Emmett M. Hall, University Chancellor, making presentation of an honourary Doctor of Laws degree to Isabel G. Auld at Convocation held at Centennial Auditorium.

Bio/Historical Note: Dr. Isabel G. Auld was born in 1916 in Winnipeg. She was educated at Regina Central Collegiate, the University of Saskatchewan on scholarships at undergraduate and graduate levels, and McGill University on a National Research Council award. The war cut short her doctoral research. In 1941 Dr. Auld joined the Federal Department of Agriculture’s Rust Research Laboratory at the University of Manitoba, and worked in cytogenetic research. Dr. Auld’s lifelong career of voluntarism began during wartime with the Canadian Red Cross, as a blood tester at donor clinics. After marriage to Walter Murray Auld (1916-2015), while raising three children, she became involved in the consumer movement through the University Women’s Club. Dr. Auld’s focus in the mid-1960s was advocacy for consumer credit law reform. This broadened to family and social services, post-secondary education, health care, and medical research. Dr. Auld led or was a director of many community boards, including the Consumers Association of Canada (Manitoba Chair), Family Services of Winnipeg, Westminster United Church (Chair), Middlechurch Home (Chair), Klinic, Mount Carmel Clinic, and the Women’s Canadian Club of Winnipeg (Chair). In 1968 Dr. Auld was appointed a citizen representative on the Board of Governors of the University of Manitoba. She served 14 years, including four years as the Board’s representative to the University’s Senate. In 1977 Auld was installed as ninth Chancellor of the University of Manitoba, the first woman elected to this office and second female university chancellor in Canada. She served nine years (re-elected 1980 and 1983) on a full-time basis, concurrently serving on the boards of Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre (Chair, 1988-89), Social Planning Council of Winnipeg and Canada World Youth. Honours included investiture as a Member of the Order of Canada, and honourary degrees from the universities of Saskatchewan (1979) and Manitoba. Auld died in Winnipeg in 2016.