In 2014, as a special commemoration and launch of a most prestigious award, the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Bill Schulz as the inaugural recipient of achievement for his outstanding contributions to career development. From 2016 and on, the Bill Schulz Lifetime Achievement award has been given to others who have mirrored his contributions.
Bill Schulz had been a force in career development, counselling and ethics for over 40 years. He is currently Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. He taught at the University of Manitoba for over 30 years as well as supervised and mentored hundreds of students in their pursuit of furthering education and more specifically in their pursuit of Masters and Doctoral work in the career development and counselling field. In his most recent years of teaching, he taught graduate courses in Counselling Theories, Ethics, Career Development and Secondary School Counselling. He received the Olive Beatrice Stanton Award for excellence in University teaching.
Bill has also been a guest lecturer, presenter, speaker and consultant; in Manitoba, nationally and internationally (United States, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Switzerland, France, and Chile). He is a published author in English and German of close to 40 books and over 70 articles. His writings include but are not limited to the development of career resources and guides for clients as well as practitioners; the evaluation of career centers and guidance centres; definition of the role of employment counsellors in Canada and abroad; a casebook of counselling ethics; a global comparison of counsellor training programs; and the review, techniques and ethics in group counselling. He has been called to and reviewed 15 books in the field as well as served as Editor on the Canadian Journal of Counselling; the Manitoba Chapter of the Canadian Counselling Association and the Manitoba Counsellor.
He has led countless research and curriculum development projects as well as presented at 50 national and international conferences. Much of his work has been focused on furthering developing the field. In the 80’s, Bill developed a training program for all Canadian Employment Counsellors. In the 90’s the employment counselling field saw great change. Bill along with Stu Conger, Lynne Bezanson and Brian Hiebert wrote Ready for Change: Career Counselling in the 90’s; a position paper prepared for the Canadian Guidance and Counselling Foundation. He later developed and piloted career development theories courses for universities as well as the development, piloting and evaluations of a ‘fundamentals of employment counselling course’ for Human Resources Development Canada in the 90’s. His most recent work in Manitoba dealt with the evaluation of counselling services and the development of a comprehensive guidance and counselling program for the Manitoba School Counsellors’ Association. His work is endless. Some of his personal creative works include:
- Code of Ethics for Employment Counsellors
- Development of a graduate course on Counselling Ethics
- A six course conflict resolution institute.
- Leaders’ Manual for the Fundamentals of Employment Counselling for Human Resources Development Canada
- Effective Group Leadership, a 200 page manual as well as a Leader’s Manual for National Service Needs Determination prepared for Canada Employment
- A six-course certificate program on Career Development and Transitions for Brandon University
- The Canadian Occupations Finder
- Guidebook for the Canadian Classification and Dictionary of Occupations
- Assessment Component of Employment Counselling
- Two booklets: Careers and Self Awareness for young people and Career Exploration: Life Style and Awareness for junior high students
Bill’s devotion has helped to advance the field to where it is today. He has not only made countless achievements but been an outstanding model for all of those in the career development field. He has been a leader, a researcher, an educator, author as well as mentored a myriad of people.