Her
maternal grandmother was born in a railway camp in Lapland while her maternal
grandfather left home at eleven years and worked in mining camps. Her paternal
grandparents were farmers in middle Sweden and a great uncle of Ingrid
Arvidsdotter Bryan worked the Klondike, made a fortune and donated most
of it to a Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Born, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden, Ingrid’s
undergraduate studies were far and wide in that she attended Austin College,
Texas, University of Lund, Sweden, Trinity College, Dublin, and completed
her undergraduate degree in Economics, University of Sheffield, England,
1967. During that time, she married Rorke Bryan and when he got a job as
Assistant Professor, University of Alberta, Edmonton, they immigrated to
Canada. While he was teaching, she continued with her studies in Economics
completing both her M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1972) before she and the family
moved to Toronto where Ingrid taught, first, University of Toronto, Scarborough
Campus, and, secondly, Ryerson Polytechnic University (formerly Ryerson
Polytechnical Institute). Ingrid, a popular teacher at Ryerson since 1976,
has developed two programs at Ryerson, one implementing a combined major
program between Business and Economics and the other creating a new degree
program in International Economics. She has served as Chair of the Economics
Department (twice) as well as Dean of Arts, 1987-92. Mother of two children,
author of two influential books, Ingrid, as with most first generation
immigrants, has stayed close to her Swedish roots in that the family returns
every summer to their cottage south of Kalmar (Djursvik). In this view,
Ingrid Arvidsdotter Bryan hands out a prize at a Ryerson Awards Gala in
the mid 1980s. [Photo, courtesy Professor Ingrid Arvidsdotter Bryan]
