The University of Windsor will honour four outstanding supporters during the 20th annual Clark Award ceremony, taking place Tuesday, May 5 at 6 p.m. in the CAW Centre’s Ambassador Auditorium.
The Clark Award was established in 1994 in honour of the late Charles J. Clark Sr., O.C., Q.C., LL.D, and former Chancellor of the University of Windsor, to recognize outstanding service to the University of Windsor.
This year’s recipients are:
Dr. Wilfred Innerd, a former Dean of the UWindsor Faculty of Education, member of the University’s Board of Governors and Senate. He has served on the Advisory Committee for AIDS Education; the Teacher Education Review Committee; the Ontario Association of Deans of Education (Chair); and the Ontario Association of Children’s Mental Health Centres (President). He chaired the St. Clair College Early Childhood Education Advisory Committee and was a Director of Ontario Olympics of the Mind with the late Dr. Jerome Brown. Innerd served as Chair of the Board of Canterbury College the Board of Windsor Regional Hospital and serves on the Site Selection Sub-Committee for the new hospital.
Diana Mady Kelly, O. Ont., (BA ’60), an award-winning theatre teacher whose influence on generations of actors spans more than three decades. As director of the University’s School of Dramatic Art she influenced such luminaries as Antoni Cimolino and Stephen Ouimette. Mady Kelly is a founding member of the Stratford Summer Academy for University courses, and the Changing the Odds program for youth, with the School of Dramatic Art and Windsor Endowment for the Arts. She is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Laurel Award, an OCUFA Excellence in Teaching Award and the International Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education Award. She is a member of the Order of Ontario and a recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. She served as president of the Council of Ontario University and College Theatre Programs.
Carolyne J. Rourke (BA ’63, BFA ’91), is a visionary leader in arts and culture. She initiated Art Among Us, to increase the visibility of art on the UWindsor campus, spearheaded the first campus and city sculpture competitions and chaired the successful Humanities Research Group events, 1900 Paris World’s Fare and Carnevale di Venezia. She was integral in encouraging the generous donation by Louis Odette of numerous sculptures to the University and to what became the $4.5 million Windsor Sculpture Park. Rourke’s crowning achievement was in helping develop the Windsor Endowment for the Arts, which has invested more than $50,000 in community, literary, performing and visual arts.
Sheila E. Wisdom, (BA ’01, LL.D. ’04), has impacted the community from her days as a grants officer in the 1970s, supporting early funding for Hiatus House, a shelter for abused women. With her husband Jerry, she opened South Shore Books which drew major Canadian authors to Windsor. Wisdom served on Windsor City Council and championed a fiscal fitness policy that cut tax increases substantially over 10 years; the preservation of the Capitol Theatre and the Windsor Symphony Orchestra; and the conversion of a landfill into the Malden Road Park. Wisdom served as Executive Director of the United Way and led the organization through an economically challenging period in Windsor-Essex. She has also served as a member of the Advisory Committee for the University of Windsor’s Centre for Executive Education and now manages the Windsor Symphony Orchestra.