2011

Irene Sankoff and David Hein have been a driving force behind the theatre and music scenes in North America. After spending their dues-paying years in Toronto and New York, the husband-and-wife team burst onto the Toronto theatre scene with their extraordinary hit musical My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding, which the couple wrote, produced and starred in.

Based on the true story of Hein’s mother, Wedding has seen tremendous success in Toronto and New York and is being licensed across North America.

Eric Walters is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling novels for children and young adults. He began writing to entice his Grade 5 students into becoming more interested in reading and writing. Since then, his novels have won numerous awards and received honours from the Canadian Library Association Book Awards and UNESCO’s international award for Literature in Service of Tolerance.

Walters’ charitable work is equally impressive. He has poured his talent and passion into a wide variety of causes, including boys’ literacy, the Terry Fox Foundation, Uganda Guluwalk, Free the Children and his own project, the Creation of Hope, which he established after witnessing the shocking poverty of children living in the mountains near Nairobi.

One of the best women’s field hockey players Canada has ever produced, Sheila Forshaw is a fixture in the halls of York’s Tait McKenzie Centre. She is equally well known across the campus as a dedicated participant in numerous committees and activities.

As a decorated student athlete, Forshaw led the Yeowomen to two provincial golds and two national silvers in field hockey. She was twice named York’s female athlete of the year. Returning to campus in 1995 to lead York’s interuniversity athletics program, Forshaw has continued to champion for Canadian athletics through her tireless leadership at Sport York and on national committees.

A member of York’s first graduating class, Clayton Ruby’s passion for social justice has made him one of Canada’s leading defence lawyers. His remarkable legal career has often placed him in the public spotlight. He represented both Donald Marshall Jr. and Guy Paul Morin, two of this country’s best-known victims of wrongful conviction. He also negotiated a settlement for the surviving Dionne quintuplets.

Equally passionate as a defender of freedom of expression and environmentalism, Ruby epitomizes York’s ideal of enlightened, active engagement with the world in which we live.