Campus 1972

Moments and highlights

It is Calgary's pioneering spirit that put us on the map both at home and around the world. Dig into the stories from those who made their mark and helped shape this place.

Adrienne Kertzer

If anyone knows first-hand how diversity and equity issues have evolved on campus, it’s Adrienne Kertzer. She’s been teaching English at the University of Calgary since 1976, when there were very few female professors. As more women joined the university and took on prominent roles — Kertzer herself was the first female head of the Department of English in 1994 — diversity and equity considerations were pushed to the forefront.

After three years as advisor to the president on women’s issues, Kertzer was been appointed interim director of the new Office of Diversity, Equity and Protected Disclosure in 2014.

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Dr. Bob Church

A founding member of the University of Calgary medical school, Dr. Church is professor emeritus and founding head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University of Calgary. Church’s research in developmental genetics, genome organization, gene expression and embryo manipulation has resulted in more than 200 publications and hundreds of invited presentations to medical science, biotechnology and animal production meetings.

Church is also a founding member of the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI). He is also founding chair of the Alberta Science and Research Authority and founding co-chairman of the Premier's Council on Science and Technology of Alberta. Church was president of the Calgary Stampede. He was inducted into the Canadian and Alberta Agriculture Halls of Fame and the Alberta Bioindustry Hall of Fame.

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Holger Herwig

Dr. Herwig held a dual position at the University of Calgary as Professor of History and as Canada Research Chair in the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. 

He published more than a dozen books and wrote the prize winning books The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918.

Herwig and his writing partner Dr. Bercuson, joined James Cameron for three weeks out in the Atlantic to produce "James Cameron's Expedition: Bismarck" for the Discovery Channel. He and Bercuson also teamed up on three History Television projects: Deadly Seas (Screenlife 1998), Murder in Normandy (Paperny Films, 1999), and Forced March to Freedom (Paperny Films, 2001).

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Dr. Norman Schachar

Dr. Norman Schachar, was one of Calgary’s first resident orthopedic surgeons. He arrived from Ontario in 1970 to a fledgling Department of Surgery in the newly constructed Foothills Hospital. 

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