SACKVILLE, N.B. – Approximately 400 students will graduate from Mount Allison during the university’s Spring Convocation ceremonies being held on Monday, May 14, 2018 in Convocation Hall.
Commerce and science students will receive their degrees during the morning ceremony, beginning at 9:30 a.m., and arts, fine arts, and music degrees will be conferred during the afternoon ceremony at 2:30 p.m.
Lynn Loewen will be formally installed as the university’s ninth chancellor during the morning ceremony. A Mount Allison alumna and previous university board of regents chair, Loewen’s connections to Mount Allison run deep. A Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants, she is currently president of Minogue Medical Inc., a company specializing in the delivery of innovative medical technologies, supplies, and equipment and also serves on the board of Emera Inc.
Mount Allison will also confer five honorary doctorates to deserving individuals from a number of areas. This year’s honorary degree recipients are: president of the Crabtree Foundation and Mount Allison alumna Sandra Crabtree; Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Chief of Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (MCCN) in Pukatawagan, and Mount Allison alumnus Arlen Dumas; Indigenous advocate, activist, and Olympian Waneek Horn-Miller; group president and chief executive officer of TD Bank Group Bharat Masrani; and retired Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLauchlin.
“We are delighted to celebrate the Class of 2018 and honour these five outstanding Canadians at Mount Allison this spring,” says university president Robert Campbell. “It has been an honour to preside over Convocation ceremonies and work with Mount Allison’s students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends over the past 12 years.”
This year’s Convocation will be Campbell’s last one at Mount Allison, where he has served as university president since 2006. Campbell’s second term as president ends in June 2018.
Biology and biochemistry student Hannah MacKellar of Ottawa, Ont., will address the Class of 2018 as their valedictorian. Selected by her peers for the role, MacKellar will be pursuing a master’s in environmental and life sciences at Trent University, researching shorebird breeding behaviour and migration habits in the Canadian sub-Arctic.
Several Mount Allison students and professors will be recognized for their achievements during Convocation. Religious studies professor Andrew Wilson will be honoured with the Herbert and Leota Tucker Teaching Award, the university’s highest teaching honour, while David Fleming in physics will receive the Paul Paré Medal of Excellence recognizing outstanding teaching, research, scholarship, and/or creative activities.
Mount Allison will also hold several events on campus for graduates and their families over the weekend, including the fine arts graduating students’ exhibition opening at the Owens Art Gallery, the Convocation weekend recital by graduating music students, and a performance of REX! by Tintamarre, Mount Allison’s bilingual theatre troupe. For more information around Convocation, visit mta.ca/convocation.
