Honorary degree citation - A. Hollis Marden*
By: Russell Breen, November 1978
Mr. Chancellor, I have the honour to present to you Hollis Marden, successful administrator, tireless and creative community worker, a gentleman who has been acutely sensitive to the needs of the handicapped of this Province.
Hollis Marden's exceptional administrative talents can be seen in his performance of his life's work at Domtar Limited and in his extraordinary selfless contributions for the development of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and of the MacKay Centre for Crippled Children. In the exercise of his profession, he established Alexander Murray and Company Limited, a division of Domtar, which is celebrating this year its fifty-fifth anniversary. Having brought his administrative talents and his industrial experience to the service of our Montreal community, he negotiated the amalgamation of the MacKay Institute for the Deaf with the School for Crippled Children. He assumed the responsibilities of the Presidency of the MacKay Centre from 1960 1975 and has been appointed Honorary President for life.
He successfully organized a multi-million dollar campaign for the expansion and renovation of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the early sixties and was President of the hospital from 1964-1970.
The Canadian Community has acknowledged these accomplishments. In 1973 he was granted the Citizen of the Year Award. In 1975 he received the Order of Canada and in 1978 the C. Douglas Taylor Award from the Canadian Rehabilitation Council for the Disabled.
There is one achievement which far exceeds all his other accomplishments. During the years in which he spent himself to provide excellent facilities for the schooling of handicapped children, he became aware of the complete lack of meaningful employment opportunities for the disabled in our city. He had seen many children experience a gradual growth through the educational facilities at the MacKay Centre only to be frustrated because of the void in employment opportunities.
Hollis Marden did not condemn the world. He used his administrative, imaginative, and creative talents to start MacKay Specialties Incorporated - a manufacturing company, not a sheltered workshop, where machines have been adjusted so that the severely handicapped can safely work on them. Approximately forty handicapped persons are now experiencing continued growth in competitive, meaningful employment at MacKay Specialties.
Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Marden, a senior citizen of this Province has experienced his own self-fulfillment not only by developing his administrative talents in his profession but also by being sensitive to the needs of many less fortunate and by using his creative talents to make it possible for the severly handicapped to fulfill themselves and to make a valuable contribution to our Province. He is the model graduate, whom I present as an example, not only to the members of the graduating class but indeed also to the students, professors and administrators of our University.
Mr. Chancellor, it is a distinct honour and privilege for me, on behalf of the Senate and by authority of the Board of Governors, to resent to you Hollis Marden, that you may confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.
* deceased
