Prestigious awards for BU's Everitt
Reprinted from the Brandon University Website
http://www.brandonu.ca/hillman/profs/prof0607.html
CAG Award For Service To The Profession Of Geography: John C. Everitt
Canadian Association of Geographers
Professor John Everitt will retire from Brandon University in 2008. It is both timely and most appropriate that he receive the CAG Award for Service to the Profession of Geography in recognition of the dedicated and numerous contributions to the discipline he has made over his more than 35 years in Canada. Through John Everitt's stalwart efforts the discipline has been admirably served. Professor Everitt has promoted and advanced geography both within and outside academe, and both within and outside Canada. In particular he has made important contributions in terms of teaching, research, administration, as well as consulting and community service.
Professor Everitt has contributed to teaching at both graduate and undergraduate levels. He has been both an innovative and a successful teacher. Since 1973 at the undergraduate level he has regularly taught a "full load" of 18 credit hours from first-year introductory level to 4thlevels (in some twenty different courses), as well as assuming other duties and responsibilities. In total Professor Everitt has taught over 8,000 students at a University that has averaged less than 3,000 students total enrollment a year. Although there is no graduate program at Brandon University, Professor Everitt has served on many Undergraduate Honours Thesis committees, as well as geography graduate committees in BC, Ontario, and Manitoba. Professor Everitt has worked with graduate students in Geography (now Environment and Geography), Community Health Sciences, and the Centre on Aging at the University of Manitoba, where he is an adjunct faculty member. More recently he has been on several M.A. Degree supervisory and examination committees in the relatively new Department of Rural Development at BU in which he is a "Contributing Faculty Member". In total Professor Everitt has served on ten M A and nine Ph.D. committees.
Professor Everitt has given over 150 conference presentations and has more than 150 publications. He has rarely missed a meeting of the CAG or its Prairie Division. Although his research is not directly related to this CAG award, a considerable amount of Professor Everitt's research has been applied, or directed to the Manitoba community (and elsewhere) and consequently has had an impact on raising the profile of the discipline of geography outside the walls of academe. As recognition of his status in the discipline John has been involved on several Canada-wide grants of national status.
Professor Everitt is never reticent about calling himself a geographer when in public, and as a consultant-geography has been used by a variety or organizations in the Prairies. In this context Professor Everitt's research on aging, urban renewal, and heritage has been used in Brandon, and his co-edited book on the Geography of Manitoba has brought widespread acclaim to the Geography Department at Brandon University. This book, was instrumental in stimulating at least two other volumes on provincial regional geography in Canada. His work on Belize brought him international acclaim. Similarly his work on the grain trade in Canada has made him an 'on-call' person across the prairies on this topic for other authors, newspapers, and radio and TV broadcasts -at the same time boosting his profession and his department. Professor Everitt's recent research work on the quality of life, tourism and sustainability of Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico along with his research seminars to faculty at the campus of the University of Guadalajara in Puerto Vallarta have built and strengthened ties among geographers in Canada and Mexico.
He has contributed to the profession in a number of administrative roles. For example, he served as Chair of the Department for nearly thirteen years. Apart from the usual selection of university committees, he was selected as a geographer on several other committees related to the internationalization of the university and the promotion of rural studies. He is currently serving as the member responsible for 'geography' on the Editorial Board of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Manitoba. Professor Everitt has always reviewed research papers for journals willingly and on time, and has refereed some two-dozen grant applications for groups such as the NSF and the SSHRC. In recent years, as a mark of John Everitt's status within geography he has been asked, by faculty and administrators in many institutions, to act as an external referee for tenure and promotion applications, and for decanal positions. He has served as an external examiner for a number of departmental reviews.
Professor Everitt has worked hard to increase the public profile of geography within BU as well as in his local region of Westman, Manitoba. He has been on a number of local Brandon committees as a geographer, and has served as a founding Board Member and Vice President on the Neighbourhood Renewal Committee (NRC) of Brandon, and President (for five years) and founding Board Member of Riverbank Inc., a local environmental group. He was also instrumental in promoting the need for an urban geographer on the board of the NRC, written into its constitution. Professor Everitt was also a founding member and Executive Member on Marquis, a Third World Dev-Ed group in Brandon, also serving as its Vice President. He also used his professional skills in the Assiniboine Historical Society as a member and Board Member, and in various ethnic, aging, and women's groups in Brandon. He has been closely involved with the BU Local Committee of World University Service of Canada for over thirty years, being instrumental in bringing twenty-five refugee students to Canada. He has served on both the municipal and provincial heritage committees. Once again as a geographer, Professor Everitt has given guest lectures at a variety of local and provincial organizations, and many presentations to Brandon City Council and the Brandon and Area Planning District. In total, he has been exceedingly successful at enhancing the reputation of geography as an important and relevant discipline within the university and elsewhere.
Within the profession, Professor Everitt has served on the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (he is a Fellow of the RCGS) and NCGE committees, he has served on the executive of, as well as President of, the CAG, and has represented the CAG at both AAG and IBG meetings. He is active in a number of AAG and CAG speciality groups. Locally he is best known as a co-founder of (in 1976), and a driving force behind, the Prairie Division of the CAG. John served as both SecretaryITreasurer and President of this organization, edited its Newsletter, and received both research and service awards from the Division. He has also been active as a geographer in other academic groups, indicating his recognized value outside of the discipline. He was a Vice President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Names. He has been active in the Centre on Aging at the University of Manitoba, served for many years on its Advisory Board, is a Research Affiliate in the Centre, and is a part of national grant applications (Community University Research Alliance -CURA, SSHRC) with other members of the Centre. He has presented guest lectures and/or seminars at some twenty universities in Canada, the USA, the UK, Mexico, Austria, and Germany.
Professor Everitt has clearly served the discipline of geography in Canada in a wide variety of ways, and has continually demonstrated the importance of geographic issues within the contemporary world. He has been very effective in all aspects of our profession -teaching and research as well as service. John has been a true ambassador for Geography in Canada. He has been recognised by his university, his CAG Division and by the RCGS. I call upon the CAG to give him its own recognition. Honoring Professor Everitt with the CAG Award for service to the profession of geography will give him due recognition and invigorate his continuing contributions to knowledge to the discipline of
geography.
BU Prof. Dr. John Everitt receives 2007 Award
for Service to the Profession of Geography
BU News ~ June 26, 2007
Dr. John Everitt, a Professor and one-time Chair of the Brandon University Geography Department, has been selected as the 2007 recipient of the Canadian Association of Geographers' (CAG) Award for Service to the Profession of Geography. The award recognizes a member of the CAG for exceptional professional service over a period of years in Geography. More>>>
Everitt receives WUSC Distinguished Service Award
Brandon University's Dr. John Everitt Recognized for Outstanding Commitment to International Development
Brandon University ~ November 6, 2006
Wheat City Journal - Brandon ~ November 09, 2006
Dr. John Everitt, professor and chair of the department of geography at Brandon University, has been named the recipient of a Distinguished Service Award by World University Service of Canada (WUSC), a leading Canadian development agency. The award, which will be presented to Dr. Everitt at a ceremony this Friday in Ottawa, recognizes his exceptional contribution over nearly three decades to international development and global citizenship through his support of WUSC’s programming. Dr. Everitt has been involved with WUSC since 1976, when he attended a WUSC international seminar in Guyana. He became a founding member of the WUSC local committee at Brandon University the same year, and was a member of the WUSC board of directors from 1977 to 1981.Those who know Dr. Everitt commend his tireless devotion over many years to the WUSC Student Refugee Program (SRP) in particular. The SRP enables student refugees from developing countries to resume their studies at Canadian universities. Through the program, some 45 student refugees enter Canada in a typical year, usually from Asian and African countries. By 2008, WUSC expects to have facilitated the placement of about 1,000 sponsored refugees. For the SRP to be successful, WUSC local committees on university and college campuses must raise awareness of the program and recruit sustainable financial support for it, which can be challenging. Thanks in large part to Dr. Everitt’s efforts, the local committee at Brandon has been able to sponsor a student refugee every year for the past 25 years.
Richard S. Mayombwe, originally from Uganda, was one such refugee. “It was the summer of 1984 when I first encountered Dr. Everitt at the Brandon airport,” said Selwanja. “He had come with his wife to pick me up to stay with his family for a couple of weeks until the opening of the university residence for the fall session. During my stay at his home, he spent a significant amount of time assisting with my orientation to the city and members of the local community. “This was invaluable in making me feel at home and ultimately in helping me succeed in my academic endeavours,” said Mayombwe, who now has a B.A., a B. Sc. (Hons.), an MBA and a CGA.
As his greatest accomplishment, Dr. Everitt singles out arranging the fundraising for the SRP so that it can be continued by others after his retirement. Funds are currently raised from an annual alumni donation, a Brandon University Faculty Association donation, and a student levy. The faculty association donation is indexed, and he hopes to get the alumni donation and student levy indexed this year as well. The work is rewarding because it’s so easy to see the results, he said. “I’ve done a lot of volunteering and charity work over the years, but I prefer activities where I can see the payoff from my input rather quickly as opposed to giving money and not knowing where it goes,” said Dr. Everitt. “Plus it helps some nice people who otherwise have no hope.”
A leading development organization in Canada, WUSC is a network of individuals and post-secondary institutions who believe that all peoples are entitled to the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to a more equitable world. Active on more than 50 university and college campuses across Canada, its mission is to foster human development and global understanding through education and training.
(1) 1990. First Annual Award for service to Geography in the Western Interior, Prairie Division, Canadian Association of Geographers.
Other Awards Received
(2) 1991. Brandon University Senate Award for Excellence in Research.(3) 1994. John H. Warkentin Award for Scholarly Contributions to the Geography of the Western Interior, Prairie Division, Canadian Association of Geographers.
(4) 2004 Awarded Christoph Stadel Professorship of Geography, Brandon University.
(5) 2004 Royal Canadian Geographic Society's 75th anniversary medallion for volunteer service.
(6) 2005 Marquis Project “Global Citizenship” award.
(7) 2005 Elected to the College of Fellows, Royal Canadian Geographical Society (FRCGS).
(8) 2006 City of Brandon, Mayor’s Volunteer award: “Special Award”, May 2006.(9) 2008 President’s Medal, Brandon University
For more information, please contact:
Wallace Beaton ~ Senior Communications Officer ~ World University Service of Canada
Phone: (613) 761-3643 ~ Cell: (613) 314-3551 ~ Email: wallace@wusc.caDr. John Everitt ~ Department of Geography ~ Brandon University
Phone: (204) 727-9766 (office) ~ Email: everitt@brandonu.caRichard Selwanja
Phone: (613) 526-5108 ~ Email: RichardS@rmscga.ca