Four alumni have received high honours for their contributions to their communities and their country.
Sally Armstrong (DLitt'16), internationally renowned speaker, journalist, award-winning author and human rights activist, was promoted to officer of the Order of Canada. She was honoured for her groundbreaking work "highlighting human rights and the struggles of women in the world’s conflict zones."
As a journalist, Armstrong has covered stories of conflict from Bosnia and Somalia to Congo and Afghanistan. Her eyewitness reports earned her the Amnesty International Media Award three times. Armstrong shares with her audiences lessons she’s learned from the battlefields surrounding the complexities of human rights versus human wrongs.
Armstrong is a former member of the International Women’s Commission at the United Nations. She is the author of numerous books, several of which have focused on challenges faced by women around the globe, and in film, she has made eight documentaries.
In 2016, UNB awarded Armstrong an honorary doctor of letters degree.
Allan Andrews (BPE'69), founder and president of the Andrews Hockey Growth Programs in Charlottetown, PEI, was invested as a member of the Order of Canada. He was recognized for his involvement in Canadian hockey and for his "renowned leadership, mentorship and training abilities on and off the ice."
Andrews has been involved in coaching and developing hockey players on PEI for nearly 60 years and has worked with several national and provincial boards and committees on fitness and amateur sport. With his help, players like Rick Vaive, Bob Stewart, Brad Richards and Sidney Crosby have gone on to professional, university and junior careers. His work in hockey research, particularly hockey skating, is recognized worldwide.
Andrews has been a member of the National Advisory Committee for Fitness and Amateur Sport for the federal sport minister, an international board member for Allied Youth, a founding board member for The Christian Council of Reconciliation for Canadian Penitentiaries, and a member of Canada Games Mission staff. (Source: andrewshockey.ca/staff/)
A tireless champion for health care options for pregnant women British Columbia, Elaine Carty, CM (BN'66), was instrumental in bringing midwifery into the mainstream and providing pregnant women with disabilities supportive delivery and postnatal care.
Carty’s pioneering practice, research and advocacy for midwifery overcame strong opposition and made possible the formal education program which created and expanded professional midwifery in the province.
Beginning in the late 1970s, she worked closely with forward-thinking obstetricians and family physicians on pilot projects demonstrating safe midwifery practice in action. She went on to conduct clinical research on innovative approaches to care during childbirth, built alliances across hospital and community care sectors, and steadfastly eroded the structural and attitudinal barriers to legitimizing midwifery. In 2002, she established BC’s founding midwifery education program within the department of family practice of UBC’s faculty of medicine.
For decades, Jennifer Wade (BA'58), has helped those in need and those facing injustices who are often unable to speak for themselves. A human rights advocate, Wade is one of the founding members of Amnesty International in Vancouver. She has worked not only on behalf of prisoners of conscience all over the world, but also has been a public spokesperson and champion for prisoners’ rights, children in care, and people facing injustices.
Her involvement in human rights issues began in the 1960s while studying in England, continued in the United States, where she worked for the Civil Rights Movement, and has been sustained throughout her life in New York, Pakistan, Halifax and Vancouver.
Wade has been a supporter and board member of the United Nations Association of British Columbia, the World Federalists, and the Royal Commonwealth Society. She was also on both the local and national boards of the Elizabeth Fry Society, a group dedicated to helping women prisoners and their children.
