Education: BA(Tor)1887; MD CM(Man)1890

Positions: Prof Bacteriol 1896; Prof Pathol 1905; Prof Bacterol 1916-23

Josiah Jones Bell was born to Robert and Emeline Sedate (ne Jones) Bell in the 1800s in Carleton Place, Beckwith Township, Lanark County, Ontario. He had a sister, Isabella, and a brother, Robert William. Bell was an Ensign with the Ontario Battalion in Colonel Garnet Wolseley's Red River Expedition of 1870. The expedition was intended to exert Canadian sovereignty in the newly created Province of Manitoba. Bell passed away on 23 October 1931 in Rockcliffe, Carleton County, Ontario.

Education: MD(Man)1928; MRCP(Lond)1930; FRCP(C)1943; FACP; FRCP(Lond)1954

Positions: Demonstrator, Medicine 1928; Lecturer, Med. 1930; Prof. Internal Med. & Dean of Med. 1949-1966; Chairman, Dept Med. 1951; Dean Emeritus 1967

Education: BA(Man)1906, MD(Man)1909, FACS1920

Position: Assoc Prof Clinical Ophthalmology 1921; Prof of Ophthalmol 1936; Prof Emeritus (pass by Faculty Council Executive May 7, 1947)

Mary Lile Love Benham was born in Winnipeg and graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1935. She was the grand-daughter of Edward L. Drewry who founded the first brewery in Winnipeg and was an early City of Winnipeg Councillor. Benham was a writer for most of her life. She received her first cheque from Chatelaine for a poem she had written at age fifteen. She also published in university student newspapers. Upon graduation she did freelance radio work. She co-authored Winnipeg (1974), and wrote Manitoba Club: 1874-1974 (1974), Nellie McClung (1975), Paul Kane (1977), La Verendrye (1980), and Once More Unto the Breach (1982). Other writings include puppet plays, short stories, articles, book reviews, and poems published in several popular magazines. She served as Director of the Canadian Writers' Foundation and was awarded "Woman of the Year" by the YWCA in 1984.

Richard E. Bennett was the archivist at the University of Manitoba from 1978 to 1997. From time to time he recorded interviews with notable people in order to preserve their knowledge and history. He is now a professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University.

David Bergen was born on January 14, 1957 in Port Edward, British Columbia. He graduated from Red River Community College with a journalism degree in 1980 and a B.Ed. from the University of Winnipeg in 1985. He currently resides in Winnipeg with his wife Mary and their four children. Bergen has gained a notable reputation in his writing career. His first book, Sitting Opposite My Brother, is a collection of short stories and was published in 1993 by Turnstone Press. This book was short-listed for the Manitoba Book of the Year Award. That year he also was named Manitoba's most promising writer. Five stories in Sitting With My Brother were broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program, Between the Covers. In 1995, the Bravo Television Network produced his short story, Bottom of the Glass. His second book, A Year of Lesser, was published by Harper Collins and was named a New York Times Notable Book in 1997 and winner of the McNally Robinson book of the Year Award. In 1999, Harper Collins published his third title, See the Child. His fourth book, The Case of Lena S., was published in 2002 by McClelland & Stewart. His fifth book, The Time In Between, was published by McClelland & Stewart in 2005 and earned Bergen the Scotia Bank Giller Prize. His sixth book, The Retreat, published by McClelland & Stewart in 2008, was also nomiated for the Giller Prize. Throughout the 1990s, a number of Bergen's stories have been published in a variety of magazines. In 2000, Bergen won the Canadian Literary Award for Short Story.

Education: MD(Man)1974

Education: MD 1949 (Man)

Position: Chief of Dept of Medical Oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation 1965-1990; Emeritus Prof U of Toronto

Ontario architect Bernard M. Rasch obtained a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Manitoba's School of Architecture in 1968. Following graduation, he relocated to the Toronto area and, since 1973, has been a partner in several firms. He most recently retired from Area Architects Rasch Eckler Associates Ltd. His career highlights include receiving the Canadian Architect Design Award in 1976, his first overseas work on a shopping centre in China in 1983, holding the position of the President of the Ontario Association of Architects in both 1983 and 2000, as well as publishing in many design journals, both Canadian and American. His firm, Area Architects Rasch Eckler Associates Ltd., received the City of Toronto Business Recognition Award in 1999. He has also been a long time donor to The Winnipeg Foundation. Throughout his life, Rasch collected books and other materials on UFO sightings, paranormal phenomena, and occult societies.

Education: MD 1985(Man)

Positions: Professor, Internal Medicine; Head Section of Gastroenterology, Director, UM Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Clinical & Research Centre

Edmund G. Berry was born in Aberdeenshire in 1915. He received his earliest education in Scotland before immigrating to Canada with his parents. Berry attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where he received a B.A. Honours degree in Classics in 1936 and an M.A. in 1937. In 1940 he completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Greek at the University of Chicago and accepted an appointment to the Classics department at the University of Manitoba. He became department head in 1956, a position he held for 17 years, and retired in 1980. After retirement Berry was appointed Professor Emeritus of the University of Manitoba. Professor Berry published Emerson's Plutarch in 1961 and numerous articles over the course of his academic career.

Education: BSc(Vienna); MSc(McGill)1951; PhD(McGill)1954

Position: Asst Prof in Anatomy 195?; Assoc Prof in Anatomy 1959;
Prof in Anatomy 1965; Prof Emeritus 1991

Neil Kalman Besner was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1949. He spent much of his childhood in Brazil after his family left Canada in the mid-1950s. He attended high school and began university in the United States but returned to Canada in 1970. He completed a B.A. (Honours English) at McGill University in 1972, an M.A. in American literature at the University of Regina in 1974, and a Ph.D. in Canadian literature at the University of British Columbia in 1983. His dissertation was titled Mavis Gallant's Short Fiction: History and Memory in the Light of Imagination. After four years as an instructor in English at Mount Royal College, he joined the faculty of the University of Winnipeg in 1987 as an assistant professor. He became an associate professor in 1990, chair of the Department of English in 1993, and full professor in 1995. After serving on the Board of Regents and on a number of administrative and academic committees, he became Dean of Humanities, University of Winnipeg on May 1, 2002. In 2010, Besner was appointed Provost and Vice President, Academic and International at the University of Winnpeg.

Besner has written The Light of Imagination: Mavis Gallant's Fiction (University of British Columbia Press, 1988), Introducing Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women (ECW Press, 1990), completed an English translation of Carmen Oliveira's Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares (Rutgers University Press, 2003), and edited The Short Story in English (Oxford University Press, 1991) with David Staines, and Uncommon Wealth: An Anthology of Poetry in English (Oxford University Press, 1997) with Deborah Schnitzer and Alden Turner. In 1995 he edited a special issue of Prairie Fire magazine that focused on Carol Shields. He later edited Carol Shields: The Arts of a Writing Life (Prairie Fire Press, 2003), which included works by many of the contributors to the special issue of Prairie Fire. In his role as president of the Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota (LCMND), Dr. Besner provided an overview of Carol Shields' life and work in a speech entitled "The Great Canadian Shields" to the LCMND on October 28, 1994. The text of this speech can be found in the Linguistic Circle of Manitoba and North Dakota fonds (MSS SC 166). Dr. Besner has also authored numerous scholarly articles and reviews and provided commentary to CBC Radio and the Winnipeg Free Press. Dr. Besner speaks French, Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English. As of 2007, his primary area of interest continued to be Canadian literature.

Education: MD(Man)1934; LMCC1934; FRCS(C)1937 (BDB)

Position: Demonstrator in Obstetrics and Gynecology 1938; Lecturer 1939; Asst Prof 1950; Professor 1951; Prof Emeritus 1976

Education: Trinity College (Dublin)

Positions: Medical Officer (Boer War); General Practitioner, Winnipeg (1911-1918), Killarney (1918-1942);

Dorothy Betz, an Anishinabe woman, was born Dorothy Nepinak on 26 June 1929 at the Pine Creek Reserve in Manitoba to Charles and Bernadette Nepinak. Losing her parents at an early age, she attended the Pine Creek Residential School for 15 years, until she was 18. In 1948, she came to Winnipeg and met Elmer Betz, whom she married in 1950, and had six children with him, including Linda Keeper. He worked as a maintenance man for Kinew Housing, and was also involved with the Indian and Métis Tenants Association.

Betz spent her career and later life in service to Winnipeg’s Aboriginal community. She established the Native Court Communicators Program with the Province of Manitoba and worked there for several years, later being appointed to the National Parole Board. She was involved in a number of other legal and justice-oriented organizations and initiatives, including the Manitoba Society of Criminology, Native Clan Organization, Juvenile Review Board, Juvenile Corrections Child Welfare Government Board, Manitoba Association of Rights & Liberties, John Howard Society, the Aboriginal Advisory Committees of the Winnipeg Police Services and the RCMP, and Aboriginal Ganootamaage Justice Services (formerly Aboriginal Legal Services). In 1975, she was also part of the Canadian delegation to the Fifth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in Geneva, Switzerland, where she spoke about the difficulties Aboriginal people faced in the Canadian justice system.

Betz was also one of the founders of the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre (IMFC) of Winnipeg in 1959, the first IMFC in Canada, and of Kekinan Centre, an Aboriginal senior residence, in 1990. Outside of the criminology field, she was employed by, a board member of, or volunteered at a variety of other Aboriginal organizations, including Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, Native Women’s Transition Centre, Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg, Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre, Centre for Aboriginal Human Resources Development (formerly Native Employment Services), Native Alcoholism Council, Northwest Child and Family Services Agency, North Main Street Project, Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg, Circle of Life Thunderbird House, and the Indigenous Women’s Collective of Manitoba. She was the recipient of several awards recognizing her contributions to improving the lives of Aboriginal people, including a Manitoba Good Citizen Award (1977), the Joe Zuken Citizen Activist Award (1989), a National Aboriginal Achievement Award for community development (1999), and a Keeping the Fires Burning award (2004), and was named to the Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt (1989) and the IMFC Aboriginal Wall of Fame (1999). She died in Winnipeg on 9 September 2007.

Education: MD(Man)1903

Positions: Practised at Souris, Hartney and Brandon for a total of 60 years

Dr. Ivan Bihler was born in the former European country of Yugoslavia on August 12, 1924. After his service in the Yugoslav National Liberation Army in the Second World War, Dr. Bihler began his studies in chemical engineering at the University of Zagreb in 1946. Dr. Bilher received both a M.Sc. in Chemistry in 1953 and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry 1957 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His postdoctoral training period included a year at the University of Rochester followed by two years at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri in the Department of Biochemistry. Following a fellowship in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Bihler accepted an academic appointment with the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba in 1963. In addition to his appointments at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Bihler was a Career Investigator for the Medical Research Council of Canada and was a visiting professor at a number of institutions including the University of Geneva and the Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London.
Dr. Bilher’s research primarily focused on membrane function with special reference to the integration of membrane transport with cell function and metabolism. Dr. Bilher’s research on the transport of glucose and its regulation led to the discovery of the calcium dependence of this process in muscle and other tissue. In 1987, Dr. Bihler was awarded the Upjohn Award by the Pharmacological Society of Canada for his significant contributions to research in pharmacology. Dr. Biher’s interests outside of medical research were languages (he was fluent in English, French, Serbo-Croatian, German, Hebrew, and Italian) in addition to travel and the arts which he enjoyed with his wife Lenka Magda Bihler. Dr. Ivan Bihler retired from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba as Professor Emeritus in 1993 and passed away in 1999.

Education: MSc(Chem) 1953; PhD 1957 both Hebrew U of Jerusalem

Positions: Dept Pharm & Therapeutics (UM): Asst Prof 1963, Assoc Prof 1965, Prof 1967-1993; Prof Emeritus 1993-1999

Education: MD(Man)1936

Position: Asst Phys Brandon Mental Hosp 1937-38; Demonstrator, Psychiatry 1942; Asst Director, Wpg Psychopathic Hosp 1942-45; Assoc Prof, Psychiatry, Western Reserve Univ, Cleveland Ohio

Education: Guy’s Hospital, London previous to mid 1860s

Positions: Private practice in Middlechurch and Winnipeg, Manitoba
Coroner for District of Assiniboia

Donald Birse was born in Minnesota and moved to Canada early in life. He graduated from the University of Manitoba with a degree in geology. His work as a student assistant in the Canadian Geological Survey from 1924-1926 prepared him for an outdoor career, primarily in northern Manitoba. Birse worked for several geological companies over the course of his career. He also worked as a geological consultant. He conducted geological explorations for new mineral sites, and evaluated the economic viability of numerous mining and land claims.

Education: MD(Man)1930, RCPS(C)1943

Positions: Demonstrator, Medicine (Dermatology) 1943; Lecturer, Medicine 1946; Asst Prof, Medicine 1957; Assoc Prof, Medicine 1964; Prof Emeritus 1976

Dr. Guy Richard Bisby was professor of Botany in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Manitoba.

Education: MD(Dalhousie)1964

Positions: Section Head Pediatric Hematology & Oncology 1973; Assoc Prof 1975; Professor 1983; Head Pediatrics 1984-93; Head RCPS 1994- ; Pres AECB 1994- ;

Education: MD CM(Man)1897; FACS

Positions: Clin Asst, Obstetrics 1909; Lecturer, Obstetrics 1910; Assoc Prof, Obstetrics 1913; Professor 1927; Professor Emeritus 1933

Charlotte Black was an alumna of the University of Manitoba. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics at the Manitoba Agricultural College in 1925. Her sister, Elinor Black, was the first female head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine.

Elinor Frances Elizabeth Black was born in 1905 in Nelson, British Columbia, and moved to Winnipeg at the age of 12. As a high school student at Kelvin High School and undergraduate student, Black was involved in the United Church’s Canadian Girls In Training, where she met Gertrude Rutherford, an important player in the Student Christian Movement and an advocate of women as professionals. Her friendship with Rutherford and with other women she befriended through the movement continued throughout her life, as seen in the large collection of correspondence in the Elinor Black fonds.

In 1924, against the wishes of her family, Black entered the University of Manitoba Medical School, graduating in 1930. She set up a practice in Winnipeg in 1931 after spending a year working and travelling in Britain, and in 1933 was appointed assistant in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Winnipeg General Hospital and assistant demonstrator in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Manitoba. Black was promoted to lecturer at the University of Manitoba in 1937, the same year she received a six-month appointment as house surgeon at the South London Hospital for Women. In 1938 Black was the first Canadian woman to become a member of the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Elinor Black was appointed Professor and Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine in 1951. During her tenure as Head, the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology grew in size and in stature. Black continued to break ground, becoming the first woman to be president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1961. In 1970, Elinor Black received an honourary degree from the University of Winnipeg. She continued working for the University of Manitoba and at her private practice until just two days before her death in 1982.

George Black was born in Montreal and educated at McGill University. He served with Colonel Wolseley at Lower Fort Garry and opened a store at Selkirk, Manitoba upon his military discharge. He was appointed assistant auditor in the Manitoba government in 1885 and auditor in 1888, serving until 1915. He was a member of the Free Masons, serving as first master of the Selkirk lodge in 1870-1871, deputy grand master for Manitoba in 1874 and grand master in 1875. He died in 1919.

Education: MD(Man)1919

Positions: Otolaryngology: Demonstrator, 1938; Lecturer 1939; Professor & Head, 1946/7-1955/56;