2008 Honorary Doctorate Recipients

As executive director of the Kamloops Art Gallery, Jann L. M. Bailey has led the efforts to raise the gallery’s stature from a small regional gallery tucked in the basement of the museum into one of BC’s principal art galleries. Ms. Bailey and the Kamloops Art Gallery were co-researchers with the first Small Cities Community University Research Alliance in 2001, and she remains a co-researcher with the second CURA research project currently under way. Arriving in Kamloops in 1987, Ms. Bailey was the tour-de-force that played a key role in the over all direction of the $10 million capital building project, and its $1 million capital fundraising campaign that saw the gallery move into its current location in 1998. The new facility boasts an annual budget upwards of $1.4 million and oversees and develops a permanent collection of 2,500 plus works all while balancing the demands of nationally touring exhibits with the gallery needs of a small city and growing population of artists and viewers. Ms. Bailey has received a number of awards. In 1993, she received the Governor General’s Canada 125 Award, in 1995 the Y’s Woman of Distinction Award in the cultural field, and in 2003, the Queen’s Jubilee Medal.  In 2005, along with her colleague Scott Watson from the University of British Columbia’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Ms. Bailey was selected by the Canada Council as commissionaire to represent Canada in organizing an exhibition of First Nations Artist Rebecca Belmore at the 51st Venice Biennale. She was also recently appointed as Fellow of the Canadian Museums Association.

bill bissett is best known for his use of a unique orthography and for incorporating visual elements in his printed poetry, and his performances of “concrete sound” poetry, sound effects, chanting, and barefoot dancing during his poetry readings. He established blewointment press in Vancouver, an alternative publishing house that existed for 20 years and was among the first in Canada to disseminate the poetry of Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje, along with 200 others. bissett has been writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick and Western University. For many years he has lived part-time in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, which has been the subject of many of his poems. He has been awarded the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award, 1990-91, and the Dorothy Livesay BC Book Award for poetry, in 1993 and again in 2003. In 2006, Nightwood Editions published radiant danse uv being, a poetic tribute to bissett with contributions from more than 80 writers, including Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen. In 2007, bissett was awarded a lifetime achievement award from BC Bookworld. bissett is well connected to Kamloops for his decade of work with the Young Authors Conference (held each year on campus with the school district), his Kamloops poem published in The Small Cities Book and his popular readings at then Cariboo College and UCC. In recognizing bill bissett, we are highlighting the importance of empowering individuals through intellectual, cultural, ethical, emotional, social and physical development, and the value of diversity of interests and plurality of cultures among Thompson Rivers University’s students and staff. We are noting the value of culture to Canadian society and to education, and recognizing Mr. bissett’s considerable efforts and effects in that regard.

Dr. Bryan Kolb is recognized as one of the world’s leading neuroscientists and is often called a founding father of behavioural neuroscience. He developed the first course in human neuropsychology in Canada, and co-authored the premier academic text in that field. Among his many discoveries and achievements, Dr. Kolb was the first to show how the growth of new brain cells can restore psychological and behavioural function. In 1976, he joined the University of Lethbridge’s psychology department, and is currently a Professor and Acting Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge.  Kolb, along with his colleague Dr. Ian Whishaw, built the world-class Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience in 2001 at the University of Lethbridge. The Centre houses twelve principal investigators’ laboratories, vivariums, two MRI’s and space for about 150 students, technical staff, and visiting scientists. Dr. Kolb is a Killam Fellow, and a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the Royal Society of Canada. He is a recipient of the Hebb Prize from the Canadian Psychological Association, and is a former president of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science. Kolb has published 16 books, including two best-selling standard textbooks on neuroscience with co-author Ian Whishaw and roughly 300 articles and chapters. He is currently a theme leader in the Canadian Stroke Network and Associate Director for a program on Experience Based Brain Development at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s. In recognizing Dr. Kolb we are recognizing the potential and enterprise of faculty at small universities like Thompson Rivers University to do world-class research and to build collaborative world-class research centres.

Dr. Ian Whishaw’s research at the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neurosciences, at the University of Lethbridge is directed toward helping the approximately 60,000 Canadians that suffer some form of brain damage each year. A major effect of brain damage often is the complete or partial loss of the skilled use of a limb. Dr. Whishaw’s research examines how the precise details of bodily movements are influenced by injury or disease to the motor systems of rodents and humans. Whishaw is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Royal Society of Canada. He is a recipient of a bronze medal from the Canadian Humane Society, a recipient of the Ingrid Speaker Medal for research, and president of Neuro Investigations, Inc. Along with Bryan Kolb, Whishaw is credited for building a world-class neuroscience centre, the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neurosciences, at the University of Lethbridge. Established in 2001, the centre houses twelve principal investigators, laboratories, vivariums, two MRI’s and space for students, technical staff and visiting scientists.  He joined the faculty at University of Lethbridge in 1970. He is currently a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and holds a Board of Governors Chair in Neuroscience. He has had visiting appointments at the University of Texas, the University of Michigan, Cambridge University, and the University of Strasbourg, France. He is also a Fellow of Clair Hall, Cambridge. An accomplished storyteller, Whishaw, along with Kolb, co-authored Fundamentals of Neuropsychology. The textbook has been translated into German and Spanish and is now in its sixth printing, is used around the world, and remains the standard work in its field. His collaboration with Kolb has produced two other best-selling standard textbooks on neuroscience and roughly 400 articles and book chapters. In recognizing Dr. Whishaw we are recognizing the potential and enterprise of faculty at small universities like Thompson Rivers University to do world-class research and to build collaborative world-class research centres.