Nellie McClung, photo courtesy of Nellie McClung Foundation
UWinnipeg would like to congratulate all the winners of the Nellie Award granted at the recent Centennial Gala: Celebrating 100 years of Manitoba Women’s Right to Vote Dinner. UWinnipeg takes pride in our alumnae Dr. Jessie Lang (BA ’37 Mathematics (Wesley College), Dr. Rayleen V. M. De Luca (BAH ’79 Psychology) and Sherri May Walsh (Collegiate ’78, BA ’81 French) who earned the award.
Walsh has also returned to her Alma mater to teach Urban and Inner-City Studies’ poverty and law course. She also serves on the UWinnipeg Foundation Board as a director. Walsh is renowned for her extensive community work; giving a voice to our most vulnerable in our society and Walsh speaks to the transformative power of education. Describing her students at UWinnipeg in the Urban and Inner-City Studies program she has expressed that “in all the many years I taught at the Law school, I never felt so uplifted as I do at the end of one of these classes.”
“The University of Winnipeg is proud of our alumnae who have earned the Nellie Award,” said Dr. Annette Trimbee UWinnipeg President and Vice-Chancellor. “They are mentors and leaders that reflect the spirit of Nellie McClung. These women are advocates for social justice and have generously contributed their expertise, efforts and resources to enhance our communities and our province.”
Dr. Jessie Lang
Born on April 1st 1916, two months after Manitoba women received the right to vote, Lang demonstrated that traditional roles and expectations for women would not limit her. At Wesley College (now the University of Winnipeg) she actively participated on the debate team and in ice hockey, graduating in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics. As a young wife and mother, Lang volunteered for the Community Chest (now the United Way), and UNICEF among others.
Dr. Rayleen V. M. De Luca
As a clinical psychologist, De Luca has devoted her life’s works to helping others. Her work with children in the area of child abuse and family violence has been described as “ground breaking”.
De Luca became the first women to be director of clinical training at the University of Manitoba, Department of Psychology. She has presented workshops on women’s issues internationally, with her publications having been translated into seven different languages. Through her work, hundreds of women and girls who had been sexually abused have received free intervention and access to psychological treatment.
Sherri Walsh
Walsh was called to the Bar of Manitoba in 1986 and is a partner at Hill Sokalski Walsh Olson. Her area of practice includes constitutional, human rights issues and respectful workplace issues and is frequently retained in criminal law matters to protect the privacy of rights of victims of sexual assault. In 2011 Walsh was appointed to act as Commission Counsel to the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry, the first woman in Manitoba to hold such a position. In 2012, she was appointed the Chief Adjudicator of the Adjudication Panel established pursuant to the Human Rights Code of Manitoba.
Nellie McClung
She was an orator and an entertainer; she was an author and an advocate; she was a teacher and a legislator. She was a prairie woman who used her talents, determination and energy to bring about change in society.
McClung is best known for two major achievements: being one of the leading women who helped ‘get the vote’ for the women of Manitoba (1916); and as a member of the ‘famous five’ – a group of women who challenged the meaning of the British North American Act and worked to get women declared ‘Persons’ rather than property under the law (1929).
