Jarnail Mehroke, a teaching laboratory technician who has been key to several sustainability initiatives on campus, has received the highest honour for UBC staff: the President’s Service Award for Excellence.
“I was a little bit nervous,” admits Jarnail Mehroke.
For Mehroke, shaking hands with UBC President Stephen Toope at the Vancouver Congregation Convocation Ceremony on May 28th was a little intimidating. The shy laboratory technician — who has worked in the Department of Botany for 14 years — is used to helping third- and fourth-year students perfect their research techniques. He’s not so comfortable up on stage, being lauded by the President and applauded by a crowd of several hundred well-wishers.
Mehroke was at the Chan Centre to receive a President’s Service Award for Excellence, the top award presented to UBC staff to recognize excellence in personal achievements and contributions to the vision and goals of the University. President Toope presented him with a gold medal and a certificate as well as a cheque for $5,000.
In the citation, the President praised Mehroke for motivating students, improving techniques and modeling safe lab practices, and said that Mehroke is known for always having time for students.
“A number of people wrote glowing letters of recommendation,” says Dr. Santokh Singh, Senior Instructor in the Department of Botany, who has run the lab where Mehroke works for 15 years. “Not just faculty but also staff and students who had worked with Jarnail, including several who graduated some time ago.”
A key supporter was Brenda Sawada, Manager of Campus Sustainability’s SEEDS program, which develops “Living Lab” partnerships between faculty, staff and students on campus. Mehroke has been involved in no less than six SEEDS projects, including a series looking at carbon sequestration in trees and another that tested the organic herbicides used to control weeds on campus.
“As a staff member working with Jarnail, his competence, his commitment to everyone he works with, and his quiet, humble and pleasant demeanor are always an inspiration,” says Sawada. “I have been overwhelmed by the expressions of student gratitude to Jarnail for his patient teaching of laboratory methods and use of equipment, his constant and positive support of learning and for his invaluable feedback about their laboratory experiments. He is a mentor and a role model to his students, and to the wider community.”
Sawada notes that UBC’s reputation for leadership in sustainability depends on a web of individuals. Faculty members such as Prof. Emer. William Rees and Prof. John Robinson tend to have the highest profiles, but without committed laboratory technicians such as Mehroke, students would never acquire the skills and learning that add to the scientific knowledge that is so vital to moving towards sustainability, not just here at UBC but globally.