During its 105th Convocation Ceremonies, June 14 to 17, the University of Windsor will award honorary degrees to individuals who have made outstanding societal contributions in the areas of social justice, literature, science education, business and diplomacy, medicine, and environmental advocacy.

Receiving honorary degrees are:

• Mercedes Benegbi, executive director of the Thalidomide Victims Association of Canada;
• Izzeldin Abuelaish, a physician and activist for human rights and peace;
• Samantha Nutt, founder and executive director of War Child Canada;
• Miriam Toews, award-winning novelist;
• Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society;
• Lynton ‘Red’ Wilson, retired president of BCE Inc., Canada’s largest communications company;
• Mark Awuku, professor of pediatrics at Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry;
• Maude Barlow, national chair of the Council of Canadians.

Mercedes Benegbi will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 10 a.m., June 14, session of Convocation.

Executive director of the Thalidomide Victims Association of Canada, Benegbi was a driving force in its 2014/2015 Right the Wrong campaign seeking redress for Canadian thalidomide survivors. Her efforts resulted in the Thalidomide Survivors Contribution Program; she continues to contribute her time to Health Canada and Crawford Class Action Services in support of the program.

Benegbi has spoken around the world regarding the devastating effects of thalidomide on the developing fetus, and has contributed to study and advocacy around the on-going and far-reaching impact of its use with pregnant women more than 50 years ago.

Izzeldin Abuelaish will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 3 p.m., June 14 session of Convocation.

Dr. Abuelaish is a Palestinian physician and an internationally recognized human rights and peace activist devoted to advancing health and education opportunities for women and girls in the Middle East, through both his research and his charitable organization, the Daughters for Life Foundation.

A four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Abuelaish is known as the “Gaza Doctor,” experiencing the impact of conflict in such countries as Palestine, Egypt, Israel, Uganda, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. He lives with his five children in Toronto, where he is an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Samantha Nutt will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 10 a.m., June 15, session of Convocation.

Dr. Nutt is an award-winning humanitarian, bestselling author and acclaimed public speaker. She is a medical doctor and the founder and executive director of War Child Canada, working with children and their families at the frontline of many of the world’s major crises—from Iraq to Afghanistan, Somalia to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone to Darfur, Sudan.

With her career spanning more than two decades and dozens of conflict zones, Nutt’s international work has benefited hundreds of thousands of war-affected children globally.

Miriam Toews will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 3 p.m., June 14, session of Convocation.

Toews is a Canadian writer who grew up in the Mennonite town of Steinbach, Manitoba, and draws heavily on her western Canada roots in much of her writing. She published her first novel, Summer of My Amazing Luck, in 1996 and has gone on to write such highly acclaimed work as A Complicated Kindness, and All My Puny Sorrows.

Toews has won a number of literary prizes, including the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Award for body of work.

Joe Schwarcz will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 10 a.m., Thursday, June 16, session of Convocation.

Dr. Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society. He is well known for his informative and entertaining public lectures on topics ranging from the chemistry of love to the science of aging. 

Schwarcz hosts The Dr. Joe Show on talk radio in Montreal and has appeared hundreds of times on the Discovery Channel, CTV, CBC, TV Ontario and Global Television. He also writes the newspaper column The Right Chemistry, and is the author of more than a dozen popular science books, including his latest, released in 2015: Monkeys, Myths and Molecules. 

Lynton (Red) Wilson will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 3 p.m., Thursday, June 16, session of Convocation.

Wilson is chair of the Wilson Foundation; retired chair and president of BCE Inc.; and chancellor emeritus of McMaster University.

After a career in diplomacy and public service at the federal and provincial levels, he set out on a corporate career that included executive stints with Redpath Industries, the Bank of Nova Scotia and Nortel Networks as well as BCE, Canada’s largest communications company.

Wilson now serves as chair of the Mercedes-Benz Canadian Advisory Council and as chancellor of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. A founding co-chair of the Historica Foundation of Canada, he is a director of Historica Canada.

Mark Awuku will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 10 a.m., Friday, June 17, session of Convocation.

Dr. Awuku, currently an associate professor of pediatrics at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University, is well-known locally for his six-year term as chief of pediatrics at Windsor Regional Hospital. He recently completed a four-year term as assistant dean for faculty and intergovernmental affairs with Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Windsor Campus.

His passion for teaching has won him numerous awards; other recognition includes the 2008 Ontario Medical Association Student Advocate Award and the 2011 Windsor Essex County Chamber of Commerce Business Professional of the Year Award.

Maude Barlow will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree during the 3 p.m., Friday, June 17, session of Convocation.

Barlow is national chair of the Council of Canadians and chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch. She serves on the executive of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and is a councillor with the World Future Council.

In 2008-09, she served as senior advisor on water to the president of the United Nations General Assembly and was a leader in the campaign to have water recognized as a human right by the UN. She is also the author of dozens of reports as well as 17 books, including her latest, Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever.

Read more about each of these honorees.

The campus will see the greening of several spaces this summer, as structures make way for grass and trees.

Crews began laying sod Wednesday in what had been a temporary parking lot on the site of the former Cody Hall residence, the first in a series of plantings planned for the summer months, says John Regier, manager of environmental services.

Houses at 2474 University Avenue West and 310 Sunset Avenue, previously home to the Community Legal Aid clinic and human rights offices, respectively, are slated for demolition by the end of June, as is an empty house at 846 Sunset Avenue.

The first two houses were vacated as the law clinic relocated downtown and the Office of Human Rights, Equity and Accessibility moved into Chrysler Hall Tower.

“They will become green spaces,” Regier says. “We will leave the trees on site and turf everything else.”

Two other buildings facing onto the Sunset cul-de-sac, currently occupied by the Psychological Services and Research Centre, will also come down this summer after its move to Riverside Drive. These changes, all part of the Campus Master Plan, will enhance the grounds, says Regier.

“It will really open up this area and mean a lot more green space all along this stretch,” he says. “We are excited to have so much new green space. We’ll start with seeding and probably planting additional trees. Eventually, we’ll be able to add some flower beds and other features.”

Another major addition this summer is a “drop-off zone” on Huron Church Road that will address the need for safe access to the campus.

Join scientists, engineers, policy makers, captains of industry and entrepreneurs at the Energy and Water 2016 Symposium and Industry Summit, June 22 and 23 at the University of Windsor.

The two-day conference will examine and propose solutions for sustainable water and energy utilization. All technical sessions will take place in the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation.

Speaker and panel highlights include:

• Gord Miller, former Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, examining how climate change will transform the water and energy relationship in North America;
• Jose Zayas, director of Wind and Water Technologies for the United States Department of Energy, addressing the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind scene and how it will influence North America and the rest of the world; and
• a panel discussing the latest renewable energy technologies and policies and their role in our mandated low-carbon economy and water-scarce world. It will feature UWindsor professor Francine Schlosser, director of research and interdisciplinary learning at the Entrepreneurship Practice and Innovation Centre (EPICentre), talking about the policy challenges that have faced the solar tech sector and how ingenuity must rise in the face of embedded agency.

Student discounts are available. To register or download the full conference program, visit cfewa.ca.

The University of Windsor announced Wednesday that the position of head coach of the Lancer track and field and cross country program remains vacant.

Andy Hahn has decided to remain with his current employer, the Greater Essex County District School Board.

In due course, the University will make an announcement of continuing the search to fill the head coach position.

Preventive maintenance will require an outage of electrical and steam services to campus on the weekend of June 24, reports Facility Services.

The shutdown will disrupt most campus buildings, with the exceptions of the LeBel Building, Centre for Automotive Research and Education, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, Centre for English Language Development, maintenance and grounds buildings.

The electrical power outage will also disable card access and is scheduled for 12 hours, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 26. Find details in this document: Campus Wide Power Outage Information.

The steam outage will also disable hot water and heating and cooling systems. It is scheduled to begin at noon Friday, June 24, and run through 10 a.m. Monday, June 27. Find details in this document: Campus Wide Steam Outage Information.