A memorial service in Toronto is being planned for Vincent D’Oyley, professor emeritus and former associate dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, who died May 10 in Vancouver, BC.
An accomplished researcher who focused on the evaluation of multicultural education, D’Oyley had strong ties to York University and to Toronto’s Black community. He received his BA from the University of London, and his BEd and EdD from the University of Toronto, where he was a professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Planning and the Department of Measurement & Evaluation at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).
D’Oyley was awarded an honorary doctor of letters from York in 1994. During his address to Faculty of Education graduates, D’Oyley emphasized the importance of understanding students in their worlds. “Where others love power, may your classrooms ensure that their sounds and chords integrate, finding symphony levels. Where rivers – deep, swirling or calm – are encountered, may your students see that are underneath the streams’ surfaces and what used to be. May your classrooms be ones to which the youth of Sarajevo and of the Fraser Valley would give high marks.”
“Vincent was both a remarkable friend and valued colleague,” said Stan Shapson, York’s vice-president research & innovation, who co-authored Bilingual and Multicultural Education: Canadian Perspectives and Innovative Multicultural Teaching with D’Oyley. “He contributed to building our strengths in urban teacher education through innovative projects, such as Westview Partnership and he helped us in mentoring new faculty appointments who were Black educators. He provided data to show that issues Black students were experiencing were present in schools across Canada and provided innovative ways to help educators address these issues through policy changes. He also made a consistent effort to involve the community in his wider educational writing.”
D’Oyley held leadership roles in professional and civic communities such as the National Council of Black Educators of Canada and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations.
The planned memorial service for D’Oyley will involve York’s Faculty of Education and members of the Black community.
Submitted to YFile by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer