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 2011 Alumni Award Winners

The STM Distinguished Alumni Award is awarded annually to a female and a male graduate of St. Thomas More College whose lifetime accomplishments and achievements have been outstanding, who have made a significant contribution to their community, and who have continued to celebrate their relationship with St. Thomas More College since their graduation.

Distinguished Alumni are selected by the President of the College on consultation with the Committee of Distinguished Alumni of the STM-Newman Alumni Association.
 

2011 Distinguished Alumna Award  

Dr. Mary Jo Leddy’s roots plunge deep into the soil that is STM.  Indeed, without the passionate commitment of the Leddy family, STM would not be the College that it is today.  Her grandfather, John Joseph (J.J.) Leddy, was the spokesperson for the original group of lay people who petitioned for the establishment of the College.  Her uncle, J. Francis Leddy, taught the first ever STM class in 1936 – an 8:30 a.m. Latin class with a total of two students!  At the Carr Symposium in 2003, Dr. Mary Jo Leddy also spoke of being introduced to philosophy at the Sunday breakfast table by her great-uncle, Fr. Henry Carr, CSB.  Clearly, her roots here at STM run deep.  However, it is not for her roots that she receives today’s award but for her own prophetic witness to justice and service within the very fabric of Canadian society.

As a young woman, she joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion, a vibrant Catholic community that emphasizes works of justice and reconciliation.  She would remain involved with the congregation for the next 30 years.

Influenced by liberation theology and events in Latin America, she embraced the peace movement, participating in numerous peace campaigns in the 1970s and 80s, including pilgrimages to the Honduran-Nicaraguan border, the former Soviet Union, and southern Lebanon.

Continuing in the pioneering spirit of her ancestors, Dr. Mary Jo Leddy was the founding editor of The Catholic New Times, a publication focused on issues of social justice and which became a well-regarded source of independent journalism about the church.  She is also founder of the Romero House Community for Refugees in Toronto.  She continues to live at Romero House sharing her life with refugees seeking to build a new life here in Canada.  Two of her books, At a Border Called Hope: Where Refugees are Neighbours and The Other Face of God: When the Stranger Calls Us Home, reflect on these experiences.  Of her latest book, one reviewer wrote:

Mary Jo Leddy is a font of wisdom distilled over years of helping hundreds of refugees through post-traumatic stress and through the dehumanizing maze of red tape and bureaucratic abuse that too often makes their settlement and recovery even more difficult.  Her beautiful new book, The Other Face of God: When the Stranger Calls Us Home – part poetry, part theological reflection on the discovery of life’s meaning – offers a practical spirituality that can sustain us in our day. (Beth Porter, ed.)

Dr. Mary Jo Leddy is a prolific author and academic.  After completing her B.A. here at STM in 1968, she went on to earn a B.Ed, M.A, and finally, a Ph.D (University of Toronto).  Other of her books include Radical Gratitude (2003), Reweaving Religious Life (Best Book of 1996, Catholic Press Association of America), Say to the Darkness We Beg to Differ (1998), Memories of Way, Promises of Peace.  She is also coauthor of two books and author of several hundred articles and continues to serve as Adjunct Professor, Regis College, University of Toronto.

2011 Distinguished Alumnus Award 

Justice Peter Dielschneider has spent his career serving the people of Saskatchewan both as an honourable member of the judiciary and as an active member of his community.  It seems to us, however, that his commitment to justice and service has been more than a career path – it has been a vocation, a life given for the good of others.

Born in Macklin, SK, in 1928, Justice Dielschneider completed high school in Battleford, SK, at St. Thomas College in 1945.  This period of his life marked the beginning of a lifelong friendship with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

He graduated from the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law in 1953, and would go on to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Thomas More College in 1954, an experience that had a profound impact on his understanding of community service and social justice.

At STM, he was exposed to a rich and vibrant Catholic community that encouraged him to engage more deeply in the world around him.  With the support of Basilian Fathers like Fr. Basil Sullivan and Fr. Joseph O’Donnell, he served as president of the Newman Club and as the Secretary of the Students Association (1953-54).  He also participated in debate, bowling, and glee clubs, and even worked at Ulcers, the student-run food cooperative at STM.

After graduation, his career in Law saw him working alongside such luminaries as Emmett Hall and was marked by several judicial appointments, his first in 1973 to the District Court of Saskatchewan (1973-81).  He would also serve the Court of Queen’s Bench of Saskatchewan in Humboldt (1981-2003) and act as Supernumerary judge from 1994 until his retirement in 2003.

Throughout his career, he never forgot the lessons of service and justice taught him by the Basilian Fathers at STM.  He not only served the City of Melville, SK, as mayor (1964-73), but was the Chairman of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Humboldt, SK, (1975-85) and a member of the St. Thomas More College Board of Governors (1966-73).  In 2008, the Dielschneider Family generously established the Dielschneider Family bursary at STM, an award that is given out annually to a student of Aboriginal descent.

Together with his wife, Joyce M. Killick, he raised three children: Joanne, Thomas and Beverley.  He also enjoys six grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. According to his granddaughter, Johnna, he is truly the “Best Grampa ever!”

Past Recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award:

Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.” — St. Thomas More