News Releases - 2006
Nicole Brossard, Henry Mintzberg win Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prizes
Ottawa, May 1, 2006 – Author Nicole Brossard and management expert Henry Mintzberg are the winners of this year’s Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prizes.
Ms. Brossard, a poet, novelist and essayist who has written more than 30 books, is the winner of the Molson Prize in the Arts. Professor Mintzberg is the winner of the Molson Prize in the Social Sciences and Humanities. He is the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University and author of 14 books on management and business strategy. Both of this year’s Molson Prize winners live in Montreal.
Two Molson Prizes, worth $50,000 each, are awarded every year to distinguished Canadians, one in the arts and the other in the social sciences or humanities. The prizes recognize the recipients’ outstanding lifetime achievements and ongoing contributions to the cultural and intellectual life of Canada.
The jury noted that the 2006 winners were selected from an exceptional pool of candidates. Of this year’s recipients, the jury said: question
“Nicole Brossard has been awarded the 2006 Molson Prize in the Arts in recognition of her four decades of innovation as a writer and thinker. She is viewed internationally as a pioneer in French literature: L’écho bouge beau (1968) heralded the beginning of modernism in Quebec writing. She is renowned for the experimental aspect of her work, both in the treatment of language and in the brave ventures into such challenging subjects as feminism, sexuality and politics. Her writing questions the shifting landscapes of our civilization as well as Quebec society since the Quiet Revolution. Her poetry, novels and essays have been translated into more than 10 languages and have been the subject of numerous international anthologies and conferences.”
“Henry Mintzberg has been awarded the 2006 Molson Prize in the Social Sciences and Humanities for his ability to take conventional thinking about how organizations work and turn it on its head. His exceptional research has had a direct impact on daily lives by proposing balanced, reflective approaches to organizational management and strategic planning. His thinking extends beyond strictly business models. He has studied—and influenced—organizations in such varied fields as the arts, humanitarian aid, the environment, manufacturing and transportation. His distinguished career as an educator has made him much sought after by universities in Canada and around the world.”
Established in 1964, the Molson Prizes are funded from the income of an endowment given to the Council by the Molson Foundation and now valued at more than $2.6 million. The Council administers these awards in cooperation with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and, following a nomination process, both laureates are selected by a joint peer jury. The winner of last year’s Molson Prize in the Arts was visual artist Iain Baxter. The Molson Prize in the Social Sciences and Humanities went to historian Ramsay Cook.
This year’s Molson Prize jury was co-chaired by Carol Bream, Acting Director, Public Affairs, Research and Communications of the Canada Council for the Arts, and by Stephen McClatchie, Board Member of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The jury was made up of poet Jean-Marc Desgent (Montreal); visual artist Jamelie Hassan (London, ON); dance teacher and choreographer Grant Strate (Vancouver); Yves Lenoir, Education professor at the Université de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke, QC); and Susan McDaniel, professor of Sociology at the University of Windsor (Windsor, ON).
Representatives of the media are invited to attend the presentation of the Molson Prize in the Social Sciences and Humanities to Henry Mintzberg on Thursday, June 1, at 5 p.m. at the McGill Faculty Club, 3450 McTavish Street, in Montreal. The presentation of the Molson Prize in the Arts to Nicole Brossard will take place on Wednesday, June 7, at 5 p.m. at the Monument-National, 1182 St. Laurent Blvd., in Montreal.
Nicole Brossard
Poet, novelist and essayist Nicole Brossard was born in Montreal. Since 1965, she has published some 30 books, including Le Centre blanc, The Aerial Letter, Mauve Desert, Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon and Cahier de roses et de civilisation.
Ms. Brossard is considered to be one of the foremost figures in the generation that revitalized Quebec poetry in the 1970s. She co-founded the influential literary magazine La Barre du Jour in 1965 and the feminist magazine Les Têtes de Pioche in 1976. She also co-directed a film, Some American Feminists, in 1976. In 1991, along with Lisette Girouard, she published the Anthologie de la poésie des femmes au Québec (Des origines à nos jours).
Ms. Brossard has won the Governor General’s award twice for her poetry (1974 and 1984) and took home Le Grand Prix de Poésie de la Fondation les Forges at the Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières in 1989 and 1999. The Athanase-David Prize, Quebec’s highest literary honour, was awarded to her in 1991. That same year, she received the Harbourfront Festival Prize. In 1994, she was made a member of L’Académie des Lettres du Québec. In 2003, she received a career grant from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and the W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize.
Her work has been widely translated and internationally acclaimed. The most recent titles available in English are Museum of Bone and Water (translation of Musée de l’os et de l’eau); An Intimate Journal (translation of Journal intime, Fluid Arguments (essays) and Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon (translation of Hier); as well as the recently republished Mauve Desert (translation of Le désert mauve). Mauve Desert and Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon are two of six of her books that have been translated into Spanish. Her latest collection of poems is Je m’en vais à Trieste (2003), and she has just put out Baiser vertige, Quebec’s first anthology of gay and lesbian prose and poetry. In 2005, Louise H. Forsyth, professor and literary critic, published Nicole Brossard, Essays on Her Works.
Henry Mintzberg
Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal. Professor Mintzberg is internationally recognized as one of the most influential and provocative researchers in the area of management, organization theory and strategic planning. His research has dealt with issues of management and business strategy. Currently, he is completing a book about managing (which explores 29 days in the lives of managers), a book on organizing (a revision of Structure in Fives), and an electronic pamphlet entitled Getting Past Smith and Marx…Towards a Balanced Society. He is also promoting the development of Master’s programs for practicing managers in the private and health sectors. His own teaching activities focus on seminars for managers and work with doctoral students.
Professor Mintzberg earned his doctorate and Master’s of Science degrees at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and his mechanical engineering degree at McGill, working in between in operational research for the Canadian National Railways. He has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada and of l’Ordre National du Québec and holds honorary degrees from thirteen universities in eight countries. He also served as President of the Strategic Management Society from 1988-91, and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (the first from a management faculty), the Academy of Management, and the International Academy of Management. He was named Distinguished Scholar for the year 2000 by the Academy of Management.
Professor Mintzberg is the author or co-author of fourteen books, including The Nature of Managerial Work (1973), The Structuring of Organizations (1979), Mintzberg on Management (1989), The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (1994), The Canadian Condition (1995), Strategy Safari (1998), Managers not MBAs (2004), and Strategy Bites Back (2005). Flying Circus (2005) reflects a growing interest in more general writing, which also includes short stories and newspaper commentaries. Professor Mintzberg has received several awards for his management articles, numbering over 140. Among them are the Strategic Management Journal Best Paper Prize (2005) for the most influential paper entitled Of Strategies, Deliberate and Emergent, with James Waters, 1985; and two Harvard Business Review McKinsey prizes for The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact (first place in l975) and Crafting Strategy (second place in l987).
Winners’ pictures
Downloadable images of the winners are available on the image gallery.
General information
The Canada Council for the Arts, in addition to its principal role of promoting and fostering the arts in Canada, administers and awards prizes and fellowships to over 100 artists and scholars annually in the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural and health sciences, and engineering. Among these are the Killam Prizes, the Killam Research Fellowships, the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts and the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts.
For more information about these awards, including nomination procedures, contact Janet Riedel Pigott, Acting Director of Endowments and Prizes, at (613) 566-4414, or 1 800 263 5588, ext. 5041.
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Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
Susan Goodyear, Media Relations Officer
Tel: (613) 947-4629 Cell: (613) 371-3829
Web site: www.sshrc.ca
susan.goodyear@sshrc.ca