Ilsa Greenblatt Shore was educated at UNB, receiving a BA and a BEd in 1971 and an LLB in 1979. In 1990 she was appointed to the university's Board of Governors and became its chair in 1994, the first woman to do so. Shore practiced law in Toronto with the firm Borden and Elliot, rising to partner and specializing in commercial real estate. She served on numerous boards, committees, and charities, and worked pro bono for Haemophilia Ontario seeking compensation for parents whose children had been infected with tainted blood. "(O)ne of UNB's strongest supporters in the Ontario capital," she was given the prestigious Alumni Award of Honour in 1993.
Greatly admired and respected by everyone who knew her, Shore's death in 1996 was a major loss. A memorial fund was established at UNB shortly after her death to honour her life and work. In 2002 a donation from this fund enabled the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research to furnish their community room, which is now known as the Ilsa Greenblatt Shore Community Room. A memorial bursary and scholarship have been established in her name, as has the Faculty of Law's "Distinguished Graduate Award", of which she was the first recipient posthumously.
Source(s):
- University Perspectives, vol. 23, no. 3, November/December 1996, p. 7
- Alumni News, vol. 5, no. 2, Winter 1997, p. 24.