20th Alumni Recognition Awards Banquet

Concordia honours stellar group at 20th Alumni Recognition Awards Banquet

Two former ambassadors and a senator were among the 175 guests who came out to commemorate nine of the university community’s best and brightest at the 20th Alumni Recognition Awards Banquet, held at the Hyatt Regency Montreal. The Concordia University Alumni Association created the awards in 1990 to recognize the exceptional contributions of alumni, students, faculty members, staff and friends of Concordia and its founding institutions, Loyola College and Sir George Williams University.

Front row (left to right): Paul M. Levesque, L BA 57, Benoît Pelland Distinguished Service Award; Concordia President and Vice-Chancellor Frederick Lowy; Rosalind H. Wolfe, BA 75, Humberto Santos Award of Merit; Distinguished Professor Emeritus Henri P. Habib; Gina-Parvaneh Cody, MEng 81, PhD 89, Alumnus/a of the Year Award; Rita Lc de Santis, Honorary Life Membership Award; and Dominique McCaughey, BA 96, MA 02, Acting Vice-President, Advancement and Alumni Relations.
Back row: Frank Chalk, Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award; Steven High, Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching; Jameson Jones-Doyle, BA 08, Outstanding Student Award; Jean-Claude Trottier, accepting for his brother, Jean-Marc Trottier, AMBA 02, MBA Alumnus/a of the Year Award; and Philippe Pourreaux, BComm 00, President, Concordia University Alumni Association.

Media personality Sonia Benezra, BFA 82, enthusiastically served as MC for the second straight year, while Dominique McCaughey, BA 96, MA 02, Acting Vice-President, Advancement and Alumni Relations, and Philippe Pourreaux, BComm 00, President, Concordia University Alumni Association, introduced the award recipients.

Concordia faculty members played a prominent role throughout the evening. Steven High, a professor and Canada Research Chair in Public History, received the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching. He revealed that receiving a teaching award while being a research chair “is a beautiful thing.”

Frank Chalk, a professor of history and director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), was presented the Outstanding Faculty/Staff Award. Chalk noted that the History department is “the most amazing greenhouse for talent.”

Ambassador Kenneth Taylor, CSU president Heather Lucas, Caroline-Eva Boubonnière, Mark Pardy, Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, CSU VP Ramy Khoriarty, Ambassador Malcolm McKechnie

Lieutenant-General (Ret’d) and Senator The Hon. Roméo Dallaire, MIGS Senior Fellow, was on hand to support his colleague Chalk. Former Canadian ambassadors Malcolm McKechnie and Kenneth Taylor—best known for helping six Americans escape from Iran during the hostage crisis in 1979 when he was Canadian ambassador there—were guests of their friend Paul M. Levesque, L BA 57, recipient of the Benoît Pelland Distinguished Service Award. Levesque praised the university’s esprit de corps.

Jameson Jones-Doyle, BA 08, received the Outstanding Student Award. “This validates my hard work of the past year,” said Jones-Doyle, who is pursuing an MSc in Administration at the John Molson School of Business.

Gina-Parvaneh Cody, MEng 81, PhD 89, was named Alumna of the Year. “The guidance and financial support I received at Concordia was crucial to my career,” she said, and added that she met her husband, Thomas Cody, MBA 83, while they were both students at the university.

Jean-Claude Trottier accepted the MBA Alumnus/a of the Year Award for his brother, Jean-Marc Trottier, AMBA 02, who was unable to attend. Jean-Claude read a message from his sibling: “I used to be an airline person. After my AMBA, I became an aviation person.”

The Honorary Life Membership Award was presented to Rita Lc de Santis. De Santis, who was a member of Concordia’s Board of Governors from 1999 to 2011, thanked the association and related that she tremendously enjoyed her experience on the board.

Rosalind H. Wolfe, BA 75, was given the Humberto Santos Award of Merit. Wolfe is Senior Officer, Communication and Advocacy, at the Canadian Consulate General in Los Angeles, responsible for promoting Canadian film and culture.Upon presenting the award to her, McCaughey read a congratulatory letter from famed Canadian film director Norman Jewison.

Wolfe spoke highly of the education she received at Concordia—where she also met her husband, Michael Wolfe, S BA 73—and especially thanked one of her former professors, the late Harvey Shulman.

Henri Habib and Dr. Frederick Lowy

The event concluded with a special tribute to Henri P. Habib, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus, to mark his 50 years at the university. Habib was given a warm introduction by Concordia President and Vice-Chancellor Frederick Lowy. Dr. Lowy recalled that he often travelled to the Mideast with the long-time political science professor, “who was always received like royalty.”

Habib humbly accepted the accolades, but reiterated that university’s raison d’être is the students: “They are the pillars. Without them, we don’t have an institution.”