The Brock community is deeply saddened by the passing of Professor Gary Libben on Wednesday, April 30.
Flags were lowered in his honour on Monday, May 5.
Professor Gary Libben, shown here in 2011 shortly after arriving at Brock, was a strong advocate of creativity and innovation in research and was himself an internationally recognized scholar of psycholinguistics.
The Professor of Applied Linguistics and Associate Faculty Member in the Department of Psychology came to Brock in 2011 after his appointment as the University's Vice-President, Research, a role he held until 2016. He also served as Chair in the Department of Applied Linguistics from 2017 to 2020.
Dawn Zinga, Acting Dean in the Faculty of Social Sciences, says Libben will be terribly missed by his colleagues, friends, family and students.
"Professor Libben's contributions to Brock and to the field of Linguistics were many," says Zinga. "Gary was an amazing mentor to many, famous for sharing stories and always making time for colleagues and students."
Libben recently received a King Charles III Coronation Medal for his contributions to Canadian research excellence as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, which he was elected to in 2008 and was serving as its Secretary. The Mental Lexicon, a journal he co-founded in 2006, recently published a special double-issue in his honour with a poignant tribute to his pivotal role in his research field over the past 30 years.
Lynn Dempsey, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies in the Faculty of Social Sciences and long-time colleague of Libben's, describes him as "a brilliant scholar" who, as a psycholinguist and neurolinguist, "advanced understanding of how words are represented in the mind."
"It's impossible to overstate Gary's contributions to the field of linguistics," says Dempsey. "The innovative experimental methods he developed will be used to explore language processing in a wide range of populations long into the future."
She adds that students or, as he called them, "junior colleagues" could sense Libben's care, compassion and his genuine interest in helping them succeed.
Ron Thomson, Chair of the Department of Applied Linguistics, agrees, saying he always admired Libben's commitment to family, students and colleagues.
"His dedication to his family was one of the things that really inspired me about Gary, and that passion carried over into his concern for students," says Thomson. "On the mentorship front, he recognized many diamonds in the rough and helped shape them into fantastic scholars."
Psychology Professor Emeritus Sid Segalowitz says Libben was "deeply knowledgeable about foundations central to his own specialty field of the linguistics of compound words" but who was also always "ready and eager to discuss developments in many other fields of scholarship, from physics to history to literature."
Segalowitz points to Libben's leadership in the SSHRC "Words in the World" Partnership Project, which attracted many dozens of collaborators from around the world, as exemplary of his strength in building relationships.
"In our 14 years of friendship and collaboration, I was most impressed with the universal appreciation of his warmth, support and interest in his students and colleagues," says Segalowitz. "His scholarly enthusiasm and caring for others was apparent until his final days as he put finishing touches on his latest book and concerned himself deeply with the ongoing well-being of his students."
Acting Vice-President, Research Michelle McGinn says that over a long and distinguished career, Libben "applied his creativity, technical skill and passion to advancing the field of psycholinguistics and promoting the next generation of scholars and research leaders."
"Beyond his scholarly contributions, he will forever be remembered as a thoughtful and gentle soul," says McGinn. "Whether leading an international research team, Brock's research administrative offices or a trek across Montréal for a favoured bagel, he could be counted on to listen attentively and propel the group forward in a positive direction."
