your book, “Against the Flow” has marked your approach as you laboured with a love for Queen’s, often defying the odds in your many roles of service: as a Skelton-Clark Fellow, director of the centre for resource studies, associate vice-principal for research and most recently, as vice-principal for advancement.
With solid limestone genes and a rare form of RBG-positive tricolor blood coursing through your veins, you brought bold, broad strokes to leadership and campus-wide team-building. We are grateful you possess an uncommon intuition that has enabled you to sense the critical issues and large opportunities waiting to be realized and turned into action on behalf of the Queen’s community.
In so many areas you found new pathways and built on innovation: you helped to improve research policy and outreach, strengthened the art of technology transfer, realized exceptional funding opportunities and partnerships, and renewed strategies for fundraising, community and alumni relations.
And with remarkable results you pressed forcefully when necessary to see what might conceivably be possible if the University’s angle of vision were shifted and apparent fixed points were moved, so we could do what people said could not be done.
So much of this accomplishment was the result of tenacity and commitment, not to a set of abstract ideals or goals, but to actual people, to the practical ways in which things could be made better in the future for everyone within the broad environment for learning and research at Queen’s.
Through your own special philosophy of management, your professional team and scores of volunteers authored unprecedented results in the Campaign for Queen’s - and your recent work with student groups encouraged them to consider an amazing legacy gift for the new Queen’s Centre.
George, your optimism and energy are reflected in the campus fabric and facilities that surround us – a footprint of substance and excellence we gratefully recognize as we proudly honour you with an award for distinguished service.
Margaret Hooey - 1992
Graduate of the University of Toronto and Bryn Mawr, who in unique and influential ways has helped to build and sustain her adopted university for 30 years.
From assistant to Queen's legendary Registrar, Jean Royce, she went on to become Secretary of the Senate and recently -- and concurrently -- Secretary of both the University and its Board of Trustees, a valued adviser to three Principals and their administrations, and a trusted mentor to students, staff, faculty and Trustees.
In her self-sacrificing dedication to the welfare of Queen's in all these roles, she has become an exemplar of competence, understanding, stability and good sense. In her instrumental role in last fall's Sesquicentennial and Royal Convocations, she demonstrated even more clearly her flair for teamwork, grasp of meticulous detail, plus the power to inspire in colleagues a spirit of helpfulness and good will.
Whether on the last Principal's Search Committee, through her tireless support of the Alumnae Association's Marty-Royce-Lynett Award, in the writing of a million perceptive minutes of uncountable committee meetings, or her mastery of endlessly detailed grievance procedures, Margaret Hooey has shown herself to be a superbly skilled manager, an astute judge of people, an encyclopedia of campus knowledge, and a tower of strength to the multitude of people requiring her services over three decades. We acknowledge this service with profound gratitude and respect.
Audrey Hunt - 2018
Your career at Queen’s began in 1979 as a secretary in the Department of Classics. Your positive impact was immediately noticed by students, including Principal Daniel Woolf, who remarked on the warm welcome you gave to all those who came into the unit and how long your friendly attitude remained with them, even after they graduated.
You broadened your experience at the university through a number of roles in the Student Awards Office and Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, eventually arriving in the Department of Emergency Medicine in 1997, where you remained until your very recent retirement.
The Department of Emergency Medicine was new in 1997, and was the first of its kind in the country, and you were immediately asked to lead its administrative team. In the years since, the number of faculty and medical residents has almost quadrupled, fellowship and research programs have been established, and the department has been recognized locally, nationally, and internationally as a leader in clinical research, simulation-based education, and curricular development.
Those in the department know that the key to this success is the unit’s overwhelmingly positive culture, which they attribute to you and the team you supported. The pride you took in graduates’ successes was evident in your creation of “memory books”, given each year to students so that they never forget their time at Queen’s. Your delight in colleagues’ life events was demonstrated with your enthusiastic emails about births, weddings, promotions, and more.
The department will forever be grateful to have its first 20 years memorialized in the photo gallery you created in its halls, consisting of pictures of past department heads, every resident, and collages of social events and academic achievements. Because of you, all who visit can see these photos and know that the unit is proud of its people and their accomplishments.
The impact of your service cannot be overstated and, in recognition, I am thrilled to present this Distinguished Service Award to you on behalf of Queen’s.
Bruce Hutchinson - 2003
On campus and beyond you have earned respect and admiration as a research administrator whose integrity, energy, and vision, are the exemplary leadership qualities you bring to work everyday. These qualities inspire colleagues to discover, innovate and build new technologies. We recognize your success as a nurturer of talent. We pay tribute to your incisive ability to identify human strengths and humane research policies.
Those whom you serve have benefited significantly from your contributions as a grant application guru. Others celebrate your thoughtful work as a wily negotiation navigator of remarkable research partnerships.
Your own encouraging words, "to think big and think outside the box," and your tireless effort to support Queen’s researchers in their pursuit of excellence, has helped them win record success in annual research competitions. At a critical time in the growth of research at Queen’s and in Canada, your consistent support as a research enthusiast and builder strengthens and extends the University’s national and international reputation.
Queen’s is pleased to recognize your selfless dedication and your outstanding accomplishments in presenting you with an award for distinguished service.
Jane Kaduck - 1996
An amazing person. A long-serving Queen's and community volunteer herself before her appointment in 1979 as Associate Alumni Fund Director, she is a warm caring presence and the staff-member-of-choice to thousands of alumni volunteers seeking advice and support for projects, class agent programs, mentorships, and successful appeals. For many, she is the heart of Summerhill, an unfailing source of help -- alumni are at home with Jane.
A bottomless well of alumni lore and reservoir of what works, Jane's substantial record of large and small wins for Queen's grows and endures and enhances our physical and human tricolour quilt. Her gentle fingerprints are effectively and quietly in the action, in the background, on behalf of the University and the alumni association.
Jane knows the personal stories. She cares about what makes volunteers tick. In our high tech world, Jane is high touch. The story is told of a Queen's parent who was overheard saying, "I had intended that this would be a one and only donation to Queen's, but I received such a warm, sincere thank-you letter from someone named Jane Kaduck that I will continue to give."
Now we offer our own warm, sincere thank-you to Jane, in awe of her deep understanding of our history and tradition and their place in the life of Queen's.
Diane Kelly - 2014
You have spent most of your life connected and contributing to Queen’s – first as a student, then as a lawyer on a secondment to the university from a local firm, and eventually stepping in to the full-time position of University Legal Counsel. Your work has positively affected countless students, staff, faculty and members of the senior administrative team and Board of Trustees, to whom you served as a trusted advisor.
From dealing with issues of intellectual property, to handling questions around human rights, your exceptional knowledge of law in the university context made you a tremendous asset to this community. You were always on the watch for issues such as new legislation that might lead to legal risks, and advised on how to best protect the university’s interests. And when the Queen’s constitution needed revising, naturally it was you who went to work in Ottawa, delivering the necessary legislative amendment effectively and efficiently.
A strong believer in practical legal training to complement coursework, you hired a new law student every year to support you in your work. You also developed and taught a well-received course at the Faculty of Education called “Teachers and the Law”, and made internal education on legal issues part of your mandate.
Your colleagues, who have described you as knowing “pretty much everything about Queen’s that there is to know” have praised your no-nonsense, common sense counsel, your superb communications skills, and your warm and generous nature, not to mention your contagious enthusiasm for Queen’s.
For the many ways you have contributed to Queen’s, we are very pleased to present you with this Distinguished Service Award.
Jim Kelly - 2005
There are scores of professionals, at Queen’s and at universities across Canada, who recognize you as “Mr. Career Services”. We do, too. Your reputation was justly earned over more than 30 years serving as the manager, designer and pioneer who helped to create, and share, remarkable evolving resources and innovative programs and activities.
You’ve done this in the important cause of helping tens of thousands of Queen’s students find their pathways to careers. And these students have benefited from superb career resources: internships, summer work experiences, best stories and resumes, job fairs, work-study activities, and a career information center recognized as tops in Canada.
A proud son of Queen’s, we are grateful you returned to be an advocate for the University, an exemplary administrative director, an athletic booster, a willing staff volunteer and a guest chef of some renown at the Aboriginal center. As a manager you are admired for your professional approach to the job, your compassion for other staff, for giving credit, building skills, finding resources, shouldering responsibility for the glitches, and for making Queen’s a better place to work. At its core you believe what you do is all about students: you encourage them, inspire them, and care about them and the service you have fostered at Queen’s. It has grown in remarkable ways and is grounded for the future success we anticipate and celebrate as we honour you with an award for distinguished service.
Arunima Khanna - 2015
Since coming to Queen’s to complete your PhD, you have been a tireless advocate for international and racialized students and have always gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure their inclusion and success.
While advising administrators, faculty, staff, and student groups on issues pertaining to the needs of international students, your professional, yet empathetic approach, has earned you the trust and respect with everyone you work with. You provide frequent support to the International Centre and the School of Graduate Studies as they navigate the challenges of integrating and working with people of different cultures. You also work to supervise graduate students on placement at the Student Wellness Services.
Outside of Queen’s, you do extensive work, leading workshops and conducting presentations on diversity to the City of Kingston, and a number of the city’s clinics.
The students you supervise say you are a role model and an inspiration, and your colleagues say you are an unwavering support — someone they can rely on.
As Queen’s becomes increasingly diverse and draws ever-greater numbers of students from across the globe, you will continue to be an essential part of ensuring they have a smooth transition and successful experience.
In recognition of these many contributions to the university, it is my pleasure to present you with this award for distinguished service.
Terry Krupa - 2017
You have been an outstanding ambassador for Queen’s for the past 28 years and the impact of your work on countless students, researchers, administrators, and community members stretches far and wide.
Some of your accomplishments can be summarized in numbers: over $18 million in research funding, almost 100 peer-reviewed papers, five books, 34 book chapters, supervision of 17 masters, doctoral, and post-doctoral students, and an 11-time winner of the Blue Star Award for Teaching Excellence in the School of Rehabilitation Therapy. However, the most significant of your achievements are much more than a collection of facts and figures.
Your focus on improving the quality of life for people with serious mental illnesses has resulted in the development of numerous interventions that have improved the daily challenges faced by a significant minority of our community’s, and the world’s, population. Your practice is client-focused, centred on community inclusion and full citizenship, and delivered with empathy and compassion, qualities that touch all those with whom you interact.
You have been selfless with your time outside of research and teaching, volunteering incalculable hours as part of not-for-profit organizations, professional boards, advisory committees, and expert panels, even working with a micro-credit loan organization that supports entrepreneurship among those with mental illnesses. Your expertise on classification systems and functional assessment has been requested by the World Health Organization and Canada Pension Plan, ensuring that your knowledge will continue to be transmitted for many years to come.
You have received your profession’s highest honours, including being named a Fellow of the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapy and receiving its top award, the Muriel Driver Lectureship Award, and I am honoured to add to your list of numerous accomplishments by presenting you with this Distinguished Service Award.
Merle Koven - 2005
You are an extraordinary woman who for a dozen years has served with distinction as an extraordinary Queen’s trustee. Three chancellors and three principals have benefited from your good judgment and your interest, wisdom and most active role in university governance. You have unfailingly offered integrity, intelligence, diligence, passion and conviction in your service as a loyal and resourceful board member, a vice-chair, a member and chair of standing committees, and representative of the board on important search committees. Your penchant for seeing the humorous side while respecting the serious nature of issues has done a great deal to promote harmony and consensus within the board. Rookie board members are grateful for your warm welcome, your kindness, your quiet assistance, your operational insight and those special occasional samples of Koven home cooking. As a compulsively hospitable volunteer your exceptional contributions have advanced the arts and academic culture of the institution within the campus community, the Kingston community and in communities in Canada and beyond.
As an ambassador for Queen’s you have generously given your time to win support for the University’s needs. You have shown what the daughter of another university can do when she adopts Queen’s into her sphere of interests and provides thoughtful and inspiring stewardship. It is an honour to present you with our highest award for distinguished service.
Dan Langham - 2022
Your work at Queen’s began over 20 years ago and, although it is unseen by many, its importance cannot be overstated.
It is hard to think of an individual at the university who has a broader impact than the individual who leads its health and safety unit. Your vast knowledge, science-based and logical approach to often considerable problems, extensive experience, and, of course, your patience and understanding have led the university through difficult times, especially in recent years.
You were at the core of navigating the university through the pandemic safely, from protocols related to exams, classroom layout, and student movement, to cleaning, masks, residences, and more. Ultimately the safety of our Queen’s community and the Kingston community were in large part in your hands, and we cannot thank you enough for the innumerable hours you spent ensuring this safety.
We are so fortunate to have you as a member of the Queen’s community and wish to express our thanks for all you have done with this award.
G. Herbert Lawler - 1989
Native of Kingston; graduate of Queen's, Western and Toronto;
An intercollegiate backfielder whose student reputation as "a fast, shifty runner and ever-dependable performer" foreshadowed his later years of regular commuting between Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Ottawa and the Freshwater Institute in Winnipeg, with many a side excursion to Queen's to meet his Alumni, Council and parental commitments;
By vocation, an outstanding scientist renowned internationally for his work on fisheries, limnology and oceanography; by avocation, a life-long supporter of the ideals, goals and operations of Queen's Alumni Association;
For 21 years a Director of that Association, national president in 1983-84, wise leader and constructive committee man, president of the London Branch, and a continuing beacon of advice and hospitality for the Winnipeg Branch;
A committed Queen's fund-raiser, always leading by example;
A faithful member of this Council yesterday, today, and till Queen's Sesquicentennial year;
Altogether, a Queen's man who since 1945 has honoured his alma mater's good name through his own accomplishments and who has for most of those years served her unstintingly as sheet anchor for Queen's important alumni work in the West.
Jim Leech - 2022
Your kindness, generosity, and integrity have made their mark on all who have encountered you during your years as Queen’s Chancellor. The time spent at convocation ceremonies alone would likely qualify you for the Guinness World Record book, but you saw your role as much more than one of pomp and ceremony.
You attended any and all Queen’s meetings, including those of the Board of Trustees and University Council,
as an active and engaged participant, always knowing when to speak up and when to listen.
Your countless hours of guidance during the university’s pension reform, while not a particularly glamourous topic, have brought Queen’s and its students, faculty, and staff a level of stability not seen for decades.
The partnerships you had with the university’s Advancement Office helped to secure the $50 million dollar gift to the School of Business, as well as many other significant gifts. And you did not hesitate to follow your words with actions, donating to establish a bursary for Indigenous students as well as a fellowship on entrepreneurship in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation to give African students access to resources, financial support, and mentors to bring entrepreneurial ideas to life. We are thrilled your name will live on at Queen’s given the success of the $1.75 million fundraising campaign for the Jim Leech Ceilidh Centre in the JDUC.
The university is honoured to recognize this work and so much more with the presentation of this Distinguished Service Award.
Claire Leggett - 2003
In 1994 you left McGill and Montreal and you immediately began your new life as goodwill ambassador for Queen’s and Kingston. Without missing a beat and with quick-study skill, you immersed yourself deeply in tricolour tradition. With grace, cheerfulness and good humour, with intelligence and foresight, and with integrity and your own wonderful sense of the right thing to do, you served as the Principal’s 24-hour a day partner, special advisor, and personal assistant.
As official Queen’s hostess you have quietly presided at the centre of a virtual thoroughfare of activity where you have warmly welcomed thousands of people to an endless cycle of University functions.
As an exemplary Queen’s promoter you have travelled the globe winning friends and funds to strengthen this University. Your enthusiasm and your own considerable generosity inspires others to join in giving their time and support.
In recognition of all your many contributions, a grateful Queen’s University is honoured to present you with an award for distinguished service.
William C. Leggett - 2004
You have served this University as a champion, providing us with outstanding leadership and painting a compelling vision for an ambitious future. You have vigorously and courageously promoted an educational system of the highest calibre, one that is accessible, accountable and diverse, even in the face of turbulent and uncertain times for post-secondary education in this province.
An ambassador beyond compare, you have travelled the globe, always advancing the University and its standards of excellence and when necessary, putting hat in hand, often, with great success.
In you, we all sense something entirely special, a rare warmth, depth of caring and passion for life. Many times over, students have felt deeply touched by your approach and gift for listening; attributes that have genuinely enhanced their experience at Queen’s and that earned you the title of Honorary President of the Alma Mater Society.
You are an effective administrative leader who has remained an academic at heart, and a scientist whose research in marine biology has been a vital part of your life and character. We feel honoured to have had you as our leader and friend and recognize you as one who has created an incredible legacy. You leave this beloved place in a strong and viable position both nationally and internationally. With pride and honour, we bestow upon you an award for distinguished service.
David S. R. Leighton - 1992
Regina-born scholar, author, journalist, teacher, corporate consultant, friend of symphonies and patron of the arts; an internationally recognized authority on marketing who also has accrued a distinctive academic record in Britain, the United States, Israel and Switzerland, as well as at Canada's Banff Centre and the University of Western Ontario.
His record of service to Queen's began in his Arts '50 student days, when he devoted four years to the Queen's Journal, won awards as its Editor, was active in the Alma Mater Society, chaired the National Federation of College and University Students, and was duly elected to the prestigious Tricolour Society.
His loyal and supportive interest in Queen's ever since has earned him Life Membership in the Grant Hall Society and election to the Board of Trustees. A measure of his contribution to Queen's fiscal well-being as a Trustee since 1983 was his recent re-election by fellow graduates to a fourth consecutive term.
Since 1984, the Finance Committee has had the benefit of his apt and considerable talents and extensive corporate experience. A confidence-inspiring man of implacable calm, he wins respect for perceptively exploring all aspects of situations, keenly questioning the financial viability of projects, and repeatedly proving, through his critical attention, that his long tenure at Western has in no way diminished the depth of his devotion to Queen's.
We hereby express our appreciation of his membership in this Council and his rare insight into the complex ways in which business and the academy intersect.
Greg Lessard - 2013
A creative problem-solver of the first order, you have devoted the past four decades to making your alma mater a better place.
In your many roles as professor, mentor, advisor and director, you are the one that students, staff, faculty, administrators and principals seek for sound advice. Your ability to pay attention to the details without losing sight of the big picture has helped others to see the way forward, ultimately having a major influence on the direction of the institution.
You prefer to work behind the scenes, and you do this with quiet intelligence, diplomacy, common sense and a healthy amount of self-deprecating humour. Comfortable with those from every segment of the university community, you have played football with students at the Bader International Study Centre and have provided sage counsel to three principals. No task is too great, no deadline too unreasonable and no principal too demanding.
Although the title of your most recent administrative position was Special Advisor to the Principal, you have been, in reality, special advisor to all.
For your exceptional leadership, contagious enthusiasm and unquestionable dedication, we present to you this award for distinguished service.
Hok-Lin Leung - 2017
Your work at the university over the past three and a half decades has paved the way for Queen’s to develop strong relationships with many partners in the Asia-Pacific, as well as placing Queen’s on an international stage in the field of urban and regional planning.
Your strong leadership at the helm of the School of Urban Planning from 1997 to 2009 resulted in extensive growth and development for the School’s faculty, students, and staff. You reintroduced community design, land use planning, and physical planning into the School’s curriculum and expanded policy analysis and environmental studies across the university as a whole. Under your directorship, all faculty members received SSHRC grants and graduates moved into senior positions within the planning profession, including chief planners of Metro Vancouver, Yellowknife, St. John’s, and more, ensuring that your legacy will reflected across the landscape of the country.
Your research has also deeply impacted your profession. Various federal departments have relied on your expertise as a policy advisor and your ten books and monographs have had significant influence. Indeed, your book The Cultural DNA of Western Civilization led China’s non-fiction bestseller list in the spring of 2014.
Throughout your years at Queen’s, while teaching, directing, and researching, you managed to find time to establish deep relationships with government departments and individuals in China, well before Queen’s as a whole was internationally-focused. For over 20 years, you educated and trained civil servants in China’s Ministry of Land and Resources and over 1,000 of these individuals also made their way to the university for additional expert training.
These efforts made it possible for continued relationship-building by many other Queen’s faculty and students and has proved invaluable in Queen’s working towards its international goals.
For your true dedication to the university, to your profession, and to our friends in China, please accept this Distinguished Service Award with our thanks.
Heino Lilles - 2011
The range and quality of your contributions speak to your love of this institution. Your service to Queen’s stretches nearly fifty years; as a scholar, accomplished athlete, dedicated Law professor, tireless administrator, university councillor and trustee.
As a student, first in Chemistry and later in Law, you excelled, earning a BSc, MSc and LLB. You also excelled on the gridiron. As one of the greatest football players in the history of Queen’s, you won virtually every award for which you were eligible. In 1968, you helped lead Queen’s to its first Vanier Cup victory.
It was, however, your academic performance that won an appointment to the Faculty of Law in 1972. You shone in that role for 15 years, while developing an international reputation for your expertise in Young Offender law. Beyond the classroom, you served as Executive Assistant to Jim Bennett, the Vice-Principal, Services, and later as Director of Queen’s Legal Services. In these positions, you fostered close relations with students and colleagues, and showed your strong commitment to the broader institution.
Your elevation to the Bench of the Territorial Court of the Yukon in the Northwest Territories did not deter your willingness to continue to serve Queen’s as a member of University Council and of the Board of Trustees. In every aspect of your life and career, your commitment to community and social justice has been self-evident.
For your far-reaching contributions to your alma mater, the University Council extends its sincere appreciation.
Anita Lister - 2023
Your time at Queen’s began in what was then Student Health Services in May 1978. You remained at the institution for a remarkable 45 years until August 2023, serving in the Departments of Psychology, Ophthalmology, Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, and generations of faculty, students, and staff are the better for it.
Your unfailingly positive attitude and work ethic graced each of the units you served, helping to create a safe space for all those who found their way to your desk. Your caring nature calmed many a panicked student as well as
more than a few overwhelmed faculty administrators!
The thoughtfulness you displayed extended to many outside the university through the initiation and organization of an annual memorial service for those who chose to donate their bodies to the university for the education of students and betterment of society. Such work clearly demonstrates the empathy remarked upon by your colleagues which, while clearly missed since your retirement, remains an enduring example for all.
We are so fortunate to have had you as a member of the Queen’s community and wish to express
our thanks for all you have done through the presentation of this Distinguished Service Award.
Peter Lougheed - 2002
In volume one of the History of Queen's Hilda Neatby tells us the role of Chancellor was created in 1874, " to preside in gorgeous robes over public meetings of the University" and to attract the interest and support of those on whose goodwill Queen's must depend. Mr. Chancellor, you've fulfilled both duties with distinction and you have accomplished much more.
With warmth, grace and your own wonderfully human way you have presided over more than sixty convocations and you have brought a very special presence to homecoming weekends and numerous other special events elevated by your thoughtful remarks and warm greetings.
As the ambassador-in-chief for the advancement of Queen's, your championing of the University and postsecondary issues is heard most effectively: in the corridors of governance and support in Ontario, across Canada, and in the many countries you visit around the globe. In grateful appreciation Queen's honours you today and proudly honours your distinguished service.
James A. Low - 2007
We pay tribute to your fifty years of visionary leadership and dedication to Queen’s during an extraordinary career of service in clinical care, medical education and departmental administration.
While you have been recognized internationally and widely published as a thought leader and pioneer in the field of obstetrics and gynecology, and the study of fetal asphyxia and brain damage, your impact on Queen’s is reflected in the generations of young physicians and surgeons you have taught and mentored, and a medical history museum you started from scratch in Kingston.
Your dogged determination to conduct detailed analysis of obstetric events in your research, your clarity of expression, innovative thinking, and your ability to distil and communicate complicated research findings, have played an important role in our rethinking of the causes of newborn brain injuries.
And your passion for research has served as an inspiration for students and colleagues and generations of those with whom you have generously shared your knowledge.
In your post-retirement career of voluntary service we are grateful your belief in the importance of history led you to devote the past two decades to founding, developing, and strengthening a unique Museum of Health Care, the only institution of its kind in Canada.
Through your tireless work and dedication to safeguarding and showcasing Canadian medical history, you worked with a small staff and a dedicated group of volunteers to apply the highest museum standards for accessioning, cataloguing, preserving and displaying over 30,000 archives and artifacts.
And with strong interest in access and outreach you have taken the museum on the road into schools, healthcare institutions and onto the internet, making important and interesting material available to the widest possible audiences. The positive impact of this growing national resource upon the University, the Kingston community and Canada has been far reaching and profound.
Dr. Low, we celebrate your amazing tenacity, your breakthrough research, and your devotion to patients, to your students and to Queen’s - with great pleasure we honour you with an award for distinguished service.