Newsbites (page 4)

Newsbites (page 4) McGill University

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Home > McGill News > 2007 > Summer 2007 > Newsbites > Newsbites (page 4)

Newsbites (page 4)

Ericksson on your envelope Moriyame on your mail...

Mcgill news

In honouring the 100-year history of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) through a new series of stamps, Canada Post is also paying tribute to a trio of remarkable McGill architecture graduates.

In the spring, Canada Post issued a series of four stamps, each paying tribute to a prominent Canadian architect who has received both the RAIC gold medal and the Order of Canada. Three of the four are McGill grads: Arthur Erickson, BArch’50, LLD’75, Raymond Moriyama, MArch’57, DSc’93, and Moshe Safdie, BArch’61, LLD’82. The fourth architect selected is Douglas Cardinal.

Each of the four is represented on the stamps by one of their major works: the University of Lethbridge (Erickson), the Ontario Science Centre (Moriyama), the National Gallery of Canada (Safdie) and St. Mary’s Church in Red Deer, Alberta (Cardinal).

“The fact that three of the four are McGill grads is more than coincidence,” says School of Architecture director David Covo, BScArch’71, BArch’74. “It’s evidence of the role that McGill grads have played, and continue to play, not only in the design and construction of our built environment but also in the shaping of the profession itself.” Maybe so, but there’s at least one boast McGill can no longer make about its architectural alums — you can’t say they can’t be licked.

Taylor takes Templeton

Philosopher Charles Taylor

On May 2, during a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace, the Duke of Edinburgh presented McGill philosophy professor emeritus Charles Taylor, BA’52, with the 2007 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities. The prize is worth £800,000 (approximately $1.5-million U.S.), making it the world’s largest annual monetary award given to an individual.

Previous recipients include Mother Teresa, Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and palliative care pioneer Cicely Saunders.

“Throughout his career, Charles Taylor has staked an often lonely position that insists on the inclusion of spiritual dimensions in discussions of public policy, history, linguistics, literature and every other facet of humanities and the social sciences,” says Templeton Foundation president John M. Templeton Jr. “Through careful analysis, impeccable scholarship, and powerful, passionate language, he has given us bold new insights that provide a fresh understanding of the many problems of the world and, potentially, how we might together resolve them.”

Taylor’s often provocative views on subjects such as nationalism, multiculturalism and modernity are widely influential and the Quebec government recently appointed him to co-chair a commission that will examine the debate surrounding the “reasonable accommodation” of cultural and religious minorities in Quebec society.

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Contributors: James Martin, Daniel McCabe and Neale McDevitt