Bishop’s University to celebrate Classes of 2020, 2021, and 2022 achievements during in-person Convocation ceremonies

Honorands Christy Clark, Louis Garneau, Glen Lowry, Sophie D’Amours, Esi Edugyan, Patrick Pichette, Caroline Quach

On June 4^th and 5th, Bishop’s University Chancellor Daniel Fournier will preside over the 194^th Convocation ceremony, and confer degrees on hundreds of graduates in attendance for the Classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022, as ceremonies had been deferred for public health reasons during the pandemic.

Convocation is also an occasion to recognize the outstanding achievements of deserving individuals, by conferring Doctorates in Civil Law (D.C.L.) upon Honorands – who this year include Former Premier of British Columbia Christy Clark, President of Louis Garneau Sports Louis Garneau, Director of New York City’s Museum of Modern Art Glen Lowry, Rector of Université Laval Dr. Sophie D’Amours, author Esi Edugyan, Environmentalist and Former Google CFO Patrick Pichette, clinician-scientist and COVID public health expert Dr. Caroline Quach. The ceremony will also highlight the contribution of recipients of academic excellence and community engagement awards.

Two Convocation ceremonies will take place on June 4^th, at 10 a.m. for the Class of 2020 (Mr. Louis Garneau will receive his honorary degree at this ceremony) and at 2:30 p.m. for the Class of 2021 (Ms. Christy Clark and Mr. Glen Lowry will receive their honorary degrees at this ceremony).

A ceremony will be held for the Class of 2022 on June 5 at 10 a.m. for graduates earning degrees in Business, Natural Sciences and Education (Dr. Sophie D’Amours and Mr. Patrick Pichette will receive their honorary degrees at this ceremony).

A ceremony will be held at 3 p.m. the same day for graduates earning degrees in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Ms. Esi Edugyan and Dr. Caroline Quach will receive their honorary degrees at this ceremony).  For more details, consult the Bishop’s University Website. Graduating students Natalie Nguyen and Antoun Shahin have been selected as Valedictorians for Convocation 2022 and will deliver their address.

The 2020 and 2021 Honorands are:

Christy Clark

Christy Clark led Canada’s third largest province for over six years. Throughout her tenure, Clark demonstrated the strongest performance of any Canadian Premier for economic growth, fiscal management, and job creation.

Clark retired from political life in 2017 as the longest serving female Premier in Canadian history and the only woman Premier in Canada ever to be re-elected. She was also the first Cabinet Minister in Canada to give birth while holding office.

Today she is a Senior Advisor at Bennett Jones LLP. She serves as Chairperson of the governing board for Roots of Empathy, an international non-profit, as well as the CN Vancouver Community Board. She co-chairs the Advisory Board for the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill. She is also a Founding Visionary for the Prosperity Project, a non-profit dedicated to mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian women who are disproportionately affected.

She serves as a director on several corporate boards, including Shaw Communications, Recipe Unlimited Corp. and Constellation Brands. She is an Associate Member of the InterAction Council, an international organization where former heads of state collaborate to find solutions to various global challenges.

In 2018, the Women’s Executive Network (WXN) recognized her as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women. She has also been inducted into the WXN Hall of Fame.

Louis Garneau, O.C., C.Q.

Louis Garneau is President of Louis Garneau Sports Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of sports clothing and accessories throughout the world. He is a member of the Health and Safety, Environment and Sustainable Development Committee. A former international cycle racer, Mr. Garneau participated in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. He is a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

In June 2007, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Faculty of Administration of the University of Ottawa. In 2008, he received the “Gloire de l’Escolle” medal as a former graduate having honored Université Laval due to the extent of his professional activities and his contribution to society. In November 2014, he was awarded the Medal of Honour of the Assemblée nationale du Québec. He was one of the personalities named Grand Québécois 2017 by the Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Québec.

His company, Louis Garneau Sports, acquired SUGOI in 2018, which allowed him to combine the Canadian brands SUGOI and SOMBRIO with the GARNEAU banner. The Garneau Group is now looking to the future with significant investments in e-commerce.

Glenn Lowry

Glenn Lowry became the sixth director of The Museum of Modern Art in 1995. Leading a staff of over 750, Mr. Lowry continues the Museum’s legacy of enriching public life through exhibitions, educational programs, publications, and digital tools that challenge conventional ideas about modern and contemporary art and design, and initiatives that bring MoMA’s renowned collection and research to audiences worldwide.

Mr. Lowry has significantly developed the Museum’s holdings in all mediums, adding entire collections of contemporary drawings, Fluxus, and Conceptual art, along with the archives of Frank Lloyd Wright. He has been a strong advocate of contemporary art and artists.

Mr. Lowry’s major initiatives include the creation of a new curatorial department, Media and Performance Art; the establishment of the Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives in a Global Age Initiative (C-MAP), a research program for the exchange of knowledge and ideas between arts experts around the world; and the merger of The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1), in 1999, all of which support the contemporary, global work that Mr. Lowry and the Museum have long championed. Mr. Lowry guided the Museum’s 2004 expansion and accompanying capital campaign—raising $450 million for the new building and over $450 million for the endowment and is currently leading a renovation and expansion project that will offer visitors a more welcoming, participatory experience and unprecedented access to MoMA’s collection and programming.

Mr. Lowry lectures and writes in support of contemporary art, on the role of museums in society, and on other topics related to his research interests. He is a member of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s board of trustees, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the steering committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and a resident member of the American Philosophical Society. He also serves on the advisory council of the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University. In 2004, the French government honored Mr. Lowry with the title of Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Born in 1954 in New York City and raised in Williamstown, Massachusetts, he received a BA (1976) magna cum laude from Williams College, an MA (1978) and a PhD (1982) in the history of art from Harvard University, and honorary degrees from the College of William and Mary and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Mr. Lowry and his wife Susan Lowry have built a home on Lake Memphremagog. Susan Lowry is a landscape architect and author. Her mother, Gretta Chambers, was Chancellor of McGill University. Her uncle Charles Taylor is one of the world’s most respected philosophers.

The 2022 Honorands are:

Dr. Sophie D’Amours, O.C

Dr. Sophie D’Amours was elected the 26^th rector of Université Laval on April 26, 2017. She is the first woman to hold the position. Having served as a professor in Université Laval’s Department of Mechanical Engineering since 1995 and as the University’s vice-rector of research and innovation from 2012 to 2015, Dr. D’Amours has a wide range of experience in higher education, research, and university management both at home and abroad.

Dr. D’Amours holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration from Université Laval as well as a doctorate in engineering mathematics from École Polytechnique de Montréal. Her research focuses on business engineering, logistics and value chain management, and decision-making processes.

Dr. D’Amours has chaired the board of Centre de recherche industrielle du Québec from 2010 to 2020, and she was appointed chair of the board of Universities Canada in October 2018.

Dr. D’Amours is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and has been named an International Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. With colleagues, she received the prestigious Brockhouse Canada Prize in 2012. She was also awarded the Prix Henri-Gustave-Joly-de-Lotbinière by Ordre des ingénieurs forestiers du Québec for her exceptional contribution to Québec’s forest industry in 2008.

In 2018, Dr. D’Amours was named a Member of the Order of Canada.

Esi Edugyan

Esi Edugyan was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta; her parents were immigrants from Ghana. She studied creative writing at the University of Victoria and earned a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars.

Her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, written at the age of 24, was published in 2004 and was shortlisted for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in 2005.

During her time as a writer-in-residence in Stuttgart, Germany she wrote Half-Blood Blues, about a young mixed-race jazz musician, Hieronymus Falk, who is part of a group in Berlin between the wars, made up of African Americans, a German Jew, and wealthy German. Published in 2011,

Half-Blood Blues was a shortlisted nominee for that year’s Man Booker Prize, Scotiabank Giller Prize, Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and Governor General’s Award for English-language fiction. On November 8, 2011, she won the Giller Prize for Half-Blood Blues.

Her third novel, Washington Black, was published in September 2018 and won the Giller Prize in November 2018, making Edugyan only the third writer, after M. G. Vassanji and Alice Munro, to win the award twice.

Patrick Pichette, C.Q.

Patrick Pichette is a Canadian businessperson with over 30 years of financial and operating expertise. He has led world-class companies like Google, McKinsey, Sprint Canada and Bell Canada to break through the complexities of ‘hyper-growth’ and digital transformations.

As CFO of Google from 2008 to 2015, he took an active part in Google’s growth agenda and ultimately supported the creation of the Alphabet structure. As part of Google’s executive committee, Mr. Pichette was involved in Google’s extensive corporate M&A agenda, engaging in close to 150 acquisitions, including Nest ($3B) and Motorola ($13B). Since departing Google, Patrick is now the Chairman of the Board of Twitter and serves as a Chairman of the Board of Lightspeed POS Inc.

Mr. Pichette has been an independent investor, advisor and board member to a number of startups and innovation networks around the world, including Forward (US), Arctoris (UK), LabGenius (UK) and Creative Destruction Labs, among others.

Mr. Pichette is an active environmentalist through his Kenauk Project.

In June 2015, Mr. Pichette received the National Order of Québec

Mr. Pichette graduated with a MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford in 1989 as a Rhodes Scholar, and with a BBA from UQAM in 1987.

Dr. Caroline Quach, M.D. M.Sc. FRCPC FSHEA FCAHS FAMMI

Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh is a Professor in the Departments of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases & Immunology and of Pediatrics at University of Montreal. She is an adjunct Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Occupational Health at McGill University, and a scientific collaborator at the School of Public Health at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels. Dr. Quach-Thanh is also the physician in charge of Infection Prevention and control at CHU Sainte-Justine where she also works as a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and medical microbiologist.

Dr. Quach-Thanh is a clinician-scientist, supported by the Fonds de Recherche Québec – Santé (FRQS, chercheure boursière de mérite) and was recently awarded the Canada Research Chair, Tier 1 in Infection Prevention and Control. Her research interests are in Infection Prevention: both healthcare-associated and vaccine-preventable diseases.

Dr. Quach-Thanh is the current Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization from the Public Health Agency of Canada. She is a former president from the Association for Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (AMMI) Canada (2014-2016). She was named Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Dr. Quach-Thanh was selected as one of the 2019 most Powerful Women in Canada (2019 Top 100 Award Winner in the Manulife Science and Technology category).

Dr. Quach-Thanh graduated from the Université de Montréal Medical School, completed her pediatric residency training at the CHU Sainte-Justine, and her post-graduate Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology training at McGill University where she also obtained a Master of Sciences in Epidemiology.

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