Mr. Chancellor, I invite you to consider the career of a distinguished zoologist, Norman John Berrill. He was born and educated in England, winning his first degree, Bachelor of Science, at Bristol in 1924, his Ph.D. and D.Sc. at London in 1929 and 1931. He came to Canada in 1928 to accept appointment at McGill University, where he served as Chairman of the Department of Zoology from 1937 to 1947 and as Strathcona Professor from 1947 to 1965. It was at McGill that he built his reputation as a talented embryologist and it was natural for him to become a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has written some fourteen books and many articles. But it is not as a scholar alone that he is known wherever men and women read. He has the gift of interpreting the world of the scientist to the layman in literate and intelligible terms; in this ability he is one of the few. Because he has demonstrated to the community of scholars that Canadian scientists rank with the best, and because he is able to communicate the results of his life’s work to all who aspire to knowledge, I ask you, Mr. Chancellor, to confer the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, upon Norman John Berrill.
Mr. Chancellor, The University of British Columbia is still young enough to have a number of its Builders present on these occasions. Such a one is M.Y. Williams, whom we honour today. Born in Ontario, he possesses a B.Sc. in Mining Engineering from Queen’s University and a Ph.D. in Geology from Yale. He taught in the public schools of Ontario, at Yale, and at Queen’s. In 1921 he joined the Faculty of this University and he has been here ever since. Thus he has watched and participated in the growth of the University; and he has been an important influence in the evolution of his Department, of which he was Head from 1936 to 1950, to a position of leadership in Canada. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he held office as President of that élite body in 1960-1961. As a member of the Geological Survey of Canada he travelled widely throughout the country and he ranks among the pioneers in the development of the resources of the Province of British Columbia. Although he became Professor Emeritus as long ago as 1950, he continues to be a familiar sight on the campus and takes a lively interest in all that happens. To this remarkable Canadian, who is within sight of his eighty-ninth birthday, the University owes a lasting debt. So, Mr. Chancellor, I ask you to confer the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, upon Merton Yarwood Williams.
Members of the senate, members of the Board of Governors, in bestowing the highest honours within its gift The University of British Columbia is ever aware of three vital criteria: extraordinary service to this University, to the Province, to the Nation. This afternoon I have the happy experience of introducing a Canadian who amply satisfies all three criteria, who satisfies them, indeed, in many fields of human endeavour. As a man of business, Allan McGavin’s interests extend from sea to sea. As a sporting man he has been Vice-President of the Canadian Olympic Association, Honorary Director of the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada and the British Empire Games, and Chairman of the Pan-American Games Committee. As a man with public spirit he has been Chairman of the United Appeal and of the Fund-Raising Executive Committee of the Community Chest; he has worked with Boys’ Clubs and he accepted chairmanship of the Vancouver Centennial Committee. As a Friend of the University he devoted his energies to the Three Universities Capital Fund, of which he was Co-Chairman. In acknowledgement of his rare contributions the Alumni Association voted him an Honorary Life Membership. His appointment to the Board of Governors was not unexpected. All this preceded his election as Chancellor. As he took office, he said, ‘The University should serve the whole community in all ways…it needs stability…it needs adjusting, not tearing down, and I’ll try to help with that." His record has matched his ideals; he has kept his promises. No man has done more for the University, its Faculty and its students, its integrity and its reputation. An ancient Greek would have had no difficulty in recognising in him the ideal citizen. With gratitude in my heart I shall confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Allan Morton McGavin.
Mr. Chancellor, for Larkin Kerwin the winning of the Governor General’s Medal when he graduated in 1944 as Bachelor of Science from St. Francis Xavier University was the beginning of a career of unblemished distinction. His higher degrees, Master of Science and Doctor of Science, were achieved at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Laval University respectively, although his studies included brief sojourns in Toronto and Cambridge. He joined the staff at Laval in 1946 and there his research in atomic and molecular physics is reflected by the many papers that have appeared under his name in the learned journals. In 1954 his work had become so well known, in Canada and abroad, that he was elected President of the Canadian Association of Physicists. He served on a number of scientific commissions and he became associated with the National Research Council. Further recognition from his colleagues appeared in 1964 with his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and he is now Vice-President of the Scientific Section. To his superior flair as a physicist Larkin Kerwin has added enviable administrative skill. He has directed research laboratories and he has served as Head of the Department of Physics. A year as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Science was followed by appointment as Vice-Principal in charge of teaching and research. In 1972 he won election as Recteur de l’Université Laval. His has been a remarkable career as scientist, teacher, administrator. He has brought renown to his University, to his province, to his country. So, Mr. Chancellor, we ask you to include among our alumni, as Doctor of Science, honoris causa, John Larkin Kerwin.
Mr. Chancellor, when Walter Koerner reached Canada in 1939, he brought with him, as former Economic Director of the National Forest in Czechoslovakia, a great fund of wisdom and experience that he at once put to work in the interest of the forests and business of British Columbia. The story of Alaska pine and the associated achievements of Walter Koerner and his brothers is well-known. What I emphasize today, however, is the extent to which he immersed himself totally in the affairs of his adopted country, his province, and the University of British Columbia. His vital participation in the directorship of many companies and industries, his membership in the Economic Council of Canada, his countless philanthropies – some known, more unknown – led to his decoration in 1967 as a Companion of the Order of Canada. He became a member of the Board of Governors in 1957 and was one of that extraordinarily selfless group of men and women who helped to guide the University through a complex and formidable period. In due course he was appropriately elected chairman; his retirement in 1972 was everywhere regretted. The University owes him a great debt: I think, for example, of scholarships and of a wing of the Library. On this occasion it is most fitting to greet him as the man who established the Master Teacher Award. For Walter Koerner knows what a University is, that its quality rests solidly upon its students, its teachers, its scholars. I have omitted much from the career of a good and modest benefactor; yet even a selection will lead you, Mr. Chancellor, with enthusiasm to bestow the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Walter Charles Koerner.
Mr. Chancellor, as an ordinary degree is a formal indication of the completion of a period of dedication to the goals of a university, so an honorary degree is often a university’s recognition of an individual’s dedication to broader goals, goals that transcend more narrow academic pursuits. Today Harold Edward Winch is honoured by this University for his dedicated service to the people of British Columbia and Canada. His long membership in the provincial and federal legislatures and his steadfast pursuit of those goals predicated upon his humanitarian principles are an example to present and aspiring politicians of every political hue.
It was outside the Vancouver City Hall in 1930 that Harold Winch, then twenty-three years of age, witnessed a clash between the police and the unemployed. Then and there he identified his cause and was ever more unrelenting in his pursuit. He joined the Socialist Party of Canada, he became managing editor of the socialist newspaper, the Clarion, and he participated in the founding of the CCF in 1932. In 1933 he was elected to the provincial legislature where he very quickly became the chief spokesman for the emerging left. His intense passion for reform inspired him to become an orator of such devastating power that Saturday Night Magazine was moved to write that "Winch in the heat and fury of House debate pounces like a lion on his prey."
His political adversaries painted him in rich red hue as the bolshevik whose goal was revolution, but it was Harold Winch who in 1938 persuaded the sit-down strikers to vacate the Vancouver Art Gallery peacefully and later, by sheer oratorical power and conviction, prevented a riot outside the Vancouver Police Station. Although no lover of the capitalist system, he epitomized the principles of democratic socialism in his steadfast defense of parliamentary democracy and respect for duly constituted authority. Later, as a Member of Parliament, this allegiance to parliamentary forms was recognized when he was elected Canadian vice-president of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
Elected to the provincial legislature in 1933, House Leader of the CCF in 1938 and Leader of the Opposition in 1941, he resigned his provincial seat in 1953 and was promptly elected to the federal house. He retired undefeated in 1972. When he retired, he was not a mellowed radical whose fires had long been quenched by the traditional delights of Ottawa, but a man whose zeal and passion for social reform burned as brightly as they did on the pavements of Vancouver in 1938.
Because he is a man who, over four decades ago, set himself the task of serving those who labour with hand and brain, because he has been unswerving in his dedication to that task, I ask you, Mr. Chancellor, in recognition of his service and his example, to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Harold Edward Winch.
Mr. Chancellor, Sylvia Ostry, whom I now present to you, is a native of Winnipeg who left her medical studies at the University of Manitoba to pursue economics at McGill University, where she completed a B.A. with Honours, an M.A., and, in 1954 after work at Cambridge, a Ph.D. She taught economics and statistics at McGill, Carleton, Sir George Williams, and the University of Montreal; inevitably, she caught the eye of government with the result that in 1964 she was appointed Assistant Director for Research in the Labour Division of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, and for four years she was Director of Special Manpower Studies. So outstanding was the quality of her work that in 1969 Sylvia Ostry was a natural choice to become Director of the Economic Council of Canada. More recently the Dominion Bureau of Statistics was renamed Statistics Canada and Sylvia Ostry, now a Deputy Minister, acquired the title Chief Statistician of Canada. She is thus responsible for the compilation and analysis of statistical information on all aspects of Canadian economy and society. As an academic who has made her special knowledge and talent available to government, she has occupied and is occupying a vital position in the critical planning of Canada’s economy. I therefore ask you, Mr. Chancellor, in recognition of her indispensable services to Canada, to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Sylvia Ostry.
Mr. Chancellor, in Maurice Strong we greet a Manitoban of vast experience and equally vast reputation. He became known first as an astute man of business who was concerned with the development of Canadian resources and investments. He moved easily into the executive strata of international corporations and thus acquired an enviable knowledge that, added to his innate judgement, made it natural for the Government of Canada to seek his advice. In 1966 he joined that Government as Director-General of the Office of External Aid. The scope of this organization, predictably, was enlarged as the Canadian International Development Agency under the presidency of Maurice Strong. He had lived in Africa and the Far East, he knew Canada’s Eastern Arctic; he was well equipped to assume principal responsibility for Canada’s participation in the United Nations Development Programme and he led the Canadian delegation to numerous international meetings. In 1970 Maurice Strong became Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. Once again, quality was followed by recognition and in December, 1972, the General Assembly of the United Nations elected him, by acclamation, Executive Director of the United Nations’ Environment Programme. He has been honoured by many Canadian Universities and in 1973 was Montague Barton Professor of International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. That we may gladly join our sister-institutions, I present to you, Mr. Chancellor, for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Maurice Frederick Strong.
Mr. Chancellor, the career of B.C. Binning is in many ways synonymous with the development of the fine arts at the University of British Columbia as a major national centre. Although he was born in Alberta, this province has been his home and often his artistic inspiration since 1913. He studied at the Vancouver School of Arts, at the University of Oregon, in England, and in New York. After fifteen years as a teacher at the Vancouver School of Arts, he came to the University as Assistant Professor of Architecture in 1949. He was the moving spirit in the founding of the Department of Fine Arts, which he led from 1955 to 1968; he helped to produce the idea of the Norman MacKenzie Centre for the Arts, of which we have the tangible evidence in the Lasserre Building, the Frederic Wood Theatre, and the Music Building; the annual Festival of Contemporary Arts was his conception; he was largely responsible for the growth of the fine arts gallery; his passion for Japanese art and culture involved him in the development of the Nitobe Gardens. And steadily he drew and painted. His work has been exhibited in North and South America and in Europe; throughout the country galleries bear witness to its distinction. Generations of students remember his teaching, his colleagues recall his firm and humane leadership, the University will never forget what he has created. In 1971 the Governor General invested him as an officer of the order of Canada. Today, Mr. Chancellor, because his career has been a model of what the arts should mean at a university, I present to you for the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, Bertram Charles Binning.
Mr. Chancellor, the fostering of Canadian studies at the University of British Columbia has never needed special stimulation, for in Margaret Anchoretta Ormsby we have possessed a historian who has devoted her very productive academic career to British Columbia and Canada. She was born in Quesnel and took two degrees at the University of British Columbia before earning her Ph.D. at Bryn Mawr College in 1937. After terms at Sarah Dix Hamlin School in San Francisco and McMaster University, she returned to her alma mater in 1943, where she rose to the rank of Professor and became head of the department of History in 1965. By this time she had won universal recognition among historians as the leading authority on British Columbia. Margaret Ormsby had already charted her academic course with the two theses on Canadian subjects that she wrote for her advanced degrees. A series of studies on British Columbian history followed and it was no surprise to her colleagues when she was invited to write the official history of the province for the centennial year 1958. British Columbia: A History remains the standard book in the field. Learned societies have not been slow to appreciate Margaret Ormsby’s knowledge and to take advantage of her scholarship: in addition to her service on the councils of various societies, she has been honoured by the presidency of the British Columbia Historical Association and of the Canadian Historical Association. In 1966 she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; and three Canadian universities have claimed her as an honorary alumna. Throughout these years she has been a respected and beloved teacher. So, Mr. Chancellor, because the University is proud of her attainments and is conscious that its own reputation has been enhanced by her accomplishments, I ask you to confer the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, upon Margaret Anchoretta Ormsby.
Mr. Chancellor, Taffara Deguefe obtained his early education in his native Ethiopia and joined the State Bank in 1944. Two years later he came to Canada where, after winning commercial diplomas in Calgary, he enrolled in 1947 at the University of British Columbia to graduate in 1950 with the degree Bachelor of Commerce. He applied himself to law and in 1952 returned to the State Bank of Ethiopia as an attorney. He maintained his study and in 1955 he took his diploma in law from University College of Addis Ababa. His unusual talents and his devotion to his country resulted in rapid advance. His career included service as Director General of Civil Aviation for the Imperial Ethiopian government, as manager of the State Bank of Ethiopia in Khartoum, Sudan, as General Manager first of the State Bank of Ethiopia, then of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia. Over the years his wisdom and expertise have been sought by various important associations and enterprises. Today he is President of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and honorary treasurer of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society; he is a member of numerous financial and industrial boards at home and elsewhere. Clearly, we have with us a leader of extraordinary distinction. The University of British Columbia may well feel pride in having such a man among its graduates. I am expressing this pride, Mr. Chancellor, in asking you to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Taffara Deguefe.
Mr. Chancellor, H. Carl Goldenberg began an illustrious career as a product of the schools of Montreal; while taking three degrees at McGill University, he carried off gold medals in Economics and Political Science in 1928 and in Law in 1932. He was at once called to the Bar of Quebec and has practised law in Montreal since 1932. That practice, however, has often been interrupted, not so much by his lectures at McGill as by the frequent demands made upon him by government, provincial and federal. His skill as a negotiator has led to the settlement of many a strike; his economic wisdom has been sought not only by the government of Canada and by its provinces but also by the West Indies; his services during the war won him the O.B.E.; his scholarship invited his appointment as Royal Commissioner on provincial-municipal relations in British Columbia in 1946 and, later, as special counsel for British Columbia, for Newfoundland, and for New Brunswick at federal-provincial constitutional and financial conferences. It is not surprising that from 1968 to 1971 he was Special Counsel to the Prime Minister of Canada on the Constitution. Appropriately, he was awarded the Medal of Service of the Order of Canada in the first honours list in 1967 and he was created Officer of the Order of Canada. He was called to the Senate in 1971, where he is now Chairman of the Standing Committee on legal and constitutional affairs. Because he is a Canadian who has contributed his tremendous energies and his awesome knowledge so successfully and so wholeheartedly to Canada and because we have all benefited from his achievements, you will be honoured, Mr. Chancellor, I am sure, to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Hyman Carl Goldenberg.
Mr. Chancellor, Mary Pack reached Vancouver in 1922, after receiving her early education in Bedford, England. The first year of Arts at the University of British Columbia and a year at the Provincial Normal School produced the teaching certificate that took her into the schools. After varied experience she was appointed instructor for disabled children bound to their homes. Thus she became imbued with a great compassion for children crippled by rheumatic diseases. Having learned that little was being done to combat these diseases or to help their victims, Mary Pack, at first single-handedly, began her long campaign to arouse both government and the public. Here one must omit details of her noble struggle and cite only the result: the Foundation of the Canadian Arthritis and Rheumatism Society in 1947 at a meeting called by the Minister of Health and Welfare as a direct response to Mary Pack’s indefatigable efforts. Mary Pack became a director and in the following year she organized the British Columbia division of the Society, of which she served as Executive Secretary and Executive Director until her retirement in 1969. Today, thanks to Mary Pack, the world of the arthritic has been transformed: therapy and research into cause continue apace, homes and treatment are available for the stricken, incalculable pain has been prevented. The B.C. Division of the Society, Mary Pack’s division, remains a model throughout the world. In 1953 the Queen Elizabeth Medal was awarded to her as one who had made outstanding contributions to the welfare of the people of the Commonwealth. Today, Mr. Chancellor, we welcome the opportunity to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon a pioneer and humanitarian of unsurpassed determination and courage, Doris Mary Pack.
Mr. Chancellor, Jules Leger is a native of Quebec who was educated at the University of Montreal and the University of Paris, where he won a Doctorate in French-Canadian literature in 1938. After a brief journalistic experience he became Professor of diplomatic history and current affairs at the University of Ottawa and simultaneously joined the department of External Affairs. Here his diplomatic gifts were soon recognized and appointments to the embassies first in Santiago and then in London followed. He attended the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948-1949 and then spent a term on loan to the Office of the Prime Minister before becoming Assistant Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs in 1951. Two years later he moved to Mexico as Canadian Ambassador, from which post he returned as Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs. From 1958 to 1962 he served as Canada’s Permanent representative to the council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Then in 1962 he moved to Europe as Canadian Ambassador successively to Italy, to France, to Belgium and Luxembourg. Throughout the years he represented his country at numerous international conferences. Finally, in October, 1973, his appointment was announced as Canada’s twenty-first Governor General, the fourth Canadian to hold that revered office. His has been a career of extraordinary devotion to Canada, whose reputation he has continuously enhanced as he worked alongside colleagues from the nations of the whole world. All Canadians hail his remarkable achievements. The University of British Columbia, Mr. Chancellor, greets a new alumnus with elation as you confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Jules Leger.
Mr. Chancellor, in honouring Charles Edward Borden we are honouring a pioneer. Born in New York and educated in Europe and California, with degrees from Los Angeles and Berkeley, he joined the Department of German at the University of British Columbia in 1939. He soon developed an interest in the archaeology of British Columbia. In 1945 he worked on sites within the city of Vancouver and a few years later moved into the interior of the province. For some twenty years he excavated in various parts of British Columbia, especially in the Fraser Canyon, where he has established a sequence of occupation extending over 12,000 years. British Columbia has thus become an area of major interest to North American archaeology. He began an academic programme in Archaeology in 1949 and year after year students were given the precious experience of work in the field. He had little to start with, but he toiled assiduously to obtain funds, locally and from the National Museum of Canada, which recognized the importance of his undertaking. He converted a small cellar beneath the Mathematics Building into a workshop and museum, which became headquarters for potential archaeologists. He was called to various archaeological boards, becoming known, along with the University, as an archaeological leader. In 1967 the Government of Canada awarded him the Centennial Medal for services to the nation. Upon his retirement in 1970 he was granted the appropriate title, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology. Because he created a field of study in this province, because he taught so many students so thoroughly, and because his own reputation has enhanced the reputation of the University, I present to you, Mr. Chancellor, as a candidate for the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, Charles Edward Borden.
Mr. Chancellor, Roy Daniells was born in London, England, reached Victoria, British Columbia, in 1910, and so took his first two degrees at this University before winning his doctorate at Toronto. He taught in University College, Toronto, before becoming Head of the Department of English at the University of Manitoba in 1937. He returned to his Alma Mater in 1947 and led his Department until 1965, when, as University Professor of English Language and Literature, he was the first to receive the formal title Distinguished Professor. This still unique appointment paid tribute to the literary achievements of a poet and scholar who is deeply respected throughout the nation, and to a gentle humanist whose teaching has attracted the love of all who have enjoyed the immense privilege of sitting in his classes. Honours have come to him in recognition of his literary status: the Lorne Pierce Medal for 1970 for achievement of special significance and conspicuous merit in imaginative or critical literature; the Presidency of the Royal Society of Canada in 1970-1971; appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada in 1972; four honorary degrees from Canadian universities; special Fellowships from the Canada Council. Today, towards the close of a formal career that will surely continue in fact, we honour him for these accomplishments, which have brought fame to the University, but equally we honour him because we have all, students and teachers alike, been encouraged and inspired by his contagious humanism in every aspect of life, we have all learned from him the true meaning of the old expression "Gentlemen and Scholar," of which he is the embodiment. Because he has done honour to us, Mr. Chancellor, I invite you to acknowledge that honour by conferring the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, upon Roy Daniells.
Mr. Chancellor, William McColl Armstrong, whom I now present to you, is a man of extraordinary versatility. His Bachelor of Applied Science, won at Toronto in 1937, led him into industry before he joined the Department of Metallurgy at the University of British Columbia in 1946. His distinction as a teacher and his many professional contributions to his field of study brought him the Headship of his Department in 1964. His administrative talents were soon recognized and he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science in 1966. Although he retained this title and dealt successfully with its responsibilities until 1969, further demands were made upon him when he moved into the President’s Office as Deputy President in 1968, simultaneously sitting as secretary to the Board of Governors. As Deputy President he became one of that remarkable team that in the face of dire problems for years maintained the stability and academic prosperity of the University. He has an eye for detail and a genius for reaching solutions among conflicting interests. Never has he neglected his own scientific interests, as his Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada attests. His major part in the establishment of TRIUMF, his leadership in the international project to build a 144-inch telescope on the island of Hawaii, the honours accorded to him by various professional bodies – all these have brought reputation to the University. On the campus he commands universal respect as well as popularity. Recently he has accepted appointment as Chairman of the Universities Council, a significant innovation in the academic affairs of the Province. The University’s sense of loss is tempered by its satisfaction that so important a chair is occupied by so demonstrably competent a man. Because the University of British Columbia is deeply in his debt, I ask you, Mr. Chancellor, to confer the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, upon William McColl Armstrong.
Mr. Chancellor, it is not an exaggeration to include John Ferguson McCreary among the builders of the contemporary University. Born in Ontario, he received the degree Doctor of Medicine from the University of Toronto in 1934 before undertaking advanced study at the Toronto General Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children. He served with the R.C.A.F., initially as a consultant on nutrition; later he was detached to Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionery Force in Europe, and for his outstanding work with children in occupied areas he was decorated by the Government of the Netherlands in 1945. He joined the Faculty here in 1951 as Professor of Paediatrics and Head of the Department, to become Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1959, a post that he held with innovative distinction until 1972. It was John McCreary who, as Dean, became the creator of and the driving force behind the concept of the Health Sciences Centre, which united into teams all those concerned with the health sciences and co-ordinated the training of students in disciplines formerly isolated. That the idea has swept across the country is due primarily to the vision and energy of John McCreary. The Government of Canada recognised his remarkable achievements by the award of a Centennial Medal in 1967 and by investing him as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1974. Appropriately, he was named in 1971 as the University’s first Co-ordinator of Health Sciences. Because he has laboured so long and so successfully as a benefactor of mankind and as a pioneer, I ask you, Mr. Chancellor, to bestow the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, upon John Ferguson McCreary.
Mr. Chancellor, in Nathaniel Theodore Nemetz I bring to you a graduate of the University of British Columbia who has retained his intimate associations with the institution since he took his degree in 1934. The perceptive observer might have predicted from his undergraduate career those diplomatic skills that he was to exercise so successfully later, for he not only reported for the Ubyssey in a turbulent period but simultaneously protected his academic standing and his reputation for integrity. Called to the Bar in 1937, he won such acclaim as a practising lawyer and as a mediator and arbitrator in industrial disputes that he was in 1963 appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. He moved to the Court of Appeal in 1968 only to return to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice in 1973. He commanded the confidence of labour and management alike; and he has served both the Federal and Provincial Governments as Royal Commissioner. His unwavering zeal for the University’s well-being brought him the presidency of the Alumni Association in 1956 and election to Senate in 1957. He was promptly appointed to the Board of Governors by that body and once again his painstaking efforts brought him reward and additional responsibility, this time as Chairman of the Board in 1965. He sat in the Senate and on the Board until 1969. It was all but inevitable that Convocation should elect him Chancellor in 1972. This office he has filled with characteristic energy and success. The University has been fortunate in having in its councils an alumnus so skilled and devoted. When he retires from office, we may be reassured by the knowledge that his wisdom will continue to be available to us. For all these reasons, Mr. Chancellor, I ask you to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Nathaniel Theodore Nemetz.
Mr. Chancellor, in honouring Harry Hawthorn we honour a scholar and teacher of many talents who has contributed notably to the development of the University. A native of New Zealand, he took his first two degrees in Mathematics and Physics at Victoria University College of the University of New Zealand. Four years of teaching in New Zealand’s Native School Service, however, turned his interests elsewhere and he consequently earned a B.A. in History at Auckland University College, a sister institution, in 1937. He then studied at the University of Hawaii and at Yale, where he completed his doctorate in 1941. He joined the Faculty of Sarah Lawrence College and in 1947, in recognition of a growing reputation, he was invited to the University of British Columbia as its first Professor of Anthropology; he also became Director of the University’s small museum, which for many years remained housed in the cramped basement of the Library. Harry Hawthorn, virtually single-handed, built the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, which gained autonomy in 1956 and was led by him until 1968. His familiarity with British Columbia, its native peoples and human problems, led him to produce, in response to governmental invitation and in collaboration with colleagues, a series of forceful studies that inspired immediate action. I mention only three: The Doukhobours of British Columbia (1952); The Indians of British Columbia (1958); A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political and Educational Needs and Policies (1965, 1968). As Director of the Museum, he and his wife Audrey, then the Honorary Curator and a scholar herself, with indefatigable energy and tasteful determination, gathered a collection of artifacts from many parts of the world. The core of this collection, which illustrates the native traditions of the northwest and of Oceania, has few rivals in North America. Again, he was the master builder. In all his varied enterprises his students participated. Today they are to be found in the academic departments and the museums from sea to sea; all know him as a teacher as well as a scholar. It is not surprising that he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada. It has been written, "Every museum should have a Harry Hawthorn." In concurring with this judgement, Mr. Chancellor, I propose that we retain him as an alumnus; and so I present for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Harry Bertram Hawthorn.
Mr. Chancellor, a mere walk through the Museum of Anthropology will explain why I now present to you William Ronald Reid. He was born in Victoria and after leaving Victoria College entered broadcasting; in 1948 he joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where he remained for ten years, first in Toronto, then in Vancouver. He had always been proud of his heritage and as a youth had been strongly attached to his maternal grandfather, a Haida silversmith and carver. In Toronto he studied the art of the northwestern coast displayed in the Royal Ontario Museum and completed a two-year course in the making of jewellery at the Ryerson Institute of Technology. After a brief apprenticeship with Chief Mungo Martin in Victoria he accepted an invitation to restore this University’s large collection of totem poles. When he found these too decayed for restoration, he created part of a Haida village, seven new poles and two Indian houses. The result was Totem Park. Now an independent designer and craftsman, Bill Reid displayed his versatility. His wood-carvings and jewellery, in gold and silver, became known throughout the continent and in Europe. His selection of the finest pieces of native art of the northwest from the major collections of America resulted in an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery for which he wrote the catalogue. His large gold casket brought status to the Canadian Pavilion at Expo’67. Countless other works grace Canadian museums, especially our own. Early in his career he had produced two films, Totems and People of the Potlatch. He illustrated Christie Harris’ The Raven’s Cry and he wrote the text for the photographs of Adelaide De Menil’s Out of the Silence. Recently he has published a series of silkscreen prints of Haida designs. The Museum of Anthropology, which, appropriately, is to be opened within the week, bears his unmistakable stamp. I present to you with enthusiasm, Mr. Chancellor, for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, the Master Carver and complete artist, William Ronald Reid.
Mr. Chancellor, Gerard Dion, whom I now present to you, was born in the Province of Quebec; he pursued his post-secondary studies at the Collège de Lévis and at Laval and Queen’s Universities. Ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1939, he joined the Faculty of Social Sciences at Laval University some five years later, following service at the Collège de Lévis and a period in parish work. In 1956, he became Head of the Department of Industrial Relations, a position he held for seven years. He has served his university and the academic community with distinction for the past thirty-one years. His reputation in the field of industrial relations has attracted international attention and has brought invitations to carry out studies and investigations in the United States, Mexico and South America; he has lectured in France, Sweden and the Argentine. The range of his achievement is so impressive that citations must be selective. He has been President of the Canadian Institute of Research in Industrial Relations and has served as a member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Labour Relations; he has, since 1967, been moderator of the Canadian Textile Labour Management Committee; since 1973, he has served as a member of the Consultative Council of Justice of the Province of Quebec. His many books and articles have created a scholarly literature in industrial relations, especially in Quebec, and have been recognised by his election to the Royal Society of Canada and by his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada. While his accomplishments in his own academic discipline are many, history will remember him best for his pursuit of justice and truth in opposing the policies of the National Union Party, which earned for him the title of "architect of the quiet revolution" in Quebec. The quiet revolution was a movement by French Canadians towards playing a full and active role in keeping with the realities of modern society. The defeat of the National Union Party in 1960 and the subsequent emergence of a new political order in Quebec are due in large measure to the efforts of this remarkable man. His contribution to society places him in that small select group of Canadians who have truly influenced the history and direction of this country. For these reasons, and because he has thus brought universal distinction to his University, to his Province, and to his Country, I ask you, Mr. Chancellor, to confer the Degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Gerard Dion.
Mr. Chancellor, it is singularly appropriate that, when the conference named Habitat is about to open in Vancouver, we should have Barbara Jackson with us. Born Barbara Ward in England, she was educated in that country, France and Germany and took her Baccalaureate degree with honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Somerville College, Oxford University, in 1935. After a few years as Lecturer at the University she joined the staff of The Economist in 1939. She had already begun to write and over the years her books and lectures won her an enviable reputation. She served as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard from 1957 to 1968 and as Carnegie Fellow from 1959 to 1968. In the latter year her distinction was recognised by appointment as Schweizer Professor of Economic Development at Columbia University. Her special interest has been in the developing world and no-one has done more than she in her many books and addresses to make us acutely and sympathetically aware of the economic and social problems of that world. Recently she has crossed Canada acquainting Canadians with the significance of Habitat, she has addressed the Alumni Association on the subject "Human Settlements: Crisis and Opportunity," and she has written Home of Man, which will inevitably become the basic document for Habitat. Her humane convictions and her deeply-felt awareness of what we must do for our fellow-man have awakened the consciences of all those who read her books or hear her words. You will understand, Mr. Chancellor, why I present for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, a brilliant scholar, author, and lecturer, Barbara Ward Jackson.
Mr. Chancellor, Kathleen Coburn, who was born in Ontario and won degrees at Victoria College, the University of Toronto, and St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, has achieved eminence as a scholar in the field of English Literature. Her academic affiliation throughout her career has been with Victoria College and it was here that she devoted herself chiefly to the study of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Her edition of The Philosophical Lectures of S.T. Coleridge, based upon hitherto unpublished notebooks, established an authoritative text. It was natural for the Bollingen Foundation to invite her to edit The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of which three double volumes have so far appeared. This enterprise has been described as the most basic and important piece of research that is being carried out in English Literature today. She is also the general editor of The Collected Works of S.T. Coleridge, a major project involving scholars from several countries. She has twice held a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and her reputation is further guaranteed by her election as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of Literature and as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Where English Literature is studied, her name commands awe. Mr. Chancellor, I therefore ask you to confer the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, upon one who has brought impressive distinction to Canadian literary scholarship, Kathleen Coburn.
Mr. Chancellor, we often boast of the loyalty of our students and our alumni. In Stanley Tremaine Arkley we have an alumnus whose services to the University throughout his career have been unsurpassed. He graduated in 1925, which means that he spent his undergraduate days in the old shacks at Fairview where the smallness of the student-body produced an unparallelled devotion to their University. Stanley Arkley from the beginning participated in the building of a strong Alumni Association that would collaborate in the growth of the University. Living in Seattle, he was able to maintain the closest ties with his Alma Mater. He was prominent among those who organised the Friends of the University in the United States and he became their first President. His home served as the business-office for the Friends and he and his wife were chiefly responsible for the many bequests and gifts and scholarships that came from his adopted country. A bibliophile himself, he has displayed a special and tangible interest in the Library, an interest that reached its culmination recently in the presentation of a notable collection of children’s literature, along with a fund for its maintenance. The University and the Alumni are proud of him. I therefore ask you, Mr. Chancellor, in recognition of his singular and unswerving love for the University of British Columbia, to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Stanley Tremaine Arkley.
Mr. Chancellor, Gertrude Laing was born in Kent, England, and came to Winnipeg at an early age. She graduated from the University of Manitoba with the degree Bachelor of Arts and then devoted a year to post-graduate study at the Sorbonne as the holder of the first French Government bursary awarded to her University. For some years she taught French at a private school and at the University of Manitoba. In 1942 she became Executive Secretary of the War Services Board and Central Volunteer Bureau, Winnipeg, a position for which her active interest in community and social planning well fitted her. Her move to Calgary in 1952 was not allowed to interrupt her public career and the quality of her services spread her reputation throughout Canada. In 1963 she was appointed to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and from 1968 to 1973 her talents were employed by the Canadian Radio-Television Commission. In 1972 her distinction won national recognition when she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. In the same year she was co-author of Face to Face, a political commentary. Her appointment to The Canada Council in 1974 was a natural one and her inevitable rise to the Chairmanship of that body followed a year later. In 1974 she was included in the Canadian delegation to the eighteenth Assembly of UNESCO, in Paris. Mr. Chancellor, I ask you to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon one whose remarkable versatility is matched only by her remarkable accomplishments, Gertrude Mary Laing.
Mr. Chancellor, in appointing George Woodcock to its Faculty in 1956 the University of British Columbia, wise in its judgement, welcomed an established man of letters. A Manitoban by birth, George Woodcock received his schooling in England, where he began his literary career. He edited two periodicals and founded a third, NOW, a literary magazine that he edited from 1940 to 1947. He returned to Canada in 1949 and in 1956 joined the Department of English of the University of British Columbia. Three years later he collaborated in the founding of Canadian Literature, the quarterly that he has edited ever since. The journal rapidly gained reputation and today is recognised as the country’s leading publication devoted to the fostering of literature, especially Canadian literature. Through the years he has himself been a prolific writer. One can scarcely name an area of human interest of a field of literature that has escaped the perceptive notice of his pen, in poetry as well as in prose. His prodigious activity and the quality of all his work have won him many awards: grants for travel and research, fellowships, the Governor General’s Award for the best Canadian work of non-fiction (1966), the Centennial Medal (1967), honorary degrees. His own merited fame, at home and abroad, has brought fame to the University. Because we take pride in that fame, Mr. Chancellor, I present for the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, George Woodcock.
Mr. Chancellor, it is always especially satisfying to do honour to one of our own. Arthur Fouks was born and educated in Vancouver, he earned the degree Bachelor of Arts in 1941 at the University of British Columbia, he served during the war with the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, he completed the requirements for the degree LL.B. in 1949 and has been a practising barrister ever since. He took silk in 1964. Despite the onerous responsibilities of a successful career, he has cheerfully accepted an extraordinary involvement in the community’s affairs, especially those concerned with medical progress and public health. Thus the Children’s Health Centre and the Retarded Children’s Association know him well and owe him much. He was a founding member of the B.C. Heart Association and its President in 1961; in 1968 he became President of the Canadian Heart Foundation. Even more in his debt is the Vancouver General Hospital, for it was primarily his effort that acquired and installed significant new equipment and delicate instruments for the diagnosis and treatment of formidable diseases, thus enabling the medical profession of British Columbia to remain in the forefront of scientific progress. For the University he has always laboured unselfishly. For eight years, three of them as Chairman, he served on the Managing Committee of the Health Sciences Centre. A member of the Board of Governors from 1966 to 1972, he spent his last year of office as an inexhaustible Chairman. All can admire his overt accomplishments; few can know what he did for the University behind the scenes, in its relationship with the public and with Government. And few are aware of his generosity to the University. Mr. Chancellor, because his statesmanship and his diplomacy have brought immeasurable blessings to the University and to the community, I ask you to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon Arthur Fouks.
Mr. Chancellor, Grace MacInnis was born in Winnipeg, the daughter of J.S. Woodsworth. After a year at the University of British Columbia and a year at Ottawa Normal School she took her B.A. at the University of Manitoba in 1928 and then spent a year at the Sorbonne as the holder of a French Government Scholarship. She became secretary to her father, who was a socialist M.P. for Winnipeg North-Centre, and thus began a long career of devotion to a political cause. In 1932 she married Angus MacInnis, a Member of Parliament for Vancouver-East. With the founding of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation she added the secretarial duties of that party’s caucus in Ottawa. A decade of active and faithful service was followed by four years, 1941-1945, as M.L.A. for Vancouver-Burrard. For some years illness within the family kept her from candidacy; yet she remained a member of the Party’s provincial executive and twice held the presidency. And in 1953 she published the standard biography of her father, J.S. Woodsworth: a Man to Remember, a study that won the University of British Columbia’s Medal for Popular Biography. In 1965 she once more appeared on the political platform and went to Ottawa for Vancouver-Kingsway, the first woman M.P. from British Columbia. Her retention of her seat for the New Democratic Party in 1968 and 1972 confirms the respect and gratitude of her constituency. Her retirement in 1974 brought her public life to an end. A founder of her Party, bilingual in English and French, as prominent in federal politics as in provincial, she is known, admired, and loved throughout Canada. Mr. Chancellor, because she has worked continuously and successfully for all Canadians and because her career has been one of conspicuous achievement, I present for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Winona Grace MacInnis.
Mr. Chancellor, Ian Cowan began his academic life at the University of British Columbia, where he took his first degree in 1932. After earning the doctorate in 1935 at the University of California, where he was Head Teaching Fellow, he returned to British Columbia as Biologist with the B.C. Provincial Museum. He accepted appointment at his Alma Mater in 1940, became Professor of Zoology in 1945 and Head of the Department in 1953. His administrative qualities were soon recognised and, after periods as Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Arts and Science and in the new Faculty of Science, he assumed the Deanship of the Faculty of Graduate Studies in 1964. Through a turbulent decade of startling growth and reconstruction he led that Faculty with consummate skill; its present stability and reputation have emerged in large part from his uncompromising insistence on high standards and his wise understanding of academic complexities. His wide experience made him a charter member of the Academic Board of British Columbia in 1963 and in 1969 he became Chairman. For many years the Senate of the University looked to him for advice. Despite his considerable administrative responsibilities he has retained his reputation as a prominent scientist and constantly his knowledge and his presence have been sought by provincial and national professional institutions. Above all, Ian Cowan has been and remains a superb teacher and a strikingly successful interpreter of the world of science to the lay public. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1972 and has won Honorary Degrees from the Universities of Alberta and Waterloo. Mr. Chancellor, because, with the utmost versatility and grace, he has devoted his life, with singular success, to this University, this Province, and this Country, I present to you for the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Ian McTaggart Cowan.
Mr. Chancellor, Har Gobind Khorana, after attaining two degrees at Punjabi University, completed his doctorate at the University of Liverpool in 1948. He spent two years at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich as post-doctoral Fellow and two years at the University of Cambridge as Nuffield Fellow before accepting appointment as Head of the group working in Organic Chemistry at the British Columbia Research Council on this campus. Here, along with his team, he began the study of the synthesis of nucleotides and polypeptides that was to produce such spectacular results. He moved to the University of Wisconsin in 1960 where he became Professor and Co-director of the Institute of Enzyme Research. During a decade at that institution he continued his research intensively and won such international renown for his techniques and achievements that in 1968 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. In 1970 he answered a call from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he now holds the Alfred P. Sloan Professorship of Biology and Chemistry; simultaneously, he is Cornell University’s Andrew W. White Professor-at-Large. His many honours, memberships, and fellowships include honorary degrees from universities in Canada, the United States, England, and India. His awards match his honours in number and range. A year ago, his laboratory announced still another major advance in the synthesizing of a gene, an advance that has been called "the most significant piece of synthetic organic chemistry ever to be achieved." Mr. Chancellor, true scholarship requires tireless patience and intuitive perception. Sometimes, to these qualities is added a touch of scientific genius. You will understand, then, why I present to you for the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Har Gobind Khorana.
"Whatever other things art does, if it is to engage us deeply it must, as well, be an adventure of the mind." This quotation from the preface of In Search Of Form, by Jack Shadbolt, appropriately sums up his own life and work. An internationally known Canadian painter, he has represented his country in many travelling exhibitions, including those shown at the Tate Gallery, London, The Brussels and Seattle World Fairs and in Warsaw, Mexico City, Chicago and Sydney. His prodigious output has resulted in many one-man shows, and his works hang in most of the great collections of the world. His murals grace many important Canadian buildings. Recognition of his powerful and commanding accomplishments has come in the form of a Canadian International Guggenheim Award in 1957, and a Canadian Government Overseas Fellowship. In 1972 he was appointed to the Order of Canada. In addition to expanding and refining his own painting, he has directed his disciplined, creative energy into teaching and writing. A tireless and fearless master of his craft, whose work and ideas excite and stimulate, he has, by generously sharing his creative imagery, opened for many, new avenues of visual beauty and invention. Mr. Chancellor, with pride I present to you for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, one whose work not only stimulates the senses but also is an adventure of the mind, Jack Leonard Shadbolt.
Mr. Chancellor, I have the honour of presenting to you for the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, Dorothy Blakey Smith. As an English Honours student at this University, she was awarded in 1921 the Governor General’s gold medal, a portent of what was to come. Among her services to the Humanities are numbered some twenty years of devoted teaching in the Department of English, followed by researches, both wide and deep, into the history of the Pacific Northwest, particularly into the lives of pioneers associated with this Province. Her forte has been a strict regard for scholarship and the power to interpret significant historical documents. Her integrity as a scholar and devotion as a teacher have been matched by her loyalty as a colleague and selflessness as a friend. Over the years her virtues have become proverbial: "Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness." Mr. Chancellor, with pride I present to you for the degree Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, one, who as teacher and scholar, has made a signal contribution to British Columbia, Dorothy Blakey Smith.
Mr. Chancellor, Robert Edward Bell is an alumnus of the University of British Columbia who has achieved national and international recognition as a scientist, an educator and an administrator. He was one of a brilliant group of young Canadians who in the immediate post-war years contributed to Canada’s rapidly growing international stature in nuclear science. He received his Ph.D. degree from McGill University in 1948, and soon afterwards joined the McGill faculty. In 1960 he was named Rutherford Professor of Physics and Director of the Foster Radiation Laboratory at McGill University. Recognition of his scientific achievements resulted in his election in 1955 to Fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada of which he is now the President. He was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1965. After serving for a year as Dean of Graduate Studies, Robert Bell in 1970 was made Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University. As a fluently bilingual administrator of an anglophone University in a francophone province he won the respect of the French-speaking community. Both Laval University and the University of Montreal added their honorary Doctor of Science degrees to others he holds from other parts of Canada. For his overall contributions to the nation he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1971. Mr. Chancellor, his Alma Mater honours itself by honouring him as I present to you for the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, this distinguished yet modest Canadian, Robert Edward Bell.
Mr. Chancellor, a university delights to honour its own. As a student Harry Verney Warren attended this university, where he received the B.A. and B.A.Sc. degrees. He was British Columbia’s Rhodes Scholar in 1926, and graduated from Oxford University with the degrees of B.Sc. and D.Phil. He joined our faculty in 1932. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Geological Society of America and the Geochemical Society, he is the author or co-author of innumerable scientific papers, and was a pioneer in the development of interdisciplinary studies linking biology, geology and chemistry, which has led to several mineral discoveries. As an extension of this work, he has developed another interesting line of investigation: the relationship between trace elements in the soil and the health of people living on that soil. In addition to his teaching and research activities, he has served on a number of university committees that acted as a liaison between students and faculty. Himself an athlete of renown he has devoted a lifetime to the coaching, support and encouragement of countless young men and women in a variety of sports, particularly field hockey and cricket. As an embodiment of the finest ideals of amateur sport and as an example to youths of all ages he has few equals. For his outstanding contributions as a scholar, a prospector, a sportsman and a citizen, Mr. Chancellor, I have pride in presenting to you for the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Harry Verney Warren.
Mr. Chancellor, in Thomas Dohm we honour a distinguished alumnus for his faithful and devoted service to the people of British Columbia and to this University.
Raised in Kamloops, he attended St. Patrick’s College, Ottawa, and graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1937, after which he attended the Vancouver Law School and was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1940. From the start of his career in the 1940’s, his stature as an eminent member of the profession of law has grown. A former Prosecutor for the City of Vancouver, he was appointed a Magistrate for the City in 1954 and rose to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1966. The universality of his interests led him, in 1972, to assume the Presidency of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, from which he returned to the private practice of law.
Mr. Dohm has many years of commitment and dedication to the public welfare of this City and the Province, demonstrated by his hallowed service as Chairman of the Board of Management of St. Vincent’s Hospital, B.C. Regional Director of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, membership on the Advisory Board of the Salvation Army, and as Honorary Chairman of the Corporate Appeal of The British Columbia Lions Society for Crippled Children. These few examples, taken to show the quality of all, demonstrate a lifetime of striving to assist and support other human beings. In recognition of Mr. Dohm’s outstanding service, the B.C. Lions Society for Crippled Children honoured him with the Humanitarian Award in 1974.
Mr. Dohm was a faithful, wise and experienced member of the Board of Governors of this University for six yeas and its Chairman from 1975 to 1977. We are grateful for his wise counsel during his tenure of office.
We honour him today for many reasons. We cherish his warmth, his wisdom, his fine erudition, his sympathetic understanding of human beings; we respect the quality of his mind and the generosity of his heart. We admire and deeply appreciate his boundless and enthusiastic commitment to the community and the University. We are well aware of his qualities of dedication and leadership that stamp him as a person of the present as well as a model for the future.
Mr. Chancellor, to honour an eminent lawyer, humanitarian and dedicated British Columbian, I ask you to bestow upon Thomas Anthony Dohm the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.
Mr. Chancellor, few men in the public service have been held in such high esteem as the man who stands before you. Lawrie Wallace was born in Victoria and attended the University of British Columbia, where he earned the Bachelor of Arts degree, and the University of Washington, where he earned the Master of Education degree. Early in his career he taught high school at Duncan and Victoria. During the Second World War he served as a Lieutenant-Commander in the Canadian Navy. He joined the Provincial Government as Director of the Community Programmes Branch and Adult Education in 1953, and became Deputy Provincial Secretary in 1959. He won renown for his work as General Chairman of four provincial centennial celebrations, which resulted in the construction of over one thousand local commemorative projects throughout the province. He was largely responsible for the establishment of Barkerville and Fort Steele Historic Parks. He has served with distinction on a large and varied number of boards, councils, commissions, and committees. In recognition of his long and distinguished career he was awarded the Order of Canada in 1972. His appointment last summer to the Post of Agent-General for British Columbia in London was universally applauded by members of all parties in the Legislature. Mr. Chancellor, I have the honour to present to you for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, one whose dedication to the service of all citizens of this Province has been unparalleled, Lawrence James Wallace.
Mr. Chancellor, Albert Bandura has combined scholarly research and theory in psychology with practical applications to some of the most pressing problems of our society. An alumnus of The University of British Columbia, he received his advanced degrees from the University of Iowa, his doctorate being awarded in 1952. For the past twenty-five years, he has been a member of the faculty at Stanford University, where he is currently David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science. His many honours have included a Guggenheim Fellowship, a term as a Fellow in the Institute for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Cecil H. and Ida Green Visiting Professorship at The University of British Columbia in 1975. In 1974, he became one of the youngest presidents in the history of the American Psychological Association. He has been a pioneer in what has become a dominant school of thought in psychology, emphasizing the ability of human beings to learn from each other and from the environment, to make their own decisions, and to improve their own lives. His early emphasis on social learning, and his more recent work on self-efficacy theory, offer an empirically-based, theoretically exciting, and philosophically attractive alternative to those concepts in which people are perceived as passive victims of internal and external forces. The application of his work to such controversial issues as the impact of television on child development has been widely recognized by those who are concerned with social problems. These accomplishments have been accompanied by close and supportive relationships with students and colleagues, and tireless service to professional organizations as well as to the general community. Mr. Chancellor, because of his contribution to our understanding of human behaviour, his service to his discipline, and his concern with the betterment of life, I propose that we reaffirm his ties to his Alma Mater; therefore I present for the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Albert Bandura.
Mr. Chancellor, it is rare that a country such as Canada is blessed with a public servant with the ability, dedication, professional stature, foresight, wisdom and personal charm of Louis Rasminsky, whom I have the honour of presenting to you. Born in Montreal and educated in Toronto, Louis Rasminsky studied economics at the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics before starting a career as an international public servant with the League of Nations. Returning to Canada after the outbreak of World War II, he joined the staff of the Bank of Canada which was still in its formative years. Louis Rasminsky had a profound impact on that institution, assuming positions of increasing responsibility until in the troubled circumstances of 1961 he was called upon to become the Governor of the Bank of Canada. With the firm hand of the skilful economic statesman he re-established the confidence and reputation of the central bank. Ever a trusted advisor of governments on domestic monetary policy, Louis Rasminsky also has unique stature in international economic affairs. His accomplishments in this realm are many. Not the least of these was his important role as a member of the Canadian delegation to the Bretton Woods conference, which led to the reconstruction of the international financial system after World War II. He was actively involved with the International Monetary Fund from its establishment until the time that he became Governor of the Bank of Canada. Mr. Chancellor, it is with great pride that I present to you, a truly distinguished economist and public servant for the degree, Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Louis Rasminsky.
Mr. Chancellor, there are few individuals whose gifts to education and the furtherance of science have been matched by those of Ida Mabelle Green. Quietly but with imagination, initiative and total dedication she and her husband, Cecil, have become internationally recognized for their support of University facilities and scientific projects. The Communication Center at Austin College, the Professional Center for Geophysics and Mineral Economics at the Colorado School of Mines, the Earth Sciences tower at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Hospital of the Scripps Clinic and the Research Vessel for the Marine Science Institute of the University of Texas are but some of the academic facilities that bear Mrs. Green’s name. Colleges, hospitals, museums, schools and universities in Australia, Canada and the United States, and Green College at Oxford University, have benefited profoundly from her personal contributions. When Mrs. Green was a University student herself she was greatly involved in social work, international affairs and music, interests which she has kept up during a very busy life. Her participation in civic affairs is impressive and includes service on the Boards of The Dallas Children’s Medical Center, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Mrs. Green has been a pioneer in the American Association of University Women and in the provision of Graduate Fellowships for women students. Mr. Chancellor, it is with great pleasure that I present to you for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, a humanitarian and philanthropist of unsurpassed determination and vision, and a generous friend of this University, Ida Mabelle Green.
Mr. Chancellor, I cannot, in a few minutes, do complete justice to the attributes of Donovan Miller. He was born in Winnipeg, attended schools in Edmonton, and became a resident of Vancouver in 1936. Service with the Seaforth Highlanders and as Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in the Atlantic and European Theatres of war delayed his studies at the University of British Columbia, where he attained the degree Bachelor of Commerce in 1947. At once he joined The Canadian Fishing Company Limited. His exceptional qualities guaranteed his rise and today he is Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and President. In 1954, as the lone Canadian holder of a coveted Sloan Fellowship, he seized the opportunity to study at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he graduated a year later with the degree Master of Science in Business Administration. Reluctantly, I pass over his notable contributions to the world of business and to the Canadian community as a whole, including his prominence in The Boy Scouts of Canada. I do emphasize, however, his notable services to his Alma Mater. His loyal and zealous participation in the affairs of the Alumni Association led him to the Presidency in 1960. Inevitably, Convocation elected him to the Senate in 1962, where he sat until 1970; that body promptly elevated him to the Board of Governors, where, from 1963 to 1972, his wise counsel and undeviating strength of character helped to guide the University safely through a turbulent period. Not surprisingly, the members of Convocation, with their unerring ability to recognize excellence, placed him in the Chancellor’s Chair in 1975. Along with his wife, he endowed that ceremonial office with a memorable warmth and firm dignity that elicited admiration and renown for the University. The career of this model alumnus has been an embodiment of the utmost grace and versatility, of striking accomplishment and effective modesty. Of few men can it be said, as it can of him, that their deeds match or surpass their reputations. You will, Mr. Chancellor, I am sure, appreciate the enthusiasm with which I present, for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Donovan Francis Miller.
Mr. Chancellor, in honouring Cecil Edmund Yarwood, we recognize a previous graduate of The University of British Columbia who has led a distinguished career in the service of his fellow men through his work on plant diseases. A native of Sumas, Washington, he graduated in agriculture from this University in 1929. After a period with the Canada Department of Agriculture, graduate study first took him to Purdue University and then to the University of Wisconsin for his doctorate in plant pathology. California beckoned him and from 1934 to the present day, his academic home has been the University of California at Berkeley. His outstanding work as a teacher and in research led to twenty-five years as Professor of Plant Pathology at Berkeley. Although he officially retired in 1975, his work has continued unabated as Emeritus Professor. The characteristic which best describes his activities is that "he has the happy faculty of making observations that the rest of us should have made but did not!" This talent has been applied unremittingly to problems of the diseases which attach the plants that provide us with food and other commodities. His efforts have contributed immeasurably both to our understanding of the relationships between plants and disease-causing organisms, and to the practice of disease control. His "taste" in plant diseases has been catholic, but the viruses have been a primary focus of his interest, leading to several hundred publications. Many of these have been milestones and have opened up new areas of investigation. A Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship to the University of Cambridge and a Memorial Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are but two of the awards by which he has been recognized. Mr. Chancellor, scholarship is a mixture of imagination and industry, perception and perseverance. Add the element of scientific genius and you will understand why I present for the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, Cecil Edmund Yarwood.
Nearly 2,500 years ago the Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote, "A people must fight for their law as for their walls." The fight for the law is today entrusted to the lawyer and the judge. The great lawyer and the great judge master the mysteries of their profession, and then use that mastery for humanity. Today, Mr. Chancellor, I present to you a judge who, himself judged by that standard, may be truly called great. He has fought a good fight for the people and their law. He is indeed the law’s happy warrior.
After a distinguished career as a barrister, Lord Denning was appointed a judge in 1944. He served in the King’s Bench Division of the High Court from 1944 to 1948, in the Court of Appeal from 1948 to 1957, and in the House of Lords from 1957 to 1962. In the latter year he returned to the Court of Appeal as Master of the Rolls. In his thirty-five years on the Bench he has had an influence on the common law that has few parallels in its history. His authority has extended well beyond the shores of England, and nowhere has it been more fully welcomed than in Canada. If his achievements can be summarized at all, this has best been done by one of his fellow judges, writing on the occasion of Her Majesty the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977: "The past twenty-five years will not be forgotten in our legal history. They are the age of legal aid, law reform – and Lord Denning. From his carefully chosen point of vantage in the Court of Appeal, Lord Denning has exerted an abiding influence – sometimes rising to positive direction – in developing the law during a period of social and economic transition. Creative, controversial, and by no means immune from reversal by the House of Lords, he has shown this generation how a judge can steer a course in the mainstream of national life without sacrificing the truly judicial approach."
Mr. Chancellor, even in his own lifetime Lord Denning has a secure place in the small and select group of the law’s immortals. The University is honoured that its name is now to be permanently associated with his.
Mr. Chancellor, I have the honour to present to you for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Alfred Thompson Denning.
Mr. Chancellor, Canada has the good fortune to draw its legal inspiration from both the common and the civil law. It is most appropriate that on this occasion the University should honour a representative of the civil law. In the Honourable Gabriel Edouard Rinfret we are adding to the graduates of this University not only a distinguished exponent of the system of civil law but also a lawyer who has rendered notable service in other fields to his province and his country.
Admitted to the practice of law in Quebec in 1928, he became a successful and distinguished member of the Quebec legal profession. His status was recognized by his appointment in 1952 to the Quebec Court of Appeal, and in 1977 as Chief Justice of the Province of Quebec.
Chief Justice Rinfret has devoted much of his time to public service. From 1945 to 1952 he was a Member of the Federal Parliament for Outrement-St. Jean, and from 1949 to 1952 he was Postmaster General. Happily, even after his appointment as a Judge he has been able to continue his service to the Arts. He has served with distinction on the Boards of Concerts Symphoniques de Montréal, l’Institut Internationale de Musique, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and Les Feux-Follets. He has been a dominant force in the Canadian Drama Festival, and for his work has received the Canadian Drama Award. His particular interest has been in the development of a native Canadian theatre; he has edited a four-volume repertoire of Canadian plays in the French language.
Mr. Chancellor, it is with great pleasure that I present to you for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, a distinguished lawyer and public servant, Gabriel Edouard Rinfret.
Mr. Chancellor, discussion of music in British Columbia leads, inevitably, to Harry Adaskin. For seldom is a man so wedded to his subject, with such versatility and with such ubiquitous impact on others, as is Harry Adaskin. Born in Latvia, he received his schooling in Toronto and began his musical education at the Toronto Conservatory of Music when he was twelve. Before he reached twenty he was first violin in a quartet and in 1923 he collaborated in the founding of the Hart House String Quartet, which, as a result of spectacular success in tours of Canada and the United States, Britain and Europe, won for the musicians and for Canada the reputation and distinction that are the universally recognized prizes of quality. Between 1938 and 1946 he lectured and played as a soloist, to the accompaniment of his wife Frances, herself a musician of the top rank. Then he came to the University of British Columbia as Head of the Department of Music that he had undertaken to construct. In 1958 he bequeathed to his successor a Department in which we take continuing pride. As Professor of Music he now devoted his energies to his music and his teaching. Nor were we of the University the only beneficiaries. Apart from noon-hour concerts, the Adaskins performed in Vancouver and under the aegis of Continuing Education. And always Harry Adaskin could talk, in the hall and on the radio, about music and the arts. Those who took his course on the Appreciation of Music have never forgotten the experience. With wit and wisdom he taught us how to listen. He became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1974, to be followed by his wife two years later. His natural charm and the breadth of his learning in 1973 the Vancouver Sun’s headline announced, with a nice phrase, "Farewell to UBC’s magical musicians." Fortunately, it has not been farewell, as we know. So, Mr. Chancellor, with the gratitude of the University and the Province, I present to you for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, a true humanist, Harry Adaskin.
Mr. Chancellor, there are few pillars of Canadian Government who can match Robert Broughton Bryce, one of our great public servants. From engineering at Toronto University, he turned to economics. He became one of a select group around John Maynard Keynes as he was working out his General Theory. Robert Bryce then spread the new thinking to that other Cambridge: Harvard. His advice guided major policies of government from depression, through war, to a strong Canadian economy. He enriched key civil service posts: as Secretary to the Treasury Board; as Secretary to the Cabinet and Clerk of the Privy Council under three Prime Ministers of alternating parties; and as Deputy Minister of Finance. He continued to serve Canada: on the constitutional review; on the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund in Washington; and as Chairman of a Royal Commission on Corporate Concentration. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada. Robert Bryce has been a senior civil servant of high intellect and integrity; dedicated to the proper working of our democratic system; seeking neither fame nor fortune for himself. It is time we give public recognition to one who has given so much to us. I am proud, therefore, to present to you for the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Robert Broughton Bryce.
Mr. Chancellor, David Stephen Saxon has been an outstanding academic and university administrator, and epitomizes those high qualities of leadership which the world’s best universities try to impart to their graduates. His academic discipline is theoretical physics. He was one of those fortunate few who began their work shortly after the advent of the quantum theory fifty years ago. This advent opened wide the door to understanding of a large range of phenomena in the subatomic world. There was a great deal to be done. David Saxon was then, and always, one who knew what to do. He made important contributions to electromagnetic theory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology both during and after the Second World War. His major academic accomplishments occurred at the University of California in Los Angeles and helped to establish our present understanding of the atomic nucleus. He won the Distinguished Teacher Award of that university, and his research earned him world-wide recognition and two Guggenheim fellowships. As a university administrator he rose through the ranks of the University of California system to become, in 1975, the 14th President of the University of California. Now completing his fifth year as President, he has clearly been an outstanding leader of that great and proud university. It is a university which continues to aim at world leadership and which has been "in the eye of the storm" of social changes confronting the western world. I am happy to report that the University of California is highly resilient. It has maintained its world rank and its deep commitment to excellence. It has had wise and pragmatic leadership. For these reasons, and because of our own university’s historical and geographical links to the University of California, we share pride in its success, and I am most honoured to present to you for the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, the President of the University of California, David Stephen Saxon.
Mr. Chancellor, it is now thirty years since Douglas Harold Copp came to the University of British Columbia as Professor and the first Head of the Department of Physiology. After graduating in medicine at the University of Toronto and receiving his Ph.D. degree at the University of California, Berkeley, he came here to found a department in a new medical school. The Department started with two faculty in half a shared army hut. Dr. Copp has led the Department to fifteen faculty members and international distinction. He has been the recipient of many honours for his own work in calcium metabolism, particularly for the discovery of the hormone calcitonin. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada, and he is currently President of the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has been the recipient of numerous other awards including the Gairdner Award, the Flavelle Medal, and the Jacob Biely Research Prize. He has been, among other offices, President of the Canadian Physiological Society and President of the National Cancer Institute of Canada. At UBC he has taken a broad interest in University affairs, including six years service on the University Senate and a term as President of the Faculty Association. He also served for a period as Co-ordinator of Health Sciences. Because of the major contribution he has made to this University as a teacher and administrator, and the distinction he has brought to the University through his scholarly work, I ask you, Mr. Chancellor, to bestow the degree Doctor of Science, honoris causa, upon Douglas Harold Copp.
Mr. Chancellor, it is always a pleasure to honour one of our own graduates. In this province and at this time it is particularly fitting to honour one of our first forestry graduates. After schooling in North Vancouver, John Edward Liersch earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926 followed by the Bachelor of Applied Science in Forest Engineering in 1927. After a short period in survey and inventory work with the British Columbia Forest Service, he received the Master of Forestry degree at the University of Washington. In the next decade he gained much experience as a logging engineer in various parts of the Pacific North-West. In 1942 he was appointed Head of the Department of Forestry in this university but almost immediately was called to supervise the harvesting of spruce for Mosquito bomber production in the Canadian war effort. After the war he returned to UBC for a short period before accepting a position in the forest industry where he quickly rose to the senior executive levels. Much of the credit for the major development and integration of the pulping industry with the lumber industry in the northern interior is due to his leadership and careful planning. Throughout his distinguished career in business and industry he maintained an active interest in education and public service: on a provincial Royal Commission on Education, on the Advisory Council to the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and for ten years as a member of our Board of Governors, serving his final year as Chairman. His broad overview yet detailed and fairminded approach to problems, together with his dedication, was of great service to this University. He also assisted UBC with the development of the Health Sciences Centre as a member of the Management Committee. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1972, and recently was given an Award of Distinction by our Alumni Association. I now ask you, Mr. Chancellor, in recognition of his many contributions to this university and to public life, to confer the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, upon John Edward Liersch.