An academic highlight, Memorial University’s spring convocation ceremonies will see more than 3,000 degrees, including more than 900 graduate degrees, conferred.
Convocation takes place at the Corner Brook Arts and Culture Centre on May 15 and at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre from May 27–30.
Honorary degree recipients
Memorial will also recognize seven people for their leadership in cultural, academic and social spheres with the awarding of honorary degrees.
Honorary degrees will be awarded to French culture, language and education advocate Robert Cormier; journalist and historian James Furlong; scholar, academic and cultural champion Dr. Noreen Golfman; educational leader and volunteer Leslie O’Reilly; entrepreneur and philanthropist Brendan Paddick; medal-winning Canadian Paralympic Games swimmer and para sport ambassador Katarina Roxon; and humanitarian and international Santa Claus Hall of Famer Bruce Templeton.
Full biographies of the honorary degree recipients follow below.
Honorary degree recipients are chosen from nominations submitted by the public to the Senate, the university’s academic governing body, after a careful examination of the grounds for their nomination. The honorary doctorate degree is designed to recognize extraordinary contributions to society or the university or exceptional intellectual or artistic achievement.
For further information about convocation, please visit the convocation website. Ceremonies will be broadcast live on www.mun.ca during each session of convocation. The recorded broadcasts will be archived on Memorial’s convocation website for future viewing.
Biographies
Robert Cormier
A Memorial University alumnus (BA’91), Robert Cormier has been a teacher and school principal, a founding member of several francophone organizations, a town councillor and a volunteer board member to many local organizations.
Mr. Cormier grew up in Cape St. George, located in the Acadian and francophone region of the Port‐au‐Port Peninsula on Newfoundland’s west coast.
He spoke French at home, but education was provided solely in English, meaning many members of his community were never given the opportunity to learn to read and write in their mother tongue.
Thus began his 50-plus-year dedication to promoting and preserving French language and culture in Newfoundland and Labrador and to advocating for and developing the province’s French education system.
He is a founding member of the first French association in Newfoundland and Labrador, Les Terre-Neuviens Francais, and a founding member of the provincial association, Les Fédération des Francophones de Terre Neuve at du Labrador, and served as president of both organizations.
He helped obtain French-first language education for Newfoundland and Labrador students and French immersion in 1975 in Cape St. George; the French-first language program was launched provincewide in 1988. The English School Board and the Francophone School Board now offer the programs throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.
For his efforts, Mr. Cormier received Le Prix Roger‐Champagne, an award from Newfoundland and Labrador’s francophone community, and l’Order des francophone d’ameriques, a national award for the preservation and nurturing of the French language and culture in the Americas.
He is a member of the Order of Canada, a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal and an inductee of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador.
For his commitment to his community and to preserving and promoting French language, culture and education throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, Robert Cormier will receive the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.
James (Jim) Furlong
In 2008, James (Jim) Furlong retired from a many decades-long career as a journalist and news director with Newfoundland Broadcasting (NTV).
For almost 50 years, Mr. Furlong made it a central part of his journalistic practice to preserve and catalogue visual images and stories of post‐Confederation Newfoundland and Labrador and then to research, write, produce and present the material on television to the people of the province.
In the mid-1970s, he became fascinated with the hundreds of hours of CJON‐TV footage that had been presented on the news of what would become NTV.
The material, which was living on dusty shelves in film cans and on videotape, captured Newfoundland and Labrador daily life and its decades of change.
Mr. Furlong quickly realized the footage contained a unique window into the province’s history that could be repackaged with a retrospective context. His first program was A Little Good News, which featured old film clips and was accompanied by Mr. Furlong’s thoughtful and whimsical essays.
Later programs would follow, such as Reflections, Today in History and This Week in History, each of which gave Newfoundlanders and Labradorians a rich understanding of their province.
He is a recipient of the Dan McArthur Award for News Excellence. In 2001 his editorial on a tragic drowning in Pouch Cove was judged the best in Atlantic Canada and then the top video in all of Canada. During his tenure as news director, the NTV Evening Newshour was named the best medium-market newscast in the country by the Radio Television News Directors Association of Canada. In 2010 the organization awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2012 he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
For his contributions to preserving the history of Newfoundland and Labrador, to shaping our understanding of who we are and where we came from, James (Jim) Furlong will receive the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.
Dr. Noreen Golfman
Dr. Noreen Golfman is a professor emerita of English and film studies at Memorial University.
Since moving to St. John’s for a lectureship in English in 1984, Dr. Golfman has built a robust career of scholarship and public intellectualism, academic leadership and dedicated community engagement and arts advocacy in Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada.
Her most significant contributions have been driven by her passion for and expertise in film, media and the arts. She brought international films to the local community and local films to the international community through her involvement in a truly impressive range of activities, from founding the longstanding and beloved MUN Cinema Series, to chairing the board of directors for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, vice-chairing the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation and, most notably, founding the world-renowned St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival. The SJIWFF is going strong after more than 30 years and continues to elevate and support women in the film industry and contribute significantly to the Newfoundland and Labrador’s arts and tourism economies.
Though not strictly focused on film, she serves as co-chair of the board of directors at Business and the Arts NL. She has also been a long-time member of the board of directors for the Winterset in Summer Literary Festival, which she chaired from 2019-24.
Dr. Golfman has been a tireless champion of cultural expression, feminism, equity and diversity, political awareness and social justice in the province and beyond.
She is the winner of the 2014 Women in Film and Television Atlantic Wave Award, was named the 2019 ACTRA National Woman of the Year and in 2023 she was inducted into the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Her vision, voice and fearless activism has brought transformational change for Newfoundland and Labrador, and for that Dr. Noreen Golfman will receive the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.
Leslie O’Reilly
Leslie O’Reilly, a native of St. Brendan’s, N.L., graduated from Memorial University with bachelor’s degrees in arts and education, a post-graduate diploma in education and a master of education degree.
In his more than 30‐year career, he has been a leader and innovator in Newfoundland and Labrador in numerous fields and has achieved a remarkable level of success in each of them.
This success was made possible by mastery of that most challenging aspect of leadership: mobilization of diverse perspectives, interests, organizations, communities and cultures to develop collaborative approaches to innovative solutions and community advancement.
In the K‐12 education sector, he quickly advanced from teacher to superintendent of the Port-au-Port School District. Mr. O’Reilly championed inclusivity and community partnerships, was an early advocate for integrated special education and introduced the province’s first French immersion program. He was vice-president of the College of Fisheries, Navigation, Marine Engineering and Electronics and ultimately led the transformation of the college to the Marine Institute, and affiliation with Memorial University, where he served as founding executive director and CEO. His global outreach and the many new centres of excellence he pioneered raised the Marine Institute’s status as one of the world’s foremost ocean institutes.
After retiring from the Marine Institute in 2005, he led OceansAdvance, bringing together industry, research and government for the development of the ocean technology sector. In the arena of health care, he volunteered as a trustee with Eastern Health, served as board chair for six years and led the creation of the Health Innovation Acceleration Centre, focusing on the development of technology‐enabled improvements to the health-care system.
For his sustained leadership in education, oceans technologies and health care and for his immense contributions to Memorial’s Marine Institute, Leslie O’Reilly will receive the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.
Brendan Paddick
Brendan Paddick’s remarkable business journey began in rural Newfoundland selling cable TV subscriptions door‐to‐door in more than 200 rural communities — a humble start to a thriving career in telecommunications and private equity.
In the 1990s, he built Persona Communications into Canada’s fifth largest cable TV provider and then Columbus Communications, which provides services in more than 40 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. It merged with Cable & Wireless Communications in a transaction that valued Columbus at more than $4.4 billion.
Mr. Paddick is currently the CEO of Columbus Capital, a private equity firm based in the Bahamas with investments in telecom, software development, energy and digital health solutions. He is also the chair of the board of MDA Space, a global leader in satellite systems, robotics and space operations, including the iconic Canadarm.
Since graduating from Memorial University with a bachelor of commerce (co‐operative) degree in 1986 and a master of business administration degree in 1994, he has remained a dedicated supporter and ambassador of Memorial, serving on the Board of Regents and Genesis’s board of directors. In memory of his mother, he created the Carol Anne Paddick School of Nursing Bursary.
Along with his wife, Renee, the Paddicks support many philanthropic endeavours in Newfoundland and Labrador, including Rainbow Riders and the Lionel Kelland Hospice. He co‐founded A Dollar A Day, which supports front-line mental health programs across Canada, and serves on the board of Team Broken Earth.
He was named Memorial University’s Faculty of Business Administration’s Alumnus of the Year in 2001 and Memorial’s Alumnus of the Year in 2013. He was inducted into the Junior Achievement Newfoundland and Labrador Business Hall of Fame in 2018 and was included in Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2000.
For his entrepreneurial success and his commitment to Memorial, Brendan Paddick will receive the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.
Katarina Roxon
When Leonard and Lisa Roxon immigrated to Canada from India in 1990, they likely did not dream of having an internationally award-winning swimmer as a daughter.
That Katarina Roxon was born with her left arm ending below her elbow and growing up in the small town of Kippens on Newfoundland’s west coast, likely made such a dream even more unlikely when she began swimming at the age of five.
Ms. Roxon became a decorated Canadian Paralympic swimmer and is the first Canadian female swimmer to compete in five Paralympic or Olympic Games. A few of her competitive highlights include a dominant showing at the 2015 Para Pan American Games winning six medals; the gold medal in the 100-metre breaststroke in the Rio 2016 Games, crowning her a Paralympic champion; and a bronze medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
A world-class swimmer whose athletic success is worthy of the highest accolades and praise, she is also an advocate, motivator and role model, using her success as an athlete with a disability to encourage others to dream big and boldly. She has served on the Provincial Council for Persons with Disabilities and relishes her role as an ambassador for Para swimming and Para sport by representing the Canadian Paralympic Committee, Canadian Olympic Committee and the War Amps of Canada.
One of the youngest members inducted into the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, she is also a recipient of both the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and the King Charles III Coronation Medal. She was named one of the most influential women by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity.
For her tremendous success as an athlete and her dedication to inspiring all people to realize their unique potential, Katarina Roxon will receive the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.
Bruce Templeton
After struggling in sciences at Memorial, Bruce Templeton had the good sense to pivot.
He applied for and won a $5,000 Bowring Scholarship, which took him to Sir George Williams School of Retailing in Montreal. He opened 96 stores for Bowrings in Canada and the U.S. before returning to Newfoundland and Labrador. He later joined the investment firm of RBC Dominion Securities and was soon made vice-president and and branch manager. He won the National Distinction Award from the Investment Dealers Association the top advisor in Canada.
His real passion, though, has been a remarkable life’s work in volunteerism, specifically making memories for children.
In 1978 he discovered a true kindred spirit in Santa Claus, and he has inhabited that spirit by donning the red suit ever since.
As Santa, he makes about 50 visits a year, giving away teddy bears in parades, at hospitals, schools and seniors’ homes, visits children in palliative care and comforts their families as they confront the devastation of losing their child. He has never been paid for this work.
His first of four books about Santa, The Man in the Red Suit, is a Globe and Mail best seller. Proceeds from the book and all Mr. Templeton’s Santa work have gone to Rotary International to purchase the polio vaccine for more than 500,000 children through the World Health Organization.
He was made a member of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2020, named the Red Cross Humanitarian of the Year in 2013 and was inducted into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame in 2014. He is a former Scouts Canada provincial commissioner.
For a life of volunteer work that has impacted the lives of countless children and their families, right here in Newfoundland and Labrador and around the globe, Bruce Templeton will receive the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa.
