A message to friends and colleagues regarding Monica Hypher's retirement
December 20, 2019 will be Monica Hypher’s last day at the CIRHR, as she retires after an entire career spent at the Centre Library.
Monica was hired as Library Technician in 1982, straight out of her training at Ryerson’s Library Arts Department. She started at the Centre Library as a cataloguer, but life in a small, dynamic library encompasses a wide range of tasks and her job has expanded over the years. Monica derives the most satisfaction from interacting directly with students, fellow staff, faculty, and the wider community, assisting them with their academic needs and tasks, and learning from them.
She received the Faculty of Arts & Science Dean’s Student Life Award in 2013, in recognition of her commitment to the student experience. While her commendation notes that her contributions to the quality of students’ education take many forms — “Regularly going beyond expectations to support their research work by recommending readings, helping them to carve out a hypothesis for a paper and exploring new technology formats for expressing their ideas.” — Monica’s speech accepting the award added a few more examples:
[The students] are bright, ambitious, appreciative and fun, and you never know what they are going to ask you. For example, "I have an interview today and forgot my good shoes. Have you got a spare pair, size 12? Would you look after my dog for a minute? Would you look after my baby?” It's all part of the service.
Monica has also received two University of Toronto Long Service Awards, marking her first twenty-five, then thirty-five years at the University, and despite enjoying the job, is determined to forgo the pleasure of receiving a third award, marking 40 years: “It’s been great and I will miss everybody, but it’s time to sleep in!”
The retirement party for Monica is on Tuesday December 17, 2019, from 5pm-7pm in the library (Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, 121 St. George Street, Toronto). Monica believes that what makes a workplace is good people, and that the Centre continues to have them in abundance. “I hope the students, staff and faculty, past and present, will come to the party and reconnect with the CIRHR community and have fun!”
If you plan to attend, please RSVP to cirhr.alumni@utoronto.ca by Wednesday December 11, 2019.