2001 Fredericton Convocation
Armstrong, Robin L.
Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Orator: Patterson, Stephen E.
Citation:
CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 2001
ROBIN ARMSTRONG
to be Doctor of Science
Robin Armstrong is no stranger to this platform. For six years, from 1996, he served with distinction as the president of the University of New Brunswick, and his many friends here welcome him back with warmth and affection.
He was already a distinguished administrator at the University of Toronto when he was lured away to preside over this small Maritime university with challenges that must have seemed daunting. Simply put, there was lots to do and not much money to do it. Dr. Armstrong set himself a clear agenda, and he largely achieved his goals. He began by asking the university community to help him draw up a statement of strategic objectives. He appointed a new vice-president with the mandate to develop international co-operation and research. It paid off with the establishment of several new research chairs and centres in fields as diverse as pulping technology, space science, and family violence. He strengthened the alumni association by personally visiting chapters around the world, enlisting their help in student recruiting and raising the University's public profile. After consulting with students and parents, he reformed Encaenia, traditionally a long and tiring single spring graduation ceremony, and replaced it with three shorter ones more focused on the graduates. With him every step of the way was his wife Karen who contributed in her own right to campus landscaping, fostering the arts, and encouraging research into family violence.
His achievement with the widest impact, however, was the Venture Campaign, not only because it was the biggest fund-raising campaign in the University's history, or that it exceeded its $30 million target by several million, but because it developed the largest network of alumni, friends, and corporate supporters ever assembled to spread the word about UNB and generously invest in its future. Key to the campaign's success was Robin Armstrong's lobbying of the provincial government to pledge one quarter of the targeted sum. Students in this very graduating class today have benefited from the scholarships, library funding, equipment purchases, and improved teaching environment made possible by Venture Campaign donations.
We think of Robin Armstrong first as our president, but before he came here he already had had a brilliant career as a physicist, teacher, researcher, academic administrator, and leader in the promotion and development of scholarly research in Canada. He is the product of the University of Toronto where he excelled not only as a student but as a professor of physics and eventual chairman of the department of physics. His scholarly interest was in nuclear magnetic resonance, which at first he applied to the study of gases. Over time, he moved to the related fields of nuclear quadrupole resonance, neutron scattering, and magnetic resonance imaging. To us lay people, the most obvious uses of MRI have been in medicine, and we know it as a diagnostic tool used in hospitals and clinics everywhere. Robin Armstrong and co-workers at UNB have extended the use of MRI beyond the clinic to the world of materials — including concrete, polymers, plastics, and earth materials.
Robin Armstrong's research achievements won him recognition across Canada and around the world. In 1973, the Canadian Association of Physicists awarded him the Herzberg Medal for outstanding achievement by a young physicist. In 1990, the same association gave him its medal for achievement in physics awarded for distinguished service over an extended period of time. In doing so, it recognized his prodigious output as the author or joint author of over 200 papers, his service to numerous national bodies including NSERC and CAP, and his pivotal role in helping establish the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
Not surprisingly, when Dr. Armstrong came to UNB, he hoped to continue his research in physics. Perhaps uniquely among university presidents, he devoted one day a week to his work as a member of UNB's Department of Physics. His proudest accomplishment was in winning a half-million dollars in research funding from NSERC to establish a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Lab here at UNB outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment. As he had at Toronto, Dr. Armstrong continued to attract students from distant places and to supervise their doctoral work. Today, his students can be found in universities and research labs around the world, one of them filling the position that Dr. Armstrong once did as chairman of the department at the University of Toronto.
The pantheon for UNB's presidents is the great hall of Sir Howard Douglas's old college building, where splendidly robed presidents and principals look silently down from their portraits at the passing generations. Robin Armstrong's portrait by Fred Ross is distinctive: the president is smiling warmly suggesting that he liked his job and he liked the people he met here. He sits on a table covered with a colourful tapestry, rich and vibrant in design, and establishing his (and perhaps his wife Karen's) love of art, tradition, and beautiful things. But most important, the president is holding a book, clearly titled Principles of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Microscopy, and on a side table is another, equally legible as Advances in Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance. These books were not written by Robin Armstrong nor were they published in Canada, but if you seek them out in the Science Library, as I did, you will find that they are filled with references to the scholarly work of Robin Armstrong. They show that this president, uniquely among all of those who have held the office here, was a world-class scholar, recognized by his peers as one of the handful of leaders in his field.
Today it is our honour and pleasure to have once more in our midst, the smiling face of our former president, and to acknowledge not only our debt to him for his dedication to this university, but to celebrate his enormous contribution to the world of physics and the development of scientific research in this country. Mr. President, we salute you.
From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 3
ROBIN ARMSTRONG
to be Doctor of Science
Robin Armstrong is no stranger to this platform. For six years, from 1996, he served with distinction as the president of the University of New Brunswick, and his many friends here welcome him back with warmth and affection.
He was already a distinguished administrator at the University of Toronto when he was lured away to preside over this small Maritime university with challenges that must have seemed daunting. Simply put, there was lots to do and not much money to do it. Dr. Armstrong set himself a clear agenda, and he largely achieved his goals. He began by asking the university community to help him draw up a statement of strategic objectives. He appointed a new vice-president with the mandate to develop international co-operation and research. It paid off with the establishment of several new research chairs and centres in fields as diverse as pulping technology, space science, and family violence. He strengthened the alumni association by personally visiting chapters around the world, enlisting their help in student recruiting and raising the University's public profile. After consulting with students and parents, he reformed Encaenia, traditionally a long and tiring single spring graduation ceremony, and replaced it with three shorter ones more focused on the graduates. With him every step of the way was his wife Karen who contributed in her own right to campus landscaping, fostering the arts, and encouraging research into family violence.
His achievement with the widest impact, however, was the Venture Campaign, not only because it was the biggest fund-raising campaign in the University's history, or that it exceeded its $30 million target by several million, but because it developed the largest network of alumni, friends, and corporate supporters ever assembled to spread the word about UNB and generously invest in its future. Key to the campaign's success was Robin Armstrong's lobbying of the provincial government to pledge one quarter of the targeted sum. Students in this very graduating class today have benefited from the scholarships, library funding, equipment purchases, and improved teaching environment made possible by Venture Campaign donations.
We think of Robin Armstrong first as our president, but before he came here he already had had a brilliant career as a physicist, teacher, researcher, academic administrator, and leader in the promotion and development of scholarly research in Canada. He is the product of the University of Toronto where he excelled not only as a student but as a professor of physics and eventual chairman of the department of physics. His scholarly interest was in nuclear magnetic resonance, which at first he applied to the study of gases. Over time, he moved to the related fields of nuclear quadrupole resonance, neutron scattering, and magnetic resonance imaging. To us lay people, the most obvious uses of MRI have been in medicine, and we know it as a diagnostic tool used in hospitals and clinics everywhere. Robin Armstrong and co-workers at UNB have extended the use of MRI beyond the clinic to the world of materials — including concrete, polymers, plastics, and earth materials.
Robin Armstrong's research achievements won him recognition across Canada and around the world. In 1973, the Canadian Association of Physicists awarded him the Herzberg Medal for outstanding achievement by a young physicist. In 1990, the same association gave him its medal for achievement in physics awarded for distinguished service over an extended period of time. In doing so, it recognized his prodigious output as the author or joint author of over 200 papers, his service to numerous national bodies including NSERC and CAP, and his pivotal role in helping establish the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
Not surprisingly, when Dr. Armstrong came to UNB, he hoped to continue his research in physics. Perhaps uniquely among university presidents, he devoted one day a week to his work as a member of UNB's Department of Physics. His proudest accomplishment was in winning a half-million dollars in research funding from NSERC to establish a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Lab here at UNB outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment. As he had at Toronto, Dr. Armstrong continued to attract students from distant places and to supervise their doctoral work. Today, his students can be found in universities and research labs around the world, one of them filling the position that Dr. Armstrong once did as chairman of the department at the University of Toronto.
The pantheon for UNB's presidents is the great hall of Sir Howard Douglas's old college building, where splendidly robed presidents and principals look silently down from their portraits at the passing generations. Robin Armstrong's portrait by Fred Ross is distinctive: the president is smiling warmly suggesting that he liked his job and he liked the people he met here. He sits on a table covered with a colourful tapestry, rich and vibrant in design, and establishing his (and perhaps his wife Karen's) love of art, tradition, and beautiful things. But most important, the president is holding a book, clearly titled Principles of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Microscopy, and on a side table is another, equally legible as Advances in Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance. These books were not written by Robin Armstrong nor were they published in Canada, but if you seek them out in the Science Library, as I did, you will find that they are filled with references to the scholarly work of Robin Armstrong. They show that this president, uniquely among all of those who have held the office here, was a world-class scholar, recognized by his peers as one of the handful of leaders in his field.
Today it is our honour and pleasure to have once more in our midst, the smiling face of our former president, and to acknowledge not only our debt to him for his dedication to this university, but to celebrate his enormous contribution to the world of physics and the development of scientific research in this country. Mr. President, we salute you.
From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 3
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