Dr. Greg Kratzig

BA(Hons)’04 (Campion), MA’06, PhD’16

Distinguished Alumni Award for Professional Achievement

Greg Kratzig had a bold goal in mind when he decided to leave behind a successful career in retail management and return to school. His goal was to study psychology and, as it turned out, he earned his honours bachelor’s degree, master’s and PhD – all at the University of Regina.

“When I began my studies, I had an interest in child psychology,” Kratzig notes, “but by the end of my undergrad degree, my focus had shifted to adults and how we make decisions. I also knew that the clinical route was not for me; my interest was in applied research and experimentation.”

In his master’s work, Kratzig explored whether aging affects our decision-making processes. While he was working on his doctoral degree, “the stars aligned” as he puts it: the RCMP were looking to hire a researcher to enhance cadet training and policing practices. His experience and research interests ticked all of the boxes in the job description and he became the first in-house researcher hired by the force.

In his position as a training, innovation and research analyst, Kratzig designed and developed a comprehensive research program and a sophisticated simulation lab at the RCMP Training Academy that attracts interest from academic researchers and police agencies nationally and internationally. Over the past seven years, he has initiated and led research projects in areas such as firearms training, emergency vehicle driver training, use-of-force decision-making, forensic interviewing, anti-terrorism programs, and officer health and well-being.

“ This is the biggest award I’ve ever received. It was not ever within my thoughts, ”

As the mental health champion for Depot Division, he is part of a research team in a large-scale project investigating post-traumatic stress disorder that will periodically test a select group of police officers over a 10-year period. The firearms training simulator he developed has been adopted by the U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (which handles 70,000 trainees annually) and by the police force in Singapore.

His paper on the topic, in collaboration with other researchers, is his most cited. “There is a huge gap in the area of policing-related science,” he says. “Much of the work done here has never been done before.”

For all of his research projects in the lab, Kratzig draws from a broad network of colleagues, although he particularly seeks out students, faculty and staff from the University of Regina. His research into decision-making, for example, involves faculty from the Department of Psychology and from the Faculty of Kinesiology and Health Studies. He is in the early stages of developing a virtual reality area within the simulation lab, in collaboration with faculty and staff from the Faculty of Media, Art, and Performance.

When he is asked for his thoughts about being selected for the achievement award, Kratzig admits he didn’t know what to say when he received the phone call. He relates it to a psychological concept he and his fellow grad students felt – the Imposter Syndrome – where they weren’t sure they were smart enough to be there. “ This is the biggest award I’ve ever received. It was not ever within my thoughts, ” he says. “There are a lot of great people out there doing outstanding work. To have my work recognized by my peers in this way is overwhelming.”

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Lifetime Achievement Award
Guy Vanderhaeghe is a national treasure who has written his way into the annals of great Canadian authors. He has received numerous awards for his writing. His first book, Man Descending, received a Governor General’s Award and the United Kingdom’s Faber Prize. His novel The Englishman’s Boy won him a second Governor General’s Award, Saskatchewan Book Awards in two categories, and a place on the short list for the Giller Prize. Two later books also based on the history of the West, The Last Crossing and A Good Man, have earned several awards. His most recent work, Daddy Lenin and Other Stories, published in 2015, also won a Governor General’s Award. “Awards are always hard to put into perspective,” he says. “I’ve been very grateful for each one I’ve received, and also very surprised. My response is: ‘Who, me?’ Having already received one lifetime achievement award, a second is also a little scary,” he adds with a laugh. “Is there a hidden message there?” Vanderhaeghe is a member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, and an Officer of the Order of Canada. After earning three degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, he worked there as a research officer and as an archival and library assistant from 1973 to 1977. He then spent an extremely busy year at the University of Regina, packing a heavy course load for an education degree into one year so he could fulfill a contract to teach high school in Herbert, Saskatchewan. Much of Vanderhaeghe’s writing is rooted in the 19th-century West; he finds the fresh new ground of this relatively unexploited field attractive. He credits his years as a graduate student in history and his work as an archivist for giving him the basic skills needed to ferret out information essential to a historical novel. Unlike an academic historian, however, his focus is on what he calls the textures of the past: details such as what people ate, how they dressed and how they entertained themselves.
“He is simply the greatest, most widely applauded writer to come out of this province, by all accounts a beloved teacher and mentor, and he is very good company.”
“Above all, I’m interested in how individuals regarded and responded to the world in which they lived, and in showing that while their ideas about certain matters diverged from ours, they still faced and wrestled with many of the same human quandaries that we do,” he says. “I think that paying attention to details is what makes fiction – any kind of fiction – come alive for readers.” Fellow author and editor David Carpenter recalls reading one of Vanderhaeghe’s short stories almost 40 years ago, and knowing immediately “… this writer was the real thing. We must have met about 1981, and by 1982 I had become the self appointed president of his fan club.” Carpenter says Vanderhaeghe’s work is as perceptive and hard-edged as the early work of Sinclair Ross, who wrote about Depression-era Saskatchewan. They both knew about the severities of life in rural Saskatchewan, he observes, but Vanderhaeghe’s work has a greater range than Ross’s Depression stories. “Guy’s stories and novels can be simultaneously grotesque and witty; and at the end of each work, there are no easy answers,” Carpenter states. “He is simply the greatest, most widely applauded writer to come out of this province, by all accounts a beloved teacher and mentor, and he is very good company.” [post_title] => Dr. Guy Vanderhaeghe [post_excerpt] => Guy Vanderhaeghe is a national treasure who has written his way into the annals of great Canadian authors. He has received numerous awards for his writing. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => guy-vanderhaeghe [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2018-05-15 12:12:28 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-05-15 18:12:28 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://vm-uor-degrees/?p=401 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 409 [post_author] => 1 [post_date] => 2018-02-06 16:45:45 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-02-06 22:45:45 [post_content] =>

Distinguished Alumni Award for
Humanitarian & Community Service

From the age of nine, Joan Halmo played the organ in church in her hometown of Kuroki, Saskatchewan. It clearly instilled in her a love of music – including church music in all its rich variety – as well as a devotion to education, built heritage, and musical and cultural activities in her community and beyond.

Halmo is currently the executive and artistic director of Gustin House, a historic residence and studio space in Saskatoon named after Dr. Lyell Gustin, who taught piano to countless students – including Halmo – for almost 70 years. Under Gustin’s mentorship, Halmo attained a Licentiate in Piano Performance from Trinity College London.

Halmo was invited to join the non-profit Gustin/Trounce Heritage Committee that had been established after Gustin’s death to preserve his artistic legacy and follow his example of advocacy for music and the fine arts. During 2004-05, Halmo led the committee’s work in completely restoring the former home and studio, which was designated a Provincial Heritage Property in 2008. She also spearheaded the initiative to stabilize Trounce House, a small residence situated on the same city lot as Gustin House. Built in 1883, it is Saskatoon’s oldest surviving building.

In addition to physical restoration projects, since 2005 Halmo and her colleagues have re-established Gustin traditions of musical programming, including a series of three concerts featuring performers from national and international stages and a series of smaller-scale interdisciplinary programs held at Gustin House.

“Built heritage is a witness to our shared history as a city, a community, a province and a nation,” she says. “We need built heritage as a physical reminder of our origins, our stories, and the direction that the future can take. There is a kind of magic in that Dr. Gustin’s last teaching piano continues to send music throughout the house, as it has for so many years.”

“ I am humbled by being selected, by being in the company of other awardees who are greatly accomplished and greatly deserving, ”

Gregory Schulte, an organist and part of the seven-member Heritage Committee for 12 years, affirms that Halmo is the right person to lead the way in continuing the Gustin legacy. “She has the cultural foundation – including her education – that has given her an understanding that is deep and unshaken in her view that the arts should be contributing to society,” Schulte states. “She understood why it was important to preserve Gustin House for the benefit of the whole community.”

Halmo graduated from the University with her bachelor’s degree in 1977, receiving both the University Medal and President’s Medal. She received numerous scholarships while earning a Master of Liturgical Music from the Catholic University of America in 1978, a Master of Arts from St. John’s University in Minnesota in 1982, and a doctorate in Musicology from the Catholic University of America in 1993. While teaching at the University of Saskatchewan, she received grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to study music manuscripts and the Lyell Gustin legacy.

She received a City of Saskatoon volunteer award for heritage in 2012, and a Campion College alumni award in 2015.

“ I am humbled by being selected, by being in the company of other awardees who are greatly accomplished and greatly deserving, ” she says. “Given this marvelous honour, I hope to go forward worthily as an alumna of this fine university that gave me so much.”

[post_title] => Joan Halmo [post_excerpt] => From the age of nine, Joan Halmo played the organ in church in her hometown of Kuroki, Saskatchewan. It clearly instilled in her a love of music – including church music in all its rich variety – as well as a devotion to education, built heritage, and musical and cultural activities in her community and beyond. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => joan-halmo [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2018-04-25 18:15:13 [post_modified_gmt] => 2018-04-26 00:15:13 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://vm-uor-degrees/?p=409 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )