Catherine Frazee is a Canadian educator, activist, researcher, poet and writer who currently serves as a Professor of Distinction in the Disability Studies

Disability studies

Disability studies is a relatively new interdisciplinary academic field focusing on the roles of people with disabilities in history, literature, social policy, law, architecture, and other disciplines. Although it has many antecedents, disability studies began to flourish toward the end of the...

 program at Ryerson University

Ryerson University

Ryerson University is a public research university located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its urban campus is adjacent to Yonge-Dundas Square located at the busiest intersection in Downtown Toronto. The majority of its buildings are in the blocks northeast of the square in Toronto's Garden...

 as well as a Co-director of Ryerson University's Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education. Her father was prominent Canadian banker Rowland Cardwell Frazee.

Organizations

Frazee is a member of DAWN (DisAbled Women's Network Canada

DisAbled Women's Network Canada

DAWN Canada/Réseau d'action des femmes handicapées du Canada is a Canadian national feminist network controlled by and composed of women who self-identify as women with disabilities. The network also supports local and provincial chapters...

)'s Equality Rights Committee http://www.dawncanada.net/ and serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Abilities Foundation http://www.abilities.ca/about_abilities.html and the Canadian Association for Community Living, chairing that organization's Task Force on Values and Ethics http://www.cacl.ca/english/priorityresouces/valuesethics/index.html. Between 1989 and 1992, Frazee acted as the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission

Ontario Human Rights Commission

The Ontario Human Rights Commission was established in the Canadian province of Ontario on March 29, 1961 to administer the Ontario Human Rights Code...

.

Honours

Catherine Frazee has been awarded two honorary degrees from Canadian Universities. She received one from the University of New Brunswick

University of New Brunswick

The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...

 in 2002 and another from Dalhousie University

Dalhousie University

Dalhousie University is a public research university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university comprises eleven faculties including Schulich School of Law and Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. It also includes the faculties of architecture, planning and engineering located at...

 in May 2009. She has also been awarded the Arnold Davidson Dunton

Arnold Davidson Dunton

Arnold Davidson Dunton, was a Canadian educator and public administrator.He was educated at Lower Canada College, Montréal, and at universities in Canada, France, Britain, and Germany. He worked as a reporter on the Montreal Star 1935-37, as associate editor 1937-38, and was editor of the...

 Alumni Award of Distinction in 1990, by the Carleton University

Carleton University

Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The enabling legislation is The Carleton University Act, 1952, S.O. 1952. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines. Carleton has...

 Alumni Association

Alumni association

An alumni association is an association of graduates or, more broadly, of former students. In the United Kingdom and the United States, alumni of universities, colleges, schools , fraternities, and sororities often form groups with alumni from the same organisation...

.

Media

Catherine Frazee, along with humourist David Roche, dancer, choreographer and impresario Geoff McMurchy, writer/artist Persimmon Blackbridge, and director and filmmaker Bonnie Sherr Klein

Bonnie Sherr Klein

Bonnie Sherr Klein is a feminist filmmaker, author, and disability rights activist.-Film-making career:Klein worked for the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal as a director and producer in the late 1960s. Between that time and the late 1980s, she made dozens of films there...

 is one of five Canadian artists with diverse (dis)abilities profiled in Klein's 2006 NFB

National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...

 film Shameless: The ART of Disability

Shameless: The ART of Disability

Shameless: The ART of Disability is a documentary film by Bonnie Sherr Klein about persons with disabilities. Produced in 2006 by the National Film Board of Canada, it is Klein's first film since a catastrophic stroke in 1987 left her a quadriplegic...

.

In 1998, Frazee's lecture about the dangers of contemporary eugenics

Eugenics

Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

 was featured on Canada's Vision TV

Vision TV

VisionTV is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel that broadcasts multi-faith, multicultural, and general entertainment programming aimed at the 45 and over demographic....

, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...

. Her publications to date include numerous textbooks, academic journals, and magazine contributions, including articles in Abilities Magazine, ARCHtype, and The Womanist