Glendon wins award for work on global future

York’s Glendon College was honoured with an award for excellence in internationalization from Scotiabank and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada at a ceremony in Ottawa Thursday.

The award was one of four given to Canadian universities this year for innovative programs that help students prepare for a more global world. The awards recognize institutions for excellence in forming a future generation of political, social, cultural and business leaders able to understand and make the most of a world increasingly interconnected by technology, trade and travel.

“We are delighted and honoured to be recognized for our efforts to prepare our students for a global future,” said Louise Lewin, Glendon’s associate principal student affairs.

Glendon’s annual International Studies Symposium provides students with the opportunity to celebrate the importance of global education and boasts an array of tools geared to promoting internationalization. More than 2,200 students from 80 countries applied to the program this year.

Conceived and managed entirely by students to promote cultural and intellectual collaboration among colleagues from all around the world, the symposium was started in 1995 by a group of students eager to deepen their knowledge and experience of foreign countries and to understand their relationships with Canada.

Glendon and York were represented at the award ceremony by Sheila Embleton, York vice-president academic, Lewin and Glendon alumnus Brian Desrosiers-Tam (BA ‘04), who was there to receive the award on behalf of the team of Glendon students responsible for creating and running the group’s most recent conference on India.

The symposium has focused on countries such as Cuba, mainland China, South Africa and Brazil as well as regions such as the European Union, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The 2003 conference on Russia: The Challenge of Change was awarded the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE)’s prestigious Student Leadership in Internationalization Award. The proceedings and essays of both the Brazil and Russia conferences have been published in book format as will those of the India conference.

Lewin was the moving force behind the nomination of the conference for the Scotiabank-AUCC award, where it was one of approximately 50 submissions. The program attracts many distinguished speakers, such as Canadian federal ministers and foreign diplomats, as well as scholars from Canada and abroad. It has become a major event at Glendon, building relationships among students and faculty and making a positive impact on the community as a whole.

“What distinguishes the Glendon conference from the other winners is that it is the only one which was an entirely student project, from conception to execution,” said Lewin. “I was especially proud of our students and of Glendon at yesterday’s ceremony. It was a clear demonstration of the opportunities Glendon offers to its students, with the full support of the faculty and the administration, for outstanding professional exploration and growth.”

There will be an official ceremony at Glendon before the end of the year to hand over the award to the student organizers and to celebrate the honour they have brought to the University.

The Office of the Associate Vice-President International accepts and coordinates nominations for this and other international awards. Please contact Adrian Shubert ashubert@yorku.ca  for more information.