Two faculty tie for Lifetime Achievement Award
At the Employee Awards on Tuesday the 4th, the most prestigious award came down to a tie.
The Lifetime Achievement Award went to both Jerôme Mizon and Christine Chatelain. The former is a professor in the Computer Science department, and the latter leads the Enrollment Services team. They received a standing ovation.
“In the middle of my [interview process] lecture, there was a fire alarm. We finished the lecture outside!” recalled Mizon. “That was 32 years ago. And what a ride.” He’s been a pioneering professor, championing early adoption of several now-integral topics such as web development and object-oriented programming.
“It’s a difficult award because those two positions are so different,” said Rebecca Volk, one of the event’s planners from the Centre for Organizational Learning. “It’s comparing apples to oranges. And to be honest with you, we often have three or four nominees for that category, and it’s harder [to pick] when it’s just two.”
The annual Employee Awards are given to those staff deemed to “demonstrate their exceptional skill and dedication.”
Recipients were nominated during the past school year. The winners are chosen by “a working group that’s made up largely of recipients of awards from previous years,” according to Volk. Each nominee needs two letters of support from fellow faculty, and in the case of the Laurent Isabelle Teaching Excellence award, from two students as well.
That latter award went to Jim Myronyk, program coordinator for Business Intelligence Systems Infrastructure, for his work setting students on strong career paths.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how strong the students are, how good the profs are,” said Myronyk in his acceptance speech. “What they wanna do is get a job.” He thanked the co-op department for their collaboration, and also brought up the story of the Tiananmen Tank Man, which occurred on June 5, 1989, almost exactly 35 years ago. Myronyk encouraged his colleagues to “be that one person. Make a difference in someone’s life.”
The winners received a framed certificate and gave short speeches before the crowd of about 60 in the D-building cafeteria.
“I thought [the ceremony] was very nice,” said Dan McGuire, a support worker in the Photography program and nominee for the Part-Time Support Staff Award. “Very warm and inviting, and everyone felt like a winner here today… I was very surprised to have been nominated.” When asked who McGuire would want to nominate, he chose Alan Brown for the Support Staff award (which Brown previously won in 2021, before McGuire joined Algonquin) and Denine Wrixon for the Lifetime Achievement Award. “Very helpful, supportive, kind … she’s been here for many years and she really keeps the photography program going.”
The full list of award recipients is as follows:
- Administrative Staff Award: Tara Kelly
- Deborah Rowan-Legg Service Excellence Award: Shawna Enright
- Dianne Bloor Part-Time Faculty Award: Sean Wong
- Full-Time Support Staff Award: Graham Timperon
- Gerry A. Barker Leadership Award: Lisa Benoit
- Inclusion & Diversity Champion Award: Kate Monahan
- Laurent Isabelle Teaching Excellence Award: Jim Myronyk
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Tie between Christine Chatelain and Jerôme Mizon
- Part-Time Support Staff Award: Caio Fernandes
- Philanthropy Champion Award: Angela Lyrette
- Team Staff Award: Enrollment Service Representative Team (Oleg Choutov, June Dang, Medina Dervisevic, Rushikesh Devale, Brandon Ferguson, Ahmed Gaabaas, Danayet Hagos, Aprile Harrison, Randall Heaslip, Aimee Hunt, Patty Langille, Melissa Martino, Jessica McRae, Katlin Meggs, Priscilla Neil, Alice Otoole,
Kayla Pettes, Nargis Rassouli, Michelle Anizio Riberio, Avery Runstedler, Tuesday Sengthavy, Irene
Thomas and Nikita
Tikhomirov)
