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The ATA’s Public Education Award will be posthumously presented to Margaret Ann Armour at the Annual Representative Assembly held over Zoom on the May long weekend.
This award is offered occasionally to an individual or a group that has given outstanding support to public education in Alberta other than through teaching.
Born in 1939 in Scotland, Armour completed her PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Alberta and was passionate about sparking an interest in science in school-age girls. In 1982, she led a committee to study how to get women and girls more involved in science. The committee turned into WISEST (Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science and Technology), which is still active today at the U of A. Armour also advocated to educators, parents and employers the importance of encouraging women to consider careers in science and engineering.
Armour died in 2019, but her legacy lives on at the University of Alberta, where she developed 13 initiatives, including Project Catalyst, which aimed to increase the representation of women in faculty positions, and in every student who walks through the doors of Dr. Margaret Ann Armour School, located in southwest Edmonton. ❚
