Created 1 April 2010 05:04

VANCOUVER – A UBC professor who developed an innovative therapy to assist people with schizophrenia, a UNBC professor who is a tireless educator, researcher, and advocate for improving health outcomes of Aboriginal peoples, and an SFU professor who has devoted his career to helping others deal with thorny ethical dilemmas will receive this year’s CUFA BC Distinguished Academics Awards on Wednesday, April 7th.

UBC’s Dr. Todd Woodward will be the inaugural recipient of the Early in Career Award-Sponsored by Scotiabank for applying his research on brain functioning in people with schizophrenia to create a new therapy to help those with the disease to control their symptoms.

UNBC’s Dr. Margo Greenwood will be named Academic of the Year for publication of the groundbreaking report “Aboriginal Health: Leaving No Child Behind” — prepared for UNICEF by the National Collaborating Centre on Aboriginal Health (NCCAH), which is led by Dr. Greenwood.

SFU’s Professor Mark N. Wexler will receive the Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award for his 30 years of applying his scholarly work on business ethics to practical problems in business, government health care, and other fields, and for engaging the broader community in a dialogue about ethics.

These awards are presented annually by the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC (CUFA BC) to recognize faculty members at BC’s public universities who use their research and scholarly work to make contributions to the wider community.

“Dr. Woodward, Dr. Greenwood, and Professor Wexler are outstanding examples of faculty members at BC universities who use their research to benefit the wider community,” said Dr. Paul Bowles, President of CUFA BC.

“Dr. Woodward’s efforts to make his research relevant to the lives of people with schizophrenia is amazing for someone so early in their career,” Bowles continued. “Dr. Greenwood’s report is just one of the many contributions she has made in an effort to get governments to understand and address the needs of Aboriginal communities. Dr. Wexler’s practical, hands-on approach to ethical reasoning, combined with a solid academic foundation, fuels the demand for his expertise as a consultant, advisor, and speaker.”

Mark Forsythe, host of CBC Radio One’s BC Almanac, will emcee the awards dinner on Wednesday, April 7th at the Law Courts Inn in Vancouver.

The CUFA BC Distinguished Academics Awards are in their sixteenth year and receive generous support from Scotiabank, Pacific Blue Cross, CBC Radio One, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria, the University of Northern British Columbia, and Royal Roads University.

CUFA BC represents 4,500 university professors, instructors, academic librarians and other academic staff at the province’s five doctoral universities – SFU (Burnaby, Vancouver and Surrey campuses), UBC (Vancouver and Kelowna campuses), UNBC (Prince George, Terrace, Fort St. John and Quesnel campuses), UVic and Royal Roads University.