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Humanities, in memorium

´óÏó´«Ã½ community loses Donald Grayston, humanities and religious studies scholar, retired priest, and activist.

November 20, 2017
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Donald Grayston, instructor in religious studies and humanities at ´óÏó´«Ã½, was an inspirational intellectual, peace activist and community-builder. A retired Anglican parish priest, Grayston—who died on October 23, 2017— taught in ´óÏó´«Ã½â€™s Department of Humanities from 1989 to 2004, serving for the last three years as the director of its .

During his academic career, Grayston published on pilgrimage, marriage, the Holocaust and had a research specialization on the progressive Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, serving as a past president of both the and the . In addition to his scholarly contributions, Grayston was director and co-director of the , which he co-founded with Jack Gorsuch in 1988. Grayston was also a past chair of , a public education program that ran from 2008-2015 with the mandate to be a peaceful, non-partisan, non-secretarian public forum for dialogue and information concerning the conflict in Israel-Palestine.

Grayston at a Vigil for Hiroshima Day, Robson Square. August 6th, 1984. (Image MSC160-1027_17 courtesy the Pacific Tribune Photograph Collection, a digital initiative of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Library).

Read more about Donald Grayston:

  • ³Ò°ù²¹²â²õ³Ù´Ç²Ô’s&²Ô²ú²õ±è; and 
  • Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences biography of Grayston on the FASS Time Capsule
  • ´óÏó´«Ã½ Continuing Studies , ´óÏó´«Ã½ Continuing Studies
  •  by Douglas Todd in the Vancouver Sun