Ten graduates (see photos elsewhere in this issue), one candidate in lay leadership and three honorary degrees were handed out early May at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, Montreal, for the 142nd convocation of Presbyterian College.
Rev. Glynis Williams, executive director of Action Refugiés Montréal, was awarded an honourary Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa), presented by Professor Robert C. Culley. A former nurse, Williams was ordained in 1989. The organization she leads was founded in 1994 by the Anglican and Presbyterian churches to help refugees realize their right to asylum and rebuild their lives in a new community. It is one of the few organizations in Quebec that facilitate private sponsorship of refugees living in danger overseas. Action Refugiés also “twins” volunteers with newly arrived refugees and provides support and counsel to those detained by Immigration Canada, emphasizing the particular barriers faced by women and children. In 2007, Williams spent four months working with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Damascus, Syria, interviewing vulnerable refugees living in precarious situations. Also receiving honourary degrees were Rev. Terence Hibbert in recognition of his 31 years as pastor of the flourishing Presbyterian congregation at Coquitlam, B.C., and Professor Emidio Campi, Doctor of Theology, Habilitation Ordinarius for Church History, and Director of the Swiss Reformation Studies Institute at the University of Zurich.
In his convocation address, “Voices in the Storm,” Professor Campi compared Paul’s brave and active leadership in a fierce Mediterranean storm, recounted in Acts 27, with the brooding Roman poet Lucretius contemplating another tempest. In the present economic, humanitarian and environmental storms, he urged graduates and all Christians to take their inspiration from Paul’s example.
