11) LEE LORCH RECEIVES DISTINGUISHED ACADEMIC AWARD

By Liz Hill

     On May 9th, Lee Lorch was presented with an award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), which has over 66,000 members. The Distinguished Academic Award is CAUT's highest honour and is given annually to an academic in recognition of excellence in all aspects of academic life, scholarship, teaching and service.

     Usually, the award is presented at the CAUT spring council, but unfortunately, Professor Lorch's health will not permit him to travel to Ottawa. The award was presented at Toronto's Bridgepoint Health Centre with over thirty of Lee's family, friends and colleagues present. Guests included former Member of Parliament Jean Augustine, and two former speakers of the Ontario Legislature, David Warner and Alvin Curling.

     In her remarks, Jean Augustine said Lee is a champion, a fighter, someone who has gone beyond, to support country and ensure things he believed in would be heard. He worked with her in the Canada Cuba Parliamentary group.

     "Lee lived a life that is full‑service, and was always encouraging, nudging you in quiet fashion to ensure all can move forward in a society where justice is supreme," said Augustine.

     The award was presented by Jim Turk, Executive Director of CAUT, who spoke of Lee's work as teacher, researcher and community activist.

     Lee Lorch was given the microphone, and noted the struggle for the eight-hour day that is marked all over the world on May First, and the struggles for the rights of women, in which his wife Grace had been active after being fired from her teaching job because she "committed matrimony" - the school board did not allow married women to work.

     Lee delighted everyone present with stories of his work in the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1950s, which resulted in his being fired from four different universities before coming to Canada to work and make his home.

     Martin Muldoon, of the Mathematics Department at York University, and a colleague of Lee for over 50 years, told of how during a CUPE strike at York in 2000, Lee insisted they walk in solidarity with the picketers at all seven different entrances to the campus, never giving up. Prof. Muldoon commented on how well Lee is looking, making a wonderful recovery due to the good care at Bridgepoint.

 (The above article is from the June 1-15, 2012, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)