Ann Gordon - BOLD Stories

Smalltown roots lay the groundwork for big global impact
Congratulations to Ann Gordon, winner of Brescia’s Carmelle Murphy Award of Distinction

We are delighted to celebrate the personal and professional career of Ann Gordon (Hankinson), Class ’78, with this year’s Carmelle Murphy Award. Presented to an alumna in her reunion year, this award recognizes Ann’s deep commitment to individual and community development across the global stage.

Ann has continually demonstrated an unrelenting dedication to enhancing the lives of rural families and farmers through systemic change. After growing up on a tobacco and beef farm, Ann pursued her undergraduate degree at Brescia where she became fully immersed in the university’s family feel and rigorous academics.

Within the Home Economics program at Canada’s women’s university, Ann began to recognize the meaningful interplay between individuals, families and macro-socioeconomic structures. Her worldview was further broadened during a teaching assignment in Sierra Leone where she developed a home economics program to propel women towards better and more sustainable futures. This international mission was one of her first and most powerful lessons in the incredible potential of the individual to influence families and communities’ ways of life.

 “Sierra Leone showed me, even as a young person, I could make life better for others – with others,” Ann shares. “I immediately learned the importance of working with, not on behalf of, people and this shaped all my next steps in supporting women and families.”

 

Be it agriculture or academics, Ann maintains a humanizing approach to economic development.

Upon returning to Canada, Ann earned a role with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food as a Rural Organization Specialist. With the aim of increasing effectiveness across the sector, Ann connected with amazing families and groups whose tireless efforts immeasurably contribute to community vitality. Unsurprisingly, Ann’s upward mobility and enriching relationships became a positive symptom of her commitment to making life better for those in Canada and across the pond.

Building upon her legacy of rural development, she soon became the Executive Director of The Advanced Agricultural Leadership Program at The Centre for Rural Leadership (now known as the Rural Ontario Institute). Within this role, she connected young rural and agriculture industry leaders with international experiences to globalize their local approach to farming and economic development. She had the privilege of collaborating with influential agri-food, business, and government experts across Canada and applying both her local and global experiences towards helping to raise up the next generation of agricultural leaders in Ontario. It was at this point she took a breath and returned to the hallowed halls of higher education to even more closely align her heart, hands and mind.

“Getting my master’s degree was a wonderful experience!” Ann says. “I was mid-career and the oldest person in my classes, but that didn’t matter. I completely saw how my lived experiences matched or conflicted with the theories we learned, and it gave me an even deeper understanding of the interplay between agriculture, leadership and women’s economic empowerment.”

 

If a single grain of rice can tip the scale, imagine what an empowered woman can do.

Ann applied all the theory and experience she collected towards her role as a Technical Director with the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA). Here, her Brescia feminist pedagogy often collided with her respect for different cultures and agri-food practices.  To address the cycle of poverty, she helped women develop the skills to grow their kitchen gardens, become entrepreneurs or team leaders in small agri-businesses. By strategically analyzing value chain systems and changing something as simple as a grain of rice, Ann and her teams supported women to feed their families and establish some economic independence.

“My passion lives with helping women to help themselves,” Ann shares. “People are often scared of the power of women, but when you invest in that potential, you uplift entire communities. This work demanded a lot of tough conversations with people who stood in the way of capable women, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”  Today, Ann is developing a professional art practice, while continuing to help young women.  Brescia is pleased to be the recipient of this generosity through mentoring opportunities and legacy leadership.

From home kitchens to malaria nets, Ann’s model of individual and community development has always prioritized sincere engagement with the people she aims to serve. Long before models of saviourism became problematized, Ann honoured the voices of equity-denied groups. In every position and project, she has approached challenges in ways that reflect the cultural and human nuances demanded of sustainable change.

For this and countless other reasons, we are grateful for the opportunity to shine the light on Ann and her outstanding work. We hope our campus and alumnae will join us in applauding Ann for pursuing her calling and beautifully living out the Ursuline legacy of courage, compassion and inclusive leadership. 

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