Nursing, engineering scholars receive their degrees

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[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/crowe_lazaridis.jpg” caption=”Cathy Crowe and Mike Lazaridis will receive honorary degrees today from McMaster.”]McMaster will confer degrees upon 259 nursing students and 626 engineering students at today's Convocation ceremonies in the Great Hall at Hamilton Place.

At the morning ceremony, Nursing will present an honorary degree to Cathy Crowe, and in the afternoon, Engineering will present an honorary degree to Mike Lazaridis. Both will give the Convocation addresses at their respective ceremonies.

Nursing will confer degrees in philosophy, master of science, bachelor of science in nursing, and diplomas in advanced neonatal nursing. Certificates will be awarded in Ontario Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner. Engineering graduands will receive bachelor degrees in technology, engineering, engineering & society, engineering & management; master's degrees in science (materials science), applied science, engineering; and doctorates in philosophy.

Honorary degree recipients

Cathy Crowe, LL.D. Doctor of Laws

Cathy Crowe is a leader, innovator, advocate, health professional and an inspiration. She has shown that to provide comprehensive care for their patients, health care professionals must advocate for appropriate policies and communicate health issues and needs to
both their patients and to the general population.

Crowe has been a street nurse in Toronto and a pioneer in the field of care for homeless populations since 1988. She earned her diploma in nursing from Toronto General Hospital, her Bachelor of Applied Arts in Nursing from Ryerson and her Masters degree from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Responding to the deplorable conditions she witnessed in her work, Crowe joined with Beric German to co-found the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee (TDRC). The committee executes a three-level campaign targeting federal, provincial and municipal solutions to the homeless disaster.

The TDRC's “1% solution” demands that all levels of government commit one percent of their budgets to affordable housing.

Crowe has received an International Nursing Ethics Award from the International Centre for Nursing Ethics and an honorary degree from the University of Victoria. In 2004, she was awarded the Atkinson Charitable Foundations Economic Justice Award.

Mike Lazaridis LL.D. Doctor of Laws

An entrepreneur, community leader and technological catalyst, Mike Lazaridis is president and co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM).

Lazaridis broke ground with innovations like BlackBerry”, Inter@ctive” pagers and RIM Wireless Handhelds”. His list of inventions also includes DigiSync”, a film key code reader used in motion picture laboratories.

These innovations have garnered dozens of awards, including the selection of the RIM 950 Wireless Handheld for the Smithsonian Institution's Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology. DigiSync earned Lazaridis an Emmy Award for Technical Innovation and a Technical Achievement Academy Award. He shared Canada's most prestigious innovation prize, the Ernest C. Manning Principal Award, with RIM colleague Gary Mousseau.

Lazaridis is a member of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Science and Innovation Council, a board member of the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund, and a governor of the Information Technology Association of Canada.

His philanthropy stimulates research and scholarship at several universities and colleges, including McMaster, and his $100 million commitment to the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics is destined to create an international focus of innovation.

Lazaridis is the chancellor and a member of the Board of Governors at the University of Waterloo. He has received the Rotary International Paul Harris Fellowship and been named to the Maclean's Honour Roll. He was selected Canada's Nation Builder of the Year for 2002 by the readers of the Globe and Mail.