University of Alberta Honours Bishop Jane

The University of Alberta (@UAlbertaAlumni) invites members of the community to celebrate as Bishop Jane Alexander, ’93 MEd, ’97 PhD, receives an Alumni Honour Award for her leadership in local and international human rights initiatives. UAlberta President David H. Turpin will present the Rt. Rev. Dr. Alexander and 20 other alumni with their awards on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017, at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton, 7:00 pm.

The Alumni Honour Award recognizes the significant achievements and contributions over a number of years by University of Alberta alumni to their profession and/or their community. In Edmonton, Bishop Jane might be most closely identified with the city’s anti-poverty initiative. Bishop Jane, the 10th bishop of Edmonton, co-chaired the Mayor’s Task Force for the Elimination of Poverty in Edmonton and now serves as co-chair of EndPoverty Edmonton, working with community leaders to end poverty in the city within a generation. She also gives close attention to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — inviting her diocese to reflect deeply on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples — and to grassroots movements drawing attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women. Within the church, she has advocated for same-gender marriage, and in 2012, the Anglican church agreed to bless these unions. Her diocese also helped build an HIV clinic and provided education and medical support to a community in Burundi, Africa. Prior to her ordination in 1998, she was a music and special education teacher in northern England, and then in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta, leading to a PhD thesis on cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease in persons with Down Syndrome.  

Register for tickets at uab.ca/aw2017 For more information, please contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 780-492-3224, toll free 1- 800-661-2593 or alumni@ualberta.ca