Three incredibly innovative and inspiring students at StFX—Adelaide (Addy) Strickland, Claire MacDougall, and Emma Kuzmyk—have been named as 2020 3M National Student Fellowship Award recipients.
The fellowship honours up to 10 full-time diploma and undergraduate students at Canadian post-secondary institutions who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their lives, at their post-secondary institution. These students embrace a vision of education that enhances their academic experience and beyond, the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education has announced.
Only 10 students from across Canada were awarded the 3M National Student Fellowship Award. Three are StFX students. “This speaks volumes to the calibre of students we attract and the quality of education we offer,” said StFX President Dr. Kevin Wamsley. “A StFX education is known for instilling leadership skills in its students. Addy, Claire and Emma are shining examples of leaders on campus, and I congratulate them for their hard work in and out of the classroom. These are students who make a difference in the classroom and beyond – a glimpse at a very bright future.”
"I am incredibly honoured to have been selected as a 3M Student Fellow!” says Ms. MacDougall. “I am very proud of Emma and Addy for their accomplishments as well. They are both inspiring leaders who do incredible work at StFX. I am so grateful for all of the incredible opportunities I have received as a StFX student and to have so much support from my community.”
“I'm beyond proud of the accomplishments of myself and of my friends, Addy and Claire,” says Ms. Kuzmyk. “The fact that the three of us have been selected for this award reflects the community of StFX, and how we often raise each other up to accomplish great things.”
"I am so honoured to have been selected for this fellowship, and excited that I get to experience it alongside two other amazing women from StFX," says Ms. Strickland. "I'm also looking forward to seeing what we're able to achieve this year in partnership with the rest of the fellows."
For more on each StFX student, please see below:
Adelaide Strickland, Development Studies and English
Adelaide (Addy) Strickland is a third-year undergraduate student living and working in Mi’kma’ki. Addy is pursuing an honours degree in Development Studies with an English subsidiary at St. Francis Xavier University, concentrating her studies on artistic methods and storytelling in social change and community development. Outside of the classroom, Addy aims to use her passion for stories as a tool for leadership—elevating and amplifying the stories of others, and working to change problematic narratives, particularly surrounding sexualized violence on university campuses. Addy has been deeply involved in sexualized violence protests on the StFX campus and is one of the founders of the StFX Peer Support Program, a mental health and sexualized violence resource navigation and listening service run by students, for students. She also sits on the organizing committee for the Antigonish Youth Activism Conference and edits the StFX student newspaper—The Xaverian Weekly. Following her undergraduate studies, Addy plans on pursuing a master’s degree in either forced migration or border studies, with the goal of contributing to scholarly interact with and facilitate change in contested spaces.
Claire Ainslie MacDougall, Physics and Mathematics
Claire is a Physics and Mathematics student from Halifax, Nova Scotia in her third-year at St. Francis Xavier University. As a science student, there are many exciting opportunities, she has chosen to follow a career path that incorporates her values of social responsibility and humanitarianism through a climate justice lens by involving herself in researching global warming effects of atmospheric molecules and pursuing a career in the field of atmospheric physics or sustainable energy engineering postgraduate. As a woman in STEM, she works to break down barriers for underrepresented groups through outreach and advocacy both locally, at StFX and nationally, as Chair of the Canadian Association of Physicists Student Advisory Council. In her community she strives to create equal access to education while reducing waste through a project launched in August 2019 with aims to provide donated school supplies leftover from her university to school aged children experiencing poverty. From a young age, she has always been involved in sports. She competed in varsity soccer at StFX and is currently training for a marathon this summer. Claire hopes to inspire the same joy in others by coaching local youth and special needs persons in soccer and baseball.
Emma Kuzmyk, English and Political Science
Emma is a third-year student studying English at St. Francis Xavier University. She is the Vice President of the Students’ Union, a varsity athlete on the soccer team, and is known on campus for her sexualized violence prevention work. Since beginning university she has co-founded a sexualized violence awareness campaign, worked for the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre, been an assistant project coordinator and facilitator for Waves of Change training, sat on over 30 university committees, developed and co-founded a peer support program on campus, given a TedX Talk at a Maple League retreat, and has been helping to drive a cultural shift at her institution. Emma considers herself to be an activist and channels her artistic abilities to fulfill that role — she has done illustrations for prevention programs and has shared her spoken word poetry in coffee houses, Take Back the Night marches, theatres, and more. Her activism began in her first year when she shared a poem on YouTube which was then discussed in news outlets nationwide. She is hoping to continue advocating against sexualized violence in the future and is currently planning on going to law school, where she would like to learn to advocate for survivors of sexual assault navigating the legal system.
