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Kamloops  

Honoured by degrees

Bob Lenarduzzi, Canadian sports legend and president of the Vancouver White Caps FC, is one of three people to receive an honorary degree from Thompson Rivers University during the spring convocation in June.

The others include pioneering cognitive neuroscientist Brenda Milner and master mediator and arbitrator Vince Ready.

The university calls Lenarduzzi “a visionary community builder” who excelled as a soccer player, coach and general manager and now as president of Vancouver's pro soccer club.

“He represented Canada 47 times, including at the 1984 Olympic Summer Games and the 1986 FIFA World Cup, and was twice named the Canadian Soccer League’s Coach of the Year,” states a release. “His continuing contributions to the growth of the sport include the Whitecaps’ successful bid for a Major League Soccer franchise and the launch of the National Soccer Development Centre, a training facility for not only Whitecaps FC teams, but Canadian national teams, visitors and Vancouver’s local soccer community."

“(He) embodies the determination and leadership which TRU aims to foster in our students.”

“Dr. Brenda Milner is widely recognized as one of the founders of cognitive neuroscience, a field that merges neurobiology and psychology — brain and behaviour,” says the university. “Her early research findings that the brain is not governed by a solitary memory system were monumental and changed the direction of memory research from that moment on.”

Milner's work, in a career spanning over 60 years, continues to influence the understanding of different kinds of memory function in the brain and the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of people with brain disorders resulting from injury, disease and psychiatric illness.

Milner is a Companion of the Order of Canada.

In his years in labour relations, Vince Ready has mediated or arbitrated over 7,000 labour disputes across Canada. In B.C. these have included disputes in health care, pulp and paper, transit and ferries.

In 2014, he mediated an agreement between the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the province.

“He is renowned across the country for successfully resolving the most entrenched disputes in industry and the public sector in a career spanning over 40 years,” says the TRU release. “In the field of dispute resolution his achievements are unparalleled."

“Ready exemplifies the importance of consensus-building and conflict resolution to Canadian society, and represents the respect for diverse perspectives which Thompson Rivers University aims to foster in our students.”



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