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Dr. Stanley Morris, born in 1937, obtained a Ph D. from McGill University in 1964 and joined Sir George Williams University the same year as Assistant Professor of Physics. He became Associate Professor in 1969 and retired from Concordia University in May 1977.

Guy Thouin is a musician and artist born on April 10, 1940, in Montreal. He studied percussion with a private tutor from 1959 to 1960, and during the early 60s, started playing drums at bars in Montreal. He graduated from l’École d’Optique du Québec in 1964 and worked as an optician for a year before he began his studies in fine arts at l‘École des Beaux-arts de Montréal. From 1969 to 1970, Thouin studied classic percussion at McGill University under Pierre Béluse. From 1971 to 1976 he studied Indian music in Pondicherry and Calcutta, India, specializing in Tabla.

In 1967, Guy Thouin, along with Yves Charbonneau, Jean Préfontaine, and Maurice C. Richard, became one of the founding members of Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec, originally known as Quatuor du nouveau jazz libre du Québec. The band played in several Montreal bars, colleges and Universities around Quebec, until they disbanded in 1974. In 1969, Thouin also joined L’Infonie, an avant-garde group where he played with Walter Boudreau and Raôul Duguay until 1971 when Thouin decided to leave both bands to study music in India. After returning to Montreal from India, Thouin rejoined the Montreal jazz scene and collaborated with several artists and musicians, including the band Mirage, which was a Montreal Jazz Festival finalist in 1985. In 1989, he founded the Heart Ensemble, a quintet of guest musicians that performed Guy Thouin’s compositions for over 20 years at cultural centres and bars in Montreal, Ottawa, Joliette, and several other cities around the province of Quebec. Many of these performances were recorded and broadcasted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In 2012, along with Bryan Highbloom, Thouin founded the Nouveau Jazz Libre du Québec, playing several concerts, including one at the Suoni Pel II Popolo Festival.

Thouin composed Rien ô tout ou linéaire un, an immersive sound experience, while studying at McGill University. This sound environment was created for a work by visual artist Roland Poulin and was exhibited in 1971 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Since 2015, Guy Thouin continues to compose, play, and perform along with Félix-Antoine Hamel, in a new version of the Heart Ensemble called From the Basement, which invites musicians to play with them in their basement, and explore different avenues of the “free jazz” movement.

Velma Weeks Barker, born Velma Carmen Weeks, was born in Montreal in 1925. She graduated from Westmount High School and later studied at the Canadian Kindergarten Institute, graduating in 1945. In 1949 she graduated from Dr. Eliot's Nursery Training School of Boston, later known as the Eliot Pearson Department of Child Study of Tufts University. When she returned to Montreal she established a preschool program at the YMCA in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

Weeks Barker was Vice-President and Quebec representative to the Canadian Association for Young Children for several years and was a founder and lifetime member of the Nursery School Teachers of Greater Montreal. She is a highly regarded childhood educator and throughout her life, was a leader in the field of Early Childhood Education. In 1983, she received the Bothwell-Smith Award for Excellence in Early Childhood Education. In 1992, she received the Elks of Canada Academic Achievement Award. In 1993, she received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University for her contributions to the field (Doctor of Laws, honoris causa).

Weeks Barker attended the Negro Community Centre in Little Burgundy and Union United Church, where she married her husband Darnley Cecil Barker, with whom she had a son named Spencer. Velma Weeks Barker died in 2016.

Sources:
Clippings. Velma Weeks Barker collection. C039-001, folder 19. Concordia University Special Collections, Montreal, Canada

Jacobs, Ellen. (1993). Honorary degree citation – Velma Weeks Barker. Concordia University. https://www.concordia.ca/offices/archives/honorary-degree-recipients/1993/06/velma-weeks-barker.html

Keith White, a jazz pianist and mathematics teacher, was born on June 19, 1929 in Toronto and now lives in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec. He spent most of his childhood in Cleveland and came to Montreal at 15 to live with his grandparents. After graduating at the Montreal High School in 1949, he went to Clarkson College of Technology in Postdam, N.Y. He returned to Montreal in 1951 and attended Sir George Williams College (B. Sc. 1953, B. A. 1954).

From 1953, he worked as an engineer in Montreal while studying in the evenings. Between 1955 and 1957 he worked as engineer in Baltimore, Md., and Melbourne, Fl. From 1957 to 1959 he studied for a master’s degree in mathematics at the University of Miami. He returned to live in Montreal in the summer of 1959 where he began teaching mathematics at Sir George Williams University. He stayed on for two years and then taught in High Schools and CEGEPs. He retired from teaching in 1974.

Keith White began to play piano at age 6. In the 1950s, while studying and working for engineering firms, he worked in the evenings as a part-time musician, for example, in a relief band at Chez Paree in Montreal, in 1952-1953, as solo pianist for 3 months at the Baltimore hotel in 1955 and in 1960 as leader of the rhythm sections for the Montreal Jazz Society at Little Vienna (on Stanley Street). In 1952 he co-founded the Jazz Workshop with Paul Bley. Because of his teaching commitments Keith White retired from the jazz scene in the fall of 1960. From then on, he only worked occasionally as a musician. In the 1970s he organized a series of concerts at the Musée des Beaux-Arts under the name Jazz Workshop. His son André became a professional jazz drummer and pianist. Around 1980, the father and the son played together briefly at the C-Note.

White passed away on April 24, 2020.

Dr. Martin Singer completed his BA in 1968 from Hunter College of the City University of New York, and an MA in East Asian Studies in 1970 at the University of Michigan. In 1977, he received his PhD in History, also from the University of Michigan.

He moved to Montreal in 1972 where he joined the History Department of Sir George Williams University (SGWU) - now Concordia University -, as assistant professor where he taught history of China and other East Asian nations. In 1975, Singer developed an innovative credit course: “East Asia: Past and Present”. As part of this intensive course, forty students, faculty and staff from SGWU visited five Asian locales. The visit was preceded by a three-week orientation period of formal lectures and assigned readings; during the trip there were seminars and assignments. The course was offered again in 1976, this time the orientation period was extended to three months with lectures films and assigned reading. Singer added Peking (Beijing), Nanking (Nanjing), and Shanghai to the trip itinerary.

Martin Singer served as Assistant Provost in the new Concordia Faculty of Arts and Science from 1977 to 1980 where he played a leading role in the creation of seven colleges, including the Liberal Arts College, the Science College, the Simone de Beauvoir Institute and the Institute for Co-operative Education. He then served as Provost of the Faculty of Arts and Science from 1980 to 1985. He was the founding Director of the Council for International Academic Cooperation, from 1986 to 1989.

In 1982, Singer undertook a major International Development Research Centre (IDRC)-sponsored research project on the relationships between Canadian universities and China. His two-volume report was published in 1986, under the title: Canadian Academic Relations with the People's Republic of China Since 1970 (IDRC 1986). He followed this with a book titled China’s Academic Relations with Canada: Past, Present and Future (Centre for Developing Area Studies, McGill University, 1992). In 1994, he undertook another research project on the Sino-Canadian academic relations, sponsored this time by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC). The report was published in 1996 under the title: Academic Relations Between Canada and China, 1970-1995 (AUCC 1996).

He served as Acting Chair and Chair of the History Department from 1994 until his appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science in 1997. As Dean, Singer has been a leader behind the effort to build a science complex on the Loyola Campus. He also played an integral role in incorporating technology in the Faculty, increase faculty recruitment and opportunities for student exchanges. From 2004 to 2007, he was Provost and Vice-President, Academic Affairs and after an administrative leave, he returned to the Department of History as tenured professor to continue his work as one of one Canada’s leading Sinologist. In 2009, Dr. Singer left Concordia to become the founding Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University. He retired from York University in 2015.

September 27, 2008: A conference is held in the Department of History to celebrate Hill's retirement.

Stephen J. Scheinberg joined Sir George Williams University in 1963 as a lecturer in history. He was appointed assistant professor of history in 1964, associate professor in 1969, and professor of history in 1995.

Robert E. Wall was a professor of history and university administrator. He accepted an associate professor position at Sir George Williams University, leaving Michigan State University in 1970. He acted as Chair for the department of History between 1972 to 1977 before being named Faculty Provost in 1977. Wall would leave Concordia University for a Provost position at New Jersey’s Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1980.

• In the Spring of 1977, Wall was charged by the University Senate to establish ‘small units such as colleges’ within the Arts and Science faculty. The creation of colleges would solve the overspecialization and depersonalization problems present at the time. Following his proposals, the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, the Centre for Mature Students, the Science College, the Lonergan University College, the School of Community and Public Affairs and the Liberal Arts College would be created.
• In 1980, Wall published the historical novel Blackrobe, a bestseller that would later be adapted by CBS into a successful radio drama series.
• Wall received an Honorary Degree from Concordia University at the Arts and Science Convocation ceremony of June 1999.

May 21, 1981: The Board of Governors approves the creation of the Department of Art History (it was previously a Faculty of Fine Arts programme under the Visual Arts Division).

Jean Bélisle retired from the Department of Art History and got his Professor Emeritus title in 2012.

Michel Bujold is hired as a security officer at the Security department in January 1987. Following the retirement of Rolland Barnabé in 1990, he became Acting Director of the Security department, becoming Director the following year. Bujold left Concordia in 1999.