Spring convocations at Concordia
Concordia will confer 4,700 degrees on graduates from across the university this June. The ceremonies will be held from June 20 to 22 at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier in Place des Arts.
The first convocation ceremony will also see the installation of L. Jacques Ménard as the university’s seventh chancellor, a ceremonial event to mark his selection by the Board of Governors in December 2010. Six people who have distinguished themselves in their fields will receive honorary degrees.
L. Jacques Ménard, MBA, OC, OQ
L. Jacques Ménard is chairman of BMO Nesbitt Burns and president of BMO Financial Group, Quebec. He is also chancellor of Concordia University, his alma mater.
Ménard sits on the boards of directors of a variety of companies, organizations and foundations, and has been chairman of Hydro-Québec along with other federal and provincial organizations. He is a member of Ontario’s Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress.
In 2008, he published his first book, Si on s’y mettait..., and established the Groupe d’action sur la persévérance et la réussite scolaires, a task force to help students stay in school and succeed. Ménard subsequently published Beyond the Numbers: A Matter of the Heart on the same subject.
Ménard is a graduate of Collège Sainte-Marie, Loyola College and the University of Western Ontario (MBA ’70). An Officer of the Order of Canada and of the Ordre national du Québec, Ménard has received numerous honorary doctorates and other awards.
Corinne Charette, PEng
Corinne Charette was appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) by the Government of Canada in May 2009. She is responsible for setting strategic directions and establishing federal policies on information management and security, information technology, access to information and privacy.
A Concordia graduate in electrical engineering (1975), Charette was recruited on campus by IBM and was initially assigned to introduce the first teller terminals in Canadian bank branches. Her career has reflected a series of dynamic firsts in the use and implementation of information technologies. She was later the first manager at VIA Rail to implement staff job sharing, and in 2003 she was named CIO for FINTRAC, the federal agency responsible for the detection of money laundering and terrorist financing. She later served as CIO for Transat before being appointed to her current position.
Charette is a member of the Loyola Alumni Association Board and is active with other charitable causes.
The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, MA, LLB, PC, chief justice of Canada
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin was sworn in as chief justice of Canada on January 7, 2000 and is the first woman in Canada to hold this position.
She received a BA, MA and LLB from the University of Alberta and was called to the Alberta bar in 1969. After spending seven years as a tenured professor in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Law, McLachlin began her judicial career in 1981 when she was appointed to the Vancouver County Court.
A succession of appointments followed, first to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1981 and to the British Columbia Court of Appeal in 1985. She was named chief justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in September 1988. In 1989, she was sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
An accomplished author and speaker, Chief Justice McLachlin is the recipient of 29 honorary degrees and numerous awards including Commander of the French Legion of Honour, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and the International Jurists Award.
Rémi Quirion, MSc, PhD, OC, CQ
Rémi Quirion is Vice-Dean for Life Sciences and Strategic Initiatives of the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and is McGill’s Senior University Advisor on Health Sciences Research.
Quirion is also Scientific Director of the Research Centre at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, a professor in McGill’s Department of Psychiatry, and Executive Director of the International Collaborative Research Strategy for Alzheimer’s Disease, an initiative by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
A graduate of the Université de Sherbrooke, earning an MSc (1977) and a PhD (1980) in pharmacology, Quirion began his academic career formally in 1983 at McGill University and has remained there ever since in a variety of positions. Author of five books and over 600 scientific texts, he is a leader in the field of neuroscience and mental health.
His countless accomplishments include founding and serving as the first director of the neuroscience division at the Douglas Research Centre, recognized as Canada’s premiere neuroscience centre and receiving the first large Canada Foundation for Innovation grant ($5.2 million) for mental health related research in Canada.
Quirion serves on the advisory boards of some 15 scientific journals. He is the recipient of many scientific and public honours and awards, among them Officer of the Order of Canada, Chevalier de l’Ordre du Québec, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Monique F. Leroux, BAdmin, FCA, FCMA
Since 2008, Monique F. Leroux has been Chair of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Desjardins Group. She also chairs the boards of directors of the Caisse centrale Desjardins, Desjardins Trust and Desjardins Venture Capital, and presides over the Desjardins Group Management Committee.
Prior to her appointment as president, Leroux was Chief Officer of Desjardins Group, and has previously served as president of Desjardins Financial Corporation and Chief Executive Officer of its subsidiaries.
Before joining Desjardins in 2001, Monique Leroux was Senior Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer at Quebecor, Senior Vice-President for RBC Royal Bank’s Quebec division and Senior Vice-President, Finance, with the Royal Bank Financial Group. She was also an associate with Ernst & Young.
A member of numerous boards, devoting her expertise and time to both private and public institutions, Leroux has received a multitude of business and public awards.
Steve Wozniak, BEng
Steve Wozniak helped create the personal computing industry as we know it when he co-founded Apple Computer, Inc. with Steve Jobs in 1976.
The Silicon Valley icon and philanthropist has since committed himself to improving school information technologies, “adopting” California’s Los Gatos Union School District and donating state-of-the-art technology.
He founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the founding sponsor of The Tech Museum, Ballet San Jose and the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose. Wozniak currently serves as Chief Scientist for Fusion-io and is author of the bestselling book iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon. He has also made numerous television appearances.
For his achievements at Apple, Wozniak was awarded the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 1985, and in 2000 he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame and awarded a prestigious Heinz Award, recognizing his innovations in personal computing and devotion to education.
Theo Jansen
Born in 1948 in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, Theo Jansen studied physics before leaving university in the mid-1970s to pursue painting and drawing. After working several years as a visual artist, Jansen created UFOs that he flew over Delft in 1980 and Paris in 1981.
For the last 20 years Jansen has been creating what he calls Strandbeests (beach animals): large, graceful and eerily lifelike wind-powered structures exhibited in motion on the beaches of Holland. The Strandbeests move according to primitive logic, changing direction if they sense dangerous water or loose sand, and Jansen is working to make their motion autonomous enough that they will be able to operate on their own.
Jansen’s work has been exhibited in Europe, North America and Asia. His writing, teaching and lectures, including his presentation at the 2007 TED conference in Monterey, Calif., challenge perceptions of the relationship between art and science.
Animaris Umerus walking - June '09 from Strandbeest.
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