Kenneth G. Murray is a philanthropist living in the Waterloo-Wellington area of Ontario. He was born in 1924 in Chatham, Ont. and served in the Canadian Navy from 1943 to 1945., He was educated at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ont. and received a B.SC. (Agriculture) in 1950. From 1950 to 1987 he worked for J.M. Schneider in Kitchener, Ont., starting as a salesman and becoming president, a position he filled from 1969 to 1985. He has been a director on the boards of several corporations: Homewood Health Centre and Corporation in Guelph, Ont.; Canada Trust in London, Ont.; and B.F. Goodrich, Dominion Life Insurance Co. Ltd and J.M. Schneider Inc. in Kitchener, Ont. He has actively supported, in person and financially, many community organizations and initiatives as well as educational facilities and opportunities in Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph. These include the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Westmount Golf Club, Kitchener-Waterloo Community Foundation, K-W Oktoberfest, Kitchener Chamber of Commerce, Kitchener Young Men's Club, Kitchener Public School Board and the Kitchener-Waterloo Operatic Society. In 1993 he initiated the Homewood Foundation in Guelph, a fundraising and granting agency for mental health research, education and patient care. The Universities of Guelph and Waterloo have benefited from his involvement. At the University of Guelph he initiated the Science and Society Project and the Ken Murray Annual Lecture Series, was on the Board of Governors from 1971 to 1979 and has served on several committees and in fundraising campaigns. At the University of Waterloo Ken Murray initiated the Murray Alzheimer Research and Education Program (MAREP) in 1992.
Ken Murray has received many honours and awards in the course of his lifetime, including the Order of Canada in 2000, and The Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee medal in 2002. He received honourary degrees from the University of Guelph and the University of Waterloo in 1996 and 1995 respectively.

Dana Harris Porter was born to Dr. George Dana Porter and Lena Harris of the Massey-Harris family in Toronto, Ontario on January 14, 1901. He attended the University of Toronto for his B.A. which he completed in 1921. In September of that year he traveled to England to study at Balliol College, Oxford from which graduated with his M.A. in 1923. He then returned to Canada, and records show that he intended to study for the Ontario Bar. He was called to the bar in 1923 and began practicing litigation law at Fennel, Porter and Davis. During his time at law school he met Dorothy Chaplin Ramsey Parker (born 1905) the daughter of Admiral A.R. Parker. Dorothy had been born in Hong Kong and raised mostly in England having taken many trips to Canada as a child and youth where she stayed with her Uncle the Honourable J.D. Chaplin, an M.P. in St. Catharines. By December of 1928 the couple’s relationship was becoming serious and they were engaged in June 1929. Dorothy was visiting England at the time, and she returned to Canada for their October 5, 1929 wedding. In 1931 their first son, Dana Jr. was born and a second, Julian, followed in 1936.

During this time Porter continued to work at his firm and in 1943 he made the decision to enter into provincial politics. In the 1943 election he ran as a Progressive Conservative in the Toronto riding of St. George, which won him a place in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. He would hold this seat until 1958. During his political career he served under three premiers and in a variety of positions. From 1944-1948 he was the Minister of Planning and Development during which time he was instrumental in the airlifting of British immigrants to Canada. From 1948-1951 he was the Minister of Education and was Provincial Secretary and Registrar from 1948-1949. In 1949 Porter ran for head of the Progressive Conservative Party at the 1949 Provincial Tory Leadership Convention, but lost to friend Leslie Frost. Instead, Porter became Attorney General of Ontario, a position he held until 1955. His last role in the Provincial Government was that of Treasurer and Minister of Economics from 1955-1958. Throughout these years he was also a member of numerous standing committees on a broad range of topics.

In 1958 the Progressive Conservatives came into power at the national level with Diefenbaker becoming Prime Minister and Porter stepped down from politics to accept his appointment as Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal. During his tenure he also headed the Royal Commission on Banking and Finance from 1961-1964 and presided over a number of important trials, such as the lifting of the ban on notorious novel Fanny Hill.

Porter also had a number of personal interests and activities that kept him busy. He spoke at a variety of events in Ontario and Canada at large, including convocations, meetings, luncheons etc. He was also an amateur Shakespeare historian and was particularly interested in the Sonnets. He wrote a number of essays on the possible order of the Sonnets, and on the identities of the Dark Lady, the Fair Youth and the Rival Poet. Although an attempt was made to have one of his works published, the furthest that came of it was printed and bound editions that he had made and sent to friends and critics. His literary endeavors did not end with Shakespeare as he also wrote a play and three essays on politics in Canada.
Porter’s dedication to academia lead to many accolades including being installed as the First Chancellor of the University of Waterloo in 1960. He was also on the Board of the University of Toronto and was awarded Honourary degrees from such institutions as McMaster University. The Dana Porter Library at the University of Waterloo was dedicated to and named after him on October 27, 1967, and his portrait hangs in it.

In 1967 Porter stepped down from his position largely due to his failing health. On May 13 of the same year he died of cancer in Toronto.

The Dana Porter Library officially opened on October 23, 1965 as the Arts Library Building. It was designed by Toronto based Shore and Moffatt and Partners and was built between 1964 and 1970. The 10-storey building had floors added over time, with work on the final three beginning in 1969 by Hamilton-based Eaglewood Construction.

The opening of the building in 1965 was marked by a special convocation ceremony during which honorary degrees were presented to Bertha Bassam, Robert Harold Blackburn, and Jack Ernest Brown. Afterwards, the academic procession proceeded directly from Convocation to the main entrance of the Arts Library Building. The Arts Library Building was dedicated to and named after Dana Harris Porter, the first chancellor of the University of Waterloo, on October 27, 1967.

Panurge Press was an American publisher founded by Esar Levine, who co-owned Falstaff Press and Robin Hood House as well. In 1926, he was convicted and imprisoned for trafficking in obscene books as a result of his attempts to publish Frank Harris's My Life and Loves.

Falstaff Press was a private United States publisher of erotica. Their first publication was Musk, Hashish and Blood in 1900. On November 26, 1935 Ben and Anne Rebhuhn and their nephew Ben Raeburn were charged with sending obscene matter through the mails. The three were convicted in May 1939.

Vershawn "Vay" Young is an artist, actor, diversity consultant and Professor, Joint Appointed, in Communications Arts and English Language and Literature at the University of Waterloo where he has been the director of Waterloo's Black Studies program since its launch in 2022. His research in Black Studies focuses on masculinity, language and performance, and he is known for scholarship about "code-meshing" which was explored in his 2007 book Your Average Nigga Performing Race, Literacy, and Masculinity.

Young holds a JD law degree from Mitchell Hamline College of Law and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to his appointment at Waterloo, he was a faculty member at the University of Iowa and the University of Kentucky.

Since joining Waterloo, Young has been a founding member of Waterloo's Black Faculty Collective and, along with Kathy Hogarth and Christopher Taylor, was a member of the Black Studies implementation team whose work and phage 1 report led to the founding of a Black Studies program in 2022. Outside of academia, he has worked as a high school drama, English and speech teacher, an elementary school principle and a school board administrator. During Winter 2023 Young stared as Sir Robert Chiltern in a production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband at the Firehall Theatre in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Naila Keleta-Mae is an artist, poet and Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo. The principal investigator of the Black and Free research-creation project, Keleta-Mae is a National Research Council of Canada Dorothy Killam Fellow, and the Tier 2 SSHRC Canada Research Chair in Race, Gender and Performance. Known for her work in Black expressive culture and Black feminisms, her scholarly contributions focus on the cultural production of Black women including music, videos, performances, plays, and poetry, and has authored two books Beyoncé And Beyond: 2013-2016 (2023) and Performing Female Blackness (2023).

Keleta-Mae was born in Toronto, Ontario and was heavily influenced by her parents, who immigrated to Canada from Jamaica in the 1960s, and were active in community building, including as members of the Afro-Caribbean Association of Manitoba during the 1970s. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and Spanish from Concordia University. Keleta-Mae completed a Masters of Arts in 2005 and a Doctorate of Philosophy, Theater Studies in 2012, both at York University. She worked as a faculty advisor at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont for two years, before joining the University of Waterloo as a lecturer in 2011, where she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020.

In addition to scholarly contributions, research and theatrical performances, since joining Waterloo, Keleta-Mae has regularly written and commentates for major media outlets, and gained international attention in 2015 for centering Beyoncé as a topic of focus in an undergraduate Gender and Performance course. Founded in 2017, her Black and Free research-creation project, which examines Black expression in the 21st century, consists of multi-year research partnerships and includes a research team of more than 30 people. In 2022, Keleta-Mae received the UWaterloo Arts Award for Excellence in Research.

Darrell Adams (b. September 16, 1983) is the Head Coach for the University of Toronto Varsity Blues. Previously, he was the Associate Head Coach, Defensive Coordinator and Recruiting Coordinator for the University of Waterloo men's football team.

Adams is from Long Island, New York. Between 2001 and 2005 he attended Villanova University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in communications, and played football for the Villanova Wildcats. He studied communications and marketing and graduated in 2005.

In 2006, Adams was signed to a practice roster agreement with the New York Jets and later a reserve/future contract but was released in 2007. He was signed by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2007 to play football and migrated to Canada. He played for the Tiger-Cats until his retirement from professional football in 2010. Adams continued working with the team from 2011 to 2013, as the Strength and Conditioning Coordinator and Assistant Defensive Line Coach. In 2013, he worked as the Strength and Conditioning Coordinator and Defensive Line Coach for the Carleton Ravens (Carleton University).

Adams was hired as the Special Teams, Recruiting and Video Coordinator for the Waterloo Warriors (University of Waterloo) in 2016. He was later promoted to Associate Head Coach, Defensive Coordinator and Recruiting Coordinator. During his time at Waterloo, Adams was a member of the Waterloo Black Faculty Collective, the Black Canadian Coaches Association and Black Football Coaches of Canada. In 2022 he received the Ontario University Athletics' Equity Diversity and Inclusion Award in recognition of his work to advance positive systemic change on- and off-campus. The same year, he was one of nine participants in the Canadian Football League's four-week Diversity in Football Program.

In January 2024 it was announced that Adams was leaving Waterloo to accept a new role as the Head Coach for the University of Toronto Varsity Blues.

Samantha Lange is a student studying physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of Waterloo. She was among the first to take courses in the Black Studies program, which launched during in 2022.

Lange was born in St. Joseph, Trinidad and grew up in the Northwest part of the country in Maraval. She and twin sister, Sharon, were raised by their father, following the death of their mother shortly after giving birth.

As a Waterloo student, Samantha has served as the president of the Science Society, is a member of FemPhys and worked as a Residence Ambassador.

Dr. Murchison Callender is a Professor Emeritus with the School of Optometry and Vision Science at the University of Waterloo known for research in the microbiology and physiology of the eye in contact lens wear and the clinical applications of contact lenses, and the investigation of the the anatomical and biochemical mechanisms associated with the refractive changes in the developing eye. In addition to an active research agenda, Callender is known for a long-standing clinical teaching practice and vision care programmes in the Caribbean.

Callender was born in the village of Sainte Madeleine in Trinidad and Tobago to George Elton Callender (1908-2008) and Dorothy Orgato Wilson Callender. His father worked as an accountant for the Usine Ste Madeleine Sugar Estate and later for the Trinidad and Tobago government, and his mother taught at a business school in San Fernando before opening her own business school. Callender attended primary school and high school in San Fernando and excelled in science. After completing high school, he worked for the Trinidad Texaco Oil Company as a Research Assistant.

Immigrating to Canada on September 5, 1958, to attend Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in Montreal, Quebec, as an undergraduate student, where he received his B.Sc. (Biology). Callender completed postgraduate work at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and developed an interest in the optometry, going on to join the College of Optometry in Toronto. In 1967, the College of Optometry moved to the University of Waterloo and Callender was part of the first graduating class from the School of Optometry at the University of Waterloo in 1968. In addition to optometry training, he also holds a M.Phil (Vision Sciences) from the University of Aston in Birmingham, England.

After graduating from Waterloo, Callendar worked as Assistant Optometrist at the School where he was involved with teaching and clinical aspects of optometry. His appointment as a full-time faculty member is believed to have been the first such appointment of a Black faculty member in optometry in Canada, and perhaps North America. Prior to retiring from the Waterloo, Callendar served in various administrative roles, including the Director of the Contact Lens Clinic and Admissions Officer, and spent several decades managing vision care programmes for people of the Caribbean in both Waterloo and on location, including in Jamaica.

Founded in 1971, the Glow Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity is longest running queer and trans student organization in Canada.

Run entirely by dedicated student volunteers, Glow promotes a healthy attitude towards all sexual orientations and gender identities at the University of Waterloo by providing a wide variety of peer support, social events, advocacy work, and resources.

For a brief period the organization produced, GLOW News, a newsletter which acted as an educational resource on homosexuality as well as a support and social group for the gay community. Edited by GLOW membership the newsletter consisted of ten issues released between December 1982 and September 1983. Copies of GLOW News are held by Special Collections & Archives [call number UWA 0120]. GLOW News is available on the Waterloo Digital Library.

The Glow Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity was previously known as Gay Liberation of Waterloo (GLOW), Gays and Lesbians of Waterloo and the Glow Queer and Questioning Community Centre.

Lannois Carroll-Woolery is the Manager of Data Analytics & Reporting for the Department of Institutional Analysis & Planning at the University of Waterloo, and current President of the Caribbean Canadian Association of Waterloo Region (CCAWR).

Carroll-Woolery was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was primarily raised in Kingston, Jamaica but spent many childhood holidays in the rural area of St. Thomas, Jamaica. He did very well in high school majoring in STEM subjects and was class valedictorian. He was awarded a scholarship and attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts for two years. Due to financial restrictions, he left the college and moved to Canada joining his parents who recently immigrated to Canada.

Carroll-Woolery began studying at the University of Waterloo in 1992. He graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc), Mechanical Engineering. As a student, he was involved with the Association of Caribbean Students at the university. During this time, Carroll-Woolery met and married his wife and started a family.

Following graduation, Carroll-Woolery and his family decided to settle in Waterloo, and he found work in the Information Technology (IT) sector. In 2006, he began working for the University of Waterloo and has been in his current position since 2017.

Carroll-Woolery has been an active member of the Caribbean Canadian Association of Waterloo Region and has been the association’s President since 2019.

In 2022, Carroll-Woolery received a Master of Applied Science (MASc), Data Science from the University of Waterloo.

Jermal Jones is the Associate Director, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Access in the University of Waterloo Library.