Carol Shields awarded Honorary Degree by Malaspina University-College

The internationally acclaimed author, playwright, poet and academic Carol Shields received an honorary doctorate of letters degree from Malaspina University-College at a convocation ceremony held in the Port Theatre June 3.

Shields was awarded the honour on the basis of her outstanding contribution as a novelist and poet of international distinction, and as an acknowledgement of the instrumental role she played in the creation of Malaspina’s Bachelor of Arts, major in creative writing degree program.

She is an honorary patron of the Ralph Gustafson Chair of Poetry that was created at Malaspina University-College in 1998 by an endowment from Gustafson’s estate by his widow Betty Gustafson.

Shields has written and published 16 novels, short stories, plays and poetry and has made innumerable contributions to the world of Canadian letters and the fabric of post-secondary education.

Her writing has won a host of literary prizes and honors including the Pulitzer Prize for her book Stone Diaries which also placed second for Britain’s Booker Prize and won Canada’s top prize, the Governor General’s award. Her novel Larry’s Party won the Orange Prize. Her latest novel Unless is about a daughter who drops out to live on the street, forcing her mother to reassess her so-called happy life.

In 1999 she received the Order of Canada.

Unless was short-listed for the Orange Prize this year. The book is also short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and was a finalist for the Giller Prize. Shields’ daughter, Sara Cassidy, also a poet and writer, will adapt Unless for the stage.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1935, Shields studied at Hanover College, the University of Exeter in England and received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Ottawa. She was a professor at the University of Ottawa, University of Manitoba, and University of British Columbia. In 1996, she became the Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg.

While studying in England at the age of 22 she met her husband Donald Shields, a Canadian. The two married and moved to Canada in 1957. They have been married for over 40 years and have five grown children. She presently lives in Victoria, B.C.