Dave Synyard
Deputy Copy Editor
Award winners now have the chance to shine forever.
On Monday May 10, numerous York students, faculty, staff and alumni who have won awards from the university over the last five-plus decades had their names commemorated and enshrined in a series of 10 glass-paneled structures placed at the North end of the rotunda in Vari Hall.
Those who are recipients of a President’s University Wide Teaching Award, President’s Research Excellence Award, President’s Staff Recognition Award, Governor General’s Gold and Silver Medals, Murray G. Ross Award, Bryden Alumni Award and the Distinguished Research Professor or University Professor title have their names displayed on the awards installation.
“It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate excellence at York University. We are a young and vibrant institution with our best years ahead of us, and all of these people have helped to build it to what it is today,” said York President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri.
This awards display was created through a collaboration of the design firm Entro | G+A and manufactured by WSI Sign Systems Ltd. and KING Architectural Production and cost about $120, 000.
Each glass structure weighs 500 pounds and they were assembled on site to set up the display.
York’s Planning and Architectural Design Services assisted with these artistic plaques from initiation to completion.
The idea for the look of the project is the work of Entro | G+A, who aimed to create an aesthetically attractive piece to showcase all the past award winners and future recipients to come.
“The overall impression was to be an art piece,” said Richard Anthistle, Entro | G+A project manager. “It needed to be something that would be obviously interesting to look.”
It was Entro’s idea to use the medium of glass and custom colour concrete footings that were poured for the glass panels.
At the end of 2011 York signed on Entro | G+A was to add a creative flair to this project and by February of 2012, the company started to craft the creation for the current glass-panel structure that punctuates the north side of Vari Hall.
WSI Sign Systems Ltd. and KING Architectural Products coordinated the production side of the display, bringing a design team on board.
Patrick Monahan, vice-president academic and provost, who led the initiative said this awards display is a work of art and it gives York a way to “tangibly recognize our most successful and our most accomplished members of the community.”
“I think that this will be recognition of accomplishments not only of the people who are recognized here, but of the entire University. It will give us a sense of the tradition and pride that we have,” said Monahan. “It reminds us that what we do today builds on the work of our predecessors.”
