On October 26, 2022, 1,800 graduating students will cross the stage at McGill University’s Fall 2022 convocation ceremonies. They will celebrate with family and friends at Place des Arts, 175 St. Catherine Street West.

As part of the ceremonies, McGill will continue its tradition of conferring honorary degrees to highly talented and engaged individuals who serve as an inspiration for its community of students, professors, researchers, and staff.

At the Fall 2022 ceremonies, the university will confer its highest honours upon two accomplished McGill alumni:

On Friday, June 3rd, Joe Harrel accepted his Farm Management and Technology (FMT) diploma during Spring 2022 Convocation ceremonies for the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Unlike many members of the Class of 2022, however, Harrel will not be seeking employment upon graduation. Truth of the matter is, he is already gainfully employed.

“I own the Speedy Auto Service and the Novus Glass in Kirkland with my partner Andy Arbuckle, and I own and operate Optimum Business Brokers as well,” says Harrel, who was also selected valedictorian by his classmates.

Théadora Sauvé’s classmates pushed her to become a better student, and Sauvé’s hard work was be recognized at the Spring 2022 Convocation, where she gave the valedictory address. The Bachelor of Commerce grad is preparing to study law at McGill, but when she came to university, this path was not yet clear. Sauvé initially studied psychology, but switched to Desautels after taking an Organizational Behaviour class taught by Chantal Westgate, a Senior Faculty Lecturer.

This fall, 700 graduating students, who completed their programs at the end of Summer 2021 at McGill University, will cross the stage for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in 2019. The four in-person fall convocation ceremonies will take place on November 25^th and 26^th, 2021 at Place des Arts, where graduates will celebrate together with family and friends.

Graduation is a pivotal event, whatever the circumstances may be—and while we know there’s no replacement for crossing the stage, McGill University will mark this once-in-a lifetime occasion by celebrating all of our graduates’ accomplishments. That’s why McGill will be hosting 10 virtual ceremonies, one for each Faculty, on a rolling basis over June 18th and 19th, 2020. During the ceremonies in this exceptional year, the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, and Mr.

Congratulations to Amanda Abrams, Faculty Lecturer, and Elliot Lifson, Professor of Practice and Desautels Faculty Advisory Board member, who were honored at McGill’s Management Convocation ceremony for their excellence in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels respectively.

Giants in their respective fields, this year’s Hon Docs have blazed trails in everything from poetry and theoretical physics to jazz guitar and human rights.

The Honorary Doctorates in Arts include: 

Michael Harris
B.A. (Sir George Williams University), M.A. (Concordia University)

Michael Harris has made a lifetime commitment to the Canadian literary scene, having a profound impact on the development of poetry in Canada.