TORONTO, June 19, 2008 -- York University will confer an honorary doctor of laws degree on distinguished scholar and author John Willinsky, on Thursday, June 19, 2008.
“Professor Willinsky’s initiatives to improve the quality of academic research are of great value, not just to the academic community, but to the global community” said York University President and Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri. “At York, we are dedicated to transferring knowledge to the real world. We commend Professor Willinsky’s efforts in this regard, and warmly welcome him to the York University community.”
Willinsky, Pacific Press Professor of Literacy and Technology at the University of British Columbia, and Distinguished University Scholar in its Department of Language and Literacy Education, is an accomplished author in fields including language, literacy and literature, technology in education, anti-racism and postcolonialism.
He holds a doctorate in the sociology of education from Dalhousie University, and is author of the award-winning books, Learning to Divide the World; Education at Empire’s End (1998), and The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (2006), which won the Blackwell’s Scholarship Award for outstanding monograph in the field of acquisitions, collection development, and related areas of resource development in libraries.
He developed the Information Technology Management program for high schools in British Columbia and Ontario, and currently directs an initiative that is researching systems to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research.
Willinsky is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has been the recipient of numerous other fellowships and awards, including the Davies Memorial Scholarship, the Whitworth Award for Educational Research, the Canadian Education Association Humanities Fellowship, the Spencer Fellowship, and the Wilfred R. Wees Award.
He will receive his honorary doctor of laws degree during the 4:30 p.m. ceremony for the Faculty of Education.
Ceremonies are held in the convocation pavilion on York's Keele Campus (located at 4700 Keele Street), between Osgoode Hall Law School and the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies. For a campus map, click here.
For a complete listing of the ceremony schedule, click here. York University’s spring convocation ceremonies will be streamed live over the Internet. York University is the leading interdisciplinary research and teaching university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 200,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 11 faculties and 24 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges. York University is an autonomous, not-for-profit corporation.
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Contact:
Media Relations, York University, 416 736 5585 / media@yorku.ca
