Conestoga news

June 9, 2009 9:51 AM

College-Wide Awards Honour Outstanding Students and Faculty

As part of the 41st Convocation ceremonies of Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning on June 10-11, President John Tibbits will present a number of College-wide achievement honours.

The James W. Church Award

Established by Conestoga's founding president, the James W. Church Award recognizes excellence in a combination of areas: achievement in learning, concern for the dignity of the individual and a personal contribution of benefit to society. The award consists of an inscribed and framed program shield, plus a cheque for $1,000.

The winner is Ashley Karpowicz of Kitchener, from the postgraduate program in Human Resources Management (co-op option). She attended Preston High School and has previously graduated from two other Conestoga programs General Arts and Science (One-Year Option) in 2005 and General Business in 2007.

Her academic grade-point average in Human Resources Management is 3.97 on a scale of 4.00.

She is employed at the Kitchener head office of Crawford and Company Canada, a firm that specializes in claims management for the insurance and risk-management industries. She oversees employee recruitment and performance management for the company nationally. Her experiences of childhood illness and the personal loss of a beloved family member determined her to become involved in activities and causes that enhance the lives of others. She has been an organizer, fundraiser and volunteer in connection with the Canadian Cancer Society Relay for Life, the Women in Insurance Cancer Crusade, the Children's Miracle Network, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Habitat for Humanity and the Kitchener Humane Society. She also holds a part-time position as a supervisor with Shoppers Drug Mart and has headed up that company's Tree of Life campaign in support of the cancer department at Grand River Hospital.

Recently, she has combined her desire to help others with her human resources experience by becoming involved with WRIEN, the Waterloo Region Immigrant Employment Network.

Her volunteer and charitable work at Crawford and Company have earned her that organizations Crawford Star of Excellence Award.

The Conestoga College Mastercraft Award

Established by former Conestoga President Kenneth E. Hunter, this award recognizes outstanding technical achievement by an individual or a student team in the creation of a program-related technical project. Eligible projects must first win a program-level competition to qualify for College-wide judging. The prize consists of an inscribed and framed program shield, plus a cheque for $500.

The winners are a five-member team from the Architecture Construction Engineering Technology program: Sam Bunting of Simcoe, ON; Peter Hendershott and James Whitaker-Dumont of Kitchener; Lindsay Markle of Burford and Lindsay Martin of Tavistock.

The team, under the name Synergy Design, produced a final-year comprehensive project known as the Gardenia Village Retirement Complex. The project is a five-storey apartment complex for seniors, located in Waterloo. An actual site in the city was examined and used as basis for the project.

The first half of the academic year involved design work, while the second half involved translating those designs into a complete set of working drawings, plus creating a scale model of the finished building. The project had to take into consideration landscape, architectural and structural requirements, as well as building codes and neighbouring structures. The 50-suite complex includes bachelor, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, amenities and administrative areas. Before starting work, the team visited similar facilities, and conducted extensive research and interviews.

The entire project involved about 500 hours of work.

The Aubrey Hagar Award for Teaching Excellence

The Colleges top honour for a faculty member, this award is named for Aubrey Hagar, a distinguished member of the Conestoga community for more than 20 years. A member of the Colleges founding Board of Governors, he went on to provide valuable service to Conestoga as Director of Academic and College Planning, then as Director of Strategic Planning. The award consists of an inscribed and framed Conestoga Coat of Arms, a specially designed Conestoga College Liripipe and a professional development bursary of $800.

The winner of this years award is Mary Carley of the School of Health and Life Sciences, and Community Services.

She has been a faculty member at Conestoga for 27 of the past 29 years. From 1990-92, she was a member of the faculty of the School of Nursing at Memorial University of Newfoundland. At Conestoga, she has been involved in many professional areas associated with nursing education: gerontology and elder care courses for registered nurses and registered practical nurses; re-entry programs for RNs and RPNs preparing to return to nursing (especially important during the nursing shortage of the early and mid-1990s), the diploma nursing program and, most recently, the degree nursing program involving Conestoga, McMaster University and Mohawk College. In addition, she has helped develop distance-education nursing courses for Memorial and taught nursing courses at various satellite locations of Ryerson University. Her research and curriculum development work have taken her into many new and innovative areas, such as re-entry to nursing, international and transcultural nursing, health care entrepreneurship, and even rural extension education.

A graduate of Toronto East General and Orthopaedic Hospital, she holds university degrees from Windsor (BScN), McMaster (MScN in clinical health sciences) and Guelph (MSc in rural extension studies).

She is highly esteemed by her current and former students, as well as by her colleagues for her thoroughness, dedication to the nursing profession, teaching enthusiasm and demonstrated concern for each individual student.

Joining President Tibbits in presenting this award will be Pamela Healey, who is Aubrey Hagar's daughter and who is Conestoga's Director of Co-operative Education and Career Services.

The four spring Convocation ceremonies recognize more than 3,700 graduating students. The afternoon ceremony on Wednesday, June 10 involves full-time and part-time programs from numerous academic areas Liberal Studies, Engineering and Information Technology, and Trades and Apprenticeship. The Wednesday evening ceremony is for full-time and part-time Business and Hospitality programs.

On the afternoon of Thursday, June 11, participating are full-time and part-time programs from these academic areas: Conestoga Language Institute, Media and Design, and Health and Life Sciences. The evening ceremony is for full-time and part-time Community Services programs.

Contact: John Sawicki, 519-748-5220, ext. 3336