Philip Girard is a writer, author and research professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. He was born 18 May 1955 in Chatham, Ontario, and grew up on a farm in nearby Merlin.
Girard earned a BA from Brock University, Ontario (1976), and an LLB from McGill University, Montreal (1979), before clerking at the Supreme Court of Canada for Justice W.Z. Estey (1979-1980). Following his clerkship he taught at the University of Western Ontario (1980-1983) and in 1983 began a Masters degree in legal history and jurisprudence at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1986. In 1984 he began teaching at Dalhousie Law School and has been called “one of Dalhousie’s most scholarly professors,” introducing a course in Canadian legal history. He has been a visiting professor at the Native Law Centre, University of Saskatchewan (1982), Osgoode Hall Law School (1993-1994),and the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi (1997). He has served as acting Dean of the Faculty of Law (1991-1993), president of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers (2003-2004), Associate Editor of the Osgoode Society for Legal History, and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research (Law) (2002-2006).
Girard’s research interests include property law, sexual orientation and the law, and legal history of the Maritime provinces. His work has been published in both law and history journals and anthologies, and his Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life, won the 2006 Chalmers Award. Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America: Beamish Murdoch of Halifax (2011).
Philip Girard married Dr. Sheila Zurbrigg in 1984, with whom he has two children: Daniel (born 1985) and Gabriel (born 1988).
Joan Gilroy is an activist, feminist and social worker whose career has straddled the community and the academy.
Born and raised in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, the second of five children, Joan Gilroy's early education took place in one- and two-room schoolhouses until she moved to Truro to complete high school. She received her BA from Dalhousie University in 1956, followed by an MSW in 1958 from the Maritime School of Social Work, which was then associated with the University of King's College. She returned to the school as a field instructor and director of admissions between periods of employment as a social worker in Nova Scotia and Montreal.
In 1969 she joined the faculty of the Maritime School of Social Work at Dalhousie University, and in 1990 was the first woman to be appointed director of the school, a position she held until her retirement in 1998. During her tenure she took two study leaves, earning an MA from the Institute of Criminology at the University of Toronto in 1974, and pursuing a PhD between 1980-1983 in the Department of Sociology in Education at OISE.
Gilroy’s teaching, research, professional activities and community work has focused on children, women, and feminist social work practice. She was a founding member for the Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers, a founding member and chair of the Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work Women’s Caucus, and chair of the Women’s Caucus of the International Association of Schools of Social Work.
Her contributions to social justice have been recognized by both her peers and the wider community: among other honours she has received YMCA’s Women’s Recognition (1993); the Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers’ Freda Vickery Award (1997); Certificate of Commendation from Canada’s Governor General (1997); Dalhousie University’s A. Gordon Archibald Award (2002); and the Canadian Association of Social Workers Distinguished Service Award (2005).
Gilbert, W. S. (William Schwenck)
Bill Freedman, born 20 January 1950, was a dedicated naturalist, conservationist and environmental scientist. He was a professor and researcher in the Department of Biology and in the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University from 1979–2015, teaching classes in introductory biology, environmental science and environmental ecology. From 2000–2007 he served as Chair of the Biology Department; he held the George H.S. Campbell Chair in Biology from 2007–2010 and was appointed Professor Emeritus on his retirement in 2015.
Freedman’s research examined the impact of human economic activities on ecosystems and biodiversity. His interests included the ecological repercussions of a wide range of industrial activities, in particular those associated with forestry, including the effects of pesticides, metals, sulphur dioxide, acidification and nutrient inputs to freshwater. He studied forests as CO2-emission offsets, urban ecology, the design of environmental monitoring programs, and ecologically sustainable systems of resource use. Although much of his research was carried out in the Arctic and in boreal and temperate forest regions of Canada, he travelled widely to observe ecosystems and biodiversity on a global scale. He participated in environmental impact assessments of proposed and operating industrial facilities, and served on several government advisory panels. Freedman was a prolific writer who published 10 books (including the first Canadian Environmental Science textbook), more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, hundreds of scientific papers and research reports, and several thousand encyclopedia entries.
Freedman was a dedicated volunteer with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, serving as a national trustee and sitting for 26 years on the national Board of Directors (1991–2015). He also chaired the Atlantic Regional Board and the NCC's National Science Advisory Network, as well as sitting on the Board of Directors of the Tree Canada Foundation, which raises funds and awareness for planting non-industrial trees in urban and rural settings.
In 2006 Freedman received the Canadian Environmental Award, Gold Medal Level, in the category of Community Awards for Conservation from the Canadian Geographic Society; in 2007 he received a Career Achievement Award from the Canadian Council of University Biology Chairs. Shortly after his death on 26 September 2015, the NCC dedicated a coastal reserve in Prospect, Nova Scotia, in his honour, renaming it the Dr. Bill Freedman Nature Reserve.