April 8, 2009 –The March 12 Immigrant of Distinction gala at Calgary’s Westin Hotel was so fabulous that Dr. Cecille DePass’s head is still spinning.

            “What an evening – I kept meeting colleagues I hadn’t seen in years,” recalls the UofC Education professor and Commonwealth scholar.

            “People kept approaching me to say, ‘Congratulations on your nomination.’ And one gentleman from an NGO (non-government organization) hugged me and said, ‘Cecille, it’s like a wedding!’”

            One of three finalists for the Distinguished Professional category of the 2009 awards, Dr. DePass says that while she didn’t win the gold award (“I think I won the silver,”) she enjoyed herself so thoroughly that she barely noticed.

            “The chap who won – Dr. Tadeusz Dabrowski – is the founder and CEO of a major international engineering company. I’m simply not in that league.”

But if she’s not in that league, she’s certainly in a gold-medal league of her own. Originally from Jamaica, Dr. DePass is well known today in this country for her contributions to the academy, including service as: president of the Comparative and International Education Society of Canada, 2003-2005; director of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education, 2003-2005; member of the World Council of Comparative Education Societies, 2003-2005; and former associate director for the Cultural Diversity Institute, University of Calgary.

On nongovernment organizations, she’s served as chair/president, Education Sector, Canadian Commission for UNESCO 2006-2008; an elected representative to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, 2002-2005; and a former Director for the Arusha Centre. She’s also published extensively in the fields of multiculturalism, global education, equity and social justice.

Since the 1990s, she has supervised several Canadian and international students, some of whom have become associate deans, directors of Canadian Studies and research chairs in their respective universities.

After completing her BA in history, geography and sociology at the University of the West Indies, she won a Commonwealth scholarship with which she went to New Zealand for an MA at the Victoria University of Wellington. “There were conditions attached to the scholarship,” she recalls, “which were that I would teach back in Jamaica following completion of that degree.”

Her career as a teacher began at a Jesuit high school for boys, then at a prestigious public school (“where two former prime ministers had been educated”), and finally at a Roman Catholic Teachers’ college established in the late 1800s. “I have very happy memories of teaching in Jamaica,” she recalls.

In 1977, she and her husband immigrated to Canada, where she worked in urban planning research with two Calgary planning and engineering firms, and the city’s Long Range Planning Department. Many nights, she taught geography at Mount Royal College.

“By the early 1980s, I’d had enough of consulting,” she recalls. “My husband said to me, ‘You were much nicer when you were teaching.’”

She completed her PhD in comparative and international education in 1988, with Dr. Mathew Zachariah as her supervisor; her dissertation took a critical approach to the newly published Abella Commission’s report on employment equity. “It was the first dissertation done in the field,” she notes.

With few university posts open on campus at the time, the newly graduated Dr. DePass went back into consulting, where she led a research project partially funded by the Secretary of State and Multiculturalism, examining employment opportunities of visible minorities. “I worked with five brilliant young women for the Calgary Status of Women – we even sold the resulting report at one stage, and put the money back into the organization.”

In 1992, she was offered a position at the University of Calgary, where she continues to teach in the areas of cultural and social studies, multicultural and global education, and educational opportunities for women and minorities. In recognition of her teaching abilities between 2002 and 2004, she was nominated for several teaching excellence awards. Her work received international recognition in the early 2000s, when she was invited as a visiting scholar to Liaoning University, Dalian, China.

DePass describes her teaching (bachelor’s and graduate students) in graphic terms. ”I believe in creating exciting collaborative teaching-learning environments in the Master of Teaching and EDER courses to allow the students to absolutely shine.” Her student evaluations consistently attest to this remarkable ability. 

“My career path in the academy and nationally have been connected with meaningful community inclusion and service. The roots of that path were laid long ago in the Caribbean.”

For more information about the Immigrant of Distinction Award, contact http://www.immigrantservicescalgary.ca/.