Dr. Charles Cross Bigelow, B.A.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D., F.C.I.C.

Charles C. Bigelow was born to parents Tupper S. and Helen Cross Bigelow on April 25, 1928.

Bigelow joined the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario and later graduated with a diploma in chemical engineering in 1952 and subsequently earned a B.A.Sc. in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto in 1953. By 1955 he earned his M.Sc. and in 1957, a Ph.D. both in physical chemistry from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

After his graduation, his research career took him abroad, where he worked in protein chemistry at various research intensive institutions, including Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen and The Sloane-Kettering Institute in New York City.

He then began a long and impressive career as a teacher, researcher, and administrator, beginning at the University of Alberta, followed by a move to London, Ontario for a professorship in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario. By 1974, he accepted a position as Head of Biochemistry at Memorial University in St. John’s Newfoundland. He left Memorial University in 1977 and spent 2 years as the Dean of Science at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, NS before he moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1979.

Another distinguished administrator, Bigelow was appointed as the second Dean of Science in 1979 and held the position until 1989, whilst maintaining active research and teaching in the Department of Chemistry. He was then named senior scholar and Dean Emeritus of the Faculty of Science following his time as Dean of the Faculty of Science.

In 1998, Dr. Bigelow received the first Donald C. Savage Award for outstanding achievements in promoting collective bargaining and economic benefits in Canadian Universities.

“Dr. Bigelow provided decades of service to the principles of fairness, openness and collegiality in Canadian academe and to collective bargaining as the means to protect and to promote those values” – James Turk, Executive Director of Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT)