Gordon and Jill Rawlinson

For their benevolent spirits and philanthropic generosity, Gordon and Jill Rawlinson will receive honorary degrees from the University of Regina. Both are honoured to be jointly recognized.

Gordon and Jill were both born and raised in Saskatchewan; Gordon in Prince Albert and Jill on a farm near Redvers. Jill received the Governor General’s Academic Medal in high school, and then graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Gordon graduated with distinction with a Bachelor of Commerce degree (Honours, Administration) from the University of Saskatchewan.

“My father’s mantra was, ‘The better you serve the community, the better your business will do,’” Gordon recalls. “It has proven to be very successful.”

Gordon grew up around CKBI radio in Prince Albert, the broadcasting company that his father E. A. Rawlinson founded in 1946. Gordon took over managing the company in 1969, and became the owner and CEO in 1974. He has developed and expanded the company – now Rawlco Radio – to include radio stations in Regina, Saskatoon and Calgary, all of which have been recognized for their emphasis on community service.

“My father’s mantra was, ‘The better you serve the community, the better your business will do,’” Gordon recalls. “It has proven to be very successful.”

That same emphasis on community is evident in the lengthy list of philanthropic activities supported by the couple in the areas of health care, education, the arts, and support for Aboriginal entrepreneurs and business leaders, primarily through the Lily Street Foundation, which Jill chairs.

“Growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan made me realize and appreciate the importance of a strong family and a strong community,” Jill says. “There was a huge interdependence; supporting one another is just what you did. That’s where our philanthropic commitment to Saskatchewan came from.”

The donations Jill and Gordon have made reflect their shared belief that they owe most of their success to spending their formative years in the province. Some examples include: $1.5 million to furnish and equip the Rawlco Centre for Mother Baby Care at the Regina General Hospital; $1.5 million to promote business education to Indigenous students at the University of Saskatchewan; $230,000 to the University of Regina to support aspiring journalists and Indigenous entrepreneurs; $1 million to the Children’s Discovery Museum (now Nutrien Wonderhub) in Saskatoon; $1.45 million to the E. A. Rawlinson Centre for the Arts in Prince Albert; and $300,000 to the Victoria Hospital Foundation, also in Prince Albert. Other donations include $1 million to the Saskatchewan Hospital North Battleford and $500,000 to help develop a multiplex in North Battleford.

“Growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan made me realize and appreciate the importance of a strong family and a strong community,” Jill says. “There was a huge interdependence; supporting one another is just what you did. That’s where our philanthropic commitment to Saskatchewan came from.”

Jill and Gordon also provided $875,000 to a fund assisting Saskatchewan musical artists to each produce a CD, giving the artists full ownership of their work. The couple are also major annual supporters of the Canadian Red Cross, and the United Way in Regina and Saskatoon, always focusing their donations on the programming these organizations deliver in Saskatchewan.

Gordon is a Member of the Order of Canada and the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council at the Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan.

The couple receives their honorary degree on June 7, 2019.

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As a child growing up in India, Renu Kapoor recalls her mother helping young women further their education, while her father was a founding member of the Rotary service club in the country. She also remembers that students coming from other countries to attend school in their community were welcomed into their home. She absorbed those childhood lessons and has applied them as a volunteer and fundraiser and in her professional work as a counsellor.

“I tend to volunteer with activities that relate to community needs that I’ve identified as important,” she says. “My criteria for volunteering is: ‘Will it help people and make our community better?’”

“Regina has enriched my and my family’s life so much, and I believe in giving back to this community. I feel so fortunate to have met many beautiful people and to have built long-lasting friendships along the way,” she says

Kapoor has a Master of Social Work from the University of Lucknow, India, and a Master of Science-Social Work from the University of Wisconsin. She and her husband Don settled in Regina in 1965, when there was what she describes as a small but vibrant ethnic community in the city. “We faced challenges but felt welcomed,” she says. “In many ways the Regina of today is built on cultural diversity and richness; it is part of our city’s identity.”

Kapoor’s 35-year career focused on mental health and addictions counselling with the former Saskatchewan Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission and the Regina Health District. Over her career, she witnessed a shift in public attitudes regarding addictions and
mental health.

“There was a stigma attached to people with addictions or mental health issues, but in my work I counselled people from all walks of life,” Kapoor notes. “Attitudes are quite different now; there is an understanding that these things can happen to anyone.”

Her volunteer activities outside work encompass organizations such as Cultural Connections Regina, Community Foundations of Canada, Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction, South Saskatchewan Community Foundation, SaskCulture, Regina Public Library, YWCA Regina, Saskatchewan Health Care Excellence Awards, United Way Regina, North Central Family Centre and Regina Airport Authority.

“It is the biggest surprise of my life, and I feel deeply humbled by this honour,” Kapoor says.

Kapoor has also taken leading roles in various fundraising galas, including India Night, Champions for Mental Health, Moving Forward Together and the RCMP Charity Ball. She has been recognized for her volunteer work with the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers and Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, University of Regina President’s Community Award, YWCA Volunteer of the Year Award and the Saskatchewan Volunteer Medal, among many others.

Kapoor says she was in shock for days when she received the call from University of Regina President Vianne Timmons that she was to receive an honorary degree. “It is the biggest surprise of my life, and I feel deeply humbled by this honour,” Kapoor says. Her parents raised her to believe in the spirit of sharing, she adds, and that people should volunteer because of their values, not for recognition.

“Regina has enriched my and my family’s life so much, and I believe in giving back to this community. I feel so fortunate to have met many beautiful people and to have built long-lasting friendships along the way,” she says.

Kapoor receives her honorary degree on June 6, 2019.

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FLUID is a photographic portrait series by Los Angeles-based photographer Blake Little. The project began in 2017 as a simple casting call. The response was overwhelming. What Little recognized at the time was the pivotal and seismic shift in the history of the human identity spectrum that saw transgender, non-binary, gender fluid, Two Spirit and + subjects at the forefront. As an artist Blake felt compelled to begin recording the regular, activist, and celebrity subjects on the vanguard while paying particular attention to diversity of class, race, age, and geographic location of his subjects.

With the support of the University of Regina’s MAP, Queer City Cinema and other supporters, portraits were taken at the University in March. Little has captured a range of details in his models – from confident, poignant, or emotionally raw physiques and skin surfaces to carefully considered attire. Each portrait is constructed collaboratively with the model. Little’s subjects are “in-between,” “out,” or elsewhere on the gender spectrum. Each is a sensitive marker of degrees on the spectrum that can read as both expressive and open, or formally reserved.

The touring exhibition of 40 colour portraits and a publication have evolved in close consultation with Aaron Devor, founder and academic director of the world’s largest transgender archives, and founder and host of the international, interdisciplinary Moving Trans History Forward conferences and professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria. The FLUID exhibition will begin to address pertinent issues and concerns to a broader public, such as: Is gender over? What are the new semiotics of gender representation? Is post-gender the new international civil rights movement? What are the protocols and issues to be addressed in the making of photographic representation of trans, gender fluid, non-binary and Two Sprit + models? Answers to these and other questions will undoubtedly challenge expectations.

- Wayne Baerwaldt

 

 

Evie Ruddy Evie Ruddy

 “It seems to me we’re in a post-Pride era of diversity and gender neutral inclusion in public and private life, with issues being discussed in university forums as well as public school classrooms and corporate board rooms. As a photographer and a viewer there is perhaps an unconscious aim to have my own understanding of gender representation (informed initially by the culture wars of the 1980s) refreshed and perhaps corrected. I am so thankful to my models that came to the University of Regina to be photographed, simply for allowing me to work with them. In many ways I, like others, are being encouraged to listen in and learn about gender diversity through photographs and moving images. My procedure then is, first and foremost, to observe and interpret with sensitivity. The portraits and the social process behind their production at the University of Regina and elsewhere will continue to generate public discussion around why we find these images so powerful, alluring and, on occasion, so difficult to process. Each portrait subject invites new forms of characterization by us as observant interpreters.”

-Blake Little

Asher Chen Asher Chen

Blake Little was born and raised in Seattle, Washington and moved to Los Angeles in 1982 after graduating with a photography degree from Seattle’s Central College. He is best known for his ability to capture, with an honest intimacy, the energy and personality of his subjects. His portraits subjects have been diverse, from luminaries such as Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Samuel Jackson, kd Lang, and John Baldesarri, to rural Canadians in his series New West. Little’s work has been exhibited in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Calgary, Kansas City, St. Louis, San Diego, Lethbridge and in Japan. His work has been appeared in the London Times, New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and other media outlets. Four monographs on his work have been produced: Dichotomy in 1997, The Company of Men, 2010, Manifest, 2012 and Preservation, 2014.

Madi Schenk Madi Schenk

Wayne Baerwaldt is an art, photography, architecture curator and a Michele Sereda Artist in Residence for Socially Engaged Practice within MAP at the University of Regina. He has co-produced exhibitions, events, symposia and publications that trace performative elements, with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary investigations of unstable forms and disputed identities.

Apple Fluid Apple Fluid

Aaron Devor, initiated and holds the inaugural position as the world’s only Chair in Transgender Studies. He is the founder and academic director of the world’s largest transgender archives, and founder and host of the international, interdisciplinary Moving Trans History Forward conferences. He is the author of numerous well-cited scholarly articles and three enduring books: FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (2016, 1997), The Transgender Archives: Foundations for the Future (2014), and Gender Blending: Confronting the Limits of Duality (1989). He has delivered more than 20 keynote addresses worldwide and won many awards for his transgender work, including the Virginia Prince Pioneer Award, a national Equity Award, and awards from the University of Victoria for Outstanding Community Outreach, and for Advocacy and Activism in Equity and Diversity. His book about the transgender archives was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.

He is an elected senior member of the International Academy of Sex Research, and was chosen as a Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. He is historian for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and has been involved in writing versions of the WPATH Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People since 1999. He is also overseeing the translation of Version 7 into world languages. Devor is a former dean of Graduate Studies (2002-2012), a national-award-winning teacher, and a professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria.

Visit Blake Little’s website at www.blakelittle.com

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