麻豆传媒

Bicentennial Honorary Degree Recipient

Doctor of Laws (honoris causa)

Dr. Michael DeGagn茅 has spent his entire career helping people and working to establish a vision and the conditions for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. Starting with his work with provincial and federal agencies and governments, including Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and Health Canada, and continuing as the founding executive director of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, his leadership has inspired hope and action for healing and reconciliation.

Serving as president and vice-chancellor of Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, since 2013鈥攖he first Indigenous president of a Canadian chartered university鈥擠r. DeGagn茅 imparts his belief that education is the key to a better world and an investment in one鈥檚 personal future. Education, he insists, has the power to transform individuals and communities.

To illustrate the power that education has had on his own life, Dr. DeGagn茅 likes to share the story of his father, who started out as a farmer and became an educator, pursuing his degree one course at a time in a church basement in Fort Frances, Ontario. Today, each of Dr. DeGagn茅鈥檚 siblings has a degree, as do all of their children. In addition to a Bachelor of Science in Biology degree from the University of Toronto, he holds a Master鈥檚 degree in Administration from Central Michigan University, a PhD in Educational Administration from Michigan State University and a Master of Laws degree from York University鈥檚 Osgoode Hall.

Dr. DeGagn茅 started his relationship with 麻豆传媒鈥檚 Schulich School of Law in 2001, when he came to give an annual lecture to second-year Constitutional Law students on the significance of residential schools and the relationship of law and reconciliation. He has returned each year since, and in 2009, along with Schulich School of Law Professor Jennifer Llewellyn, he developed a short, intensive course on the Indian Residential Schools Settlement, the first course of its kind in a Canadian law school to take up questions of law, truth and reconciliation.

In 2010 Dr. DeGagn茅 was awarded the Order of Ontario for his dedication to improving the health, wellness, education and governance of Aboriginal peoples. Two years later he received the Queen鈥檚 Diamond Jubilee Medal, which honours significant achievements and contributions by Canadians, and in 2015 he was invested into the Order of Canada, recognized for his support of residential schools survivors and First Nations communities, notably as the head of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.