Convocation marks the culmination of the 2011-2012 academic year at Acadia University. As we watch the piper-led processional of graduands walk up Acadia’s hill, it is time to celebrate many individual journeys. Congratulations to all!

Success comes in many forms – here are just a few of the campus successes we shared this year:

• Fourth year business student, Oksana Kovalenko, received one of six $15,000 Frank H. Sobey Excellence in Business Studies Awards.
• Acadia enjoyed top ranking by Maclean’s magazine – second in our class – and the 18^th time in 20 years as one of the top three universities in Canada.
• Axewoman soccer player, Cathleen Bleakney was named the CIS Community Service Award recipient while hockey Axeman, Andrew Clark, was named CIS Most Valuable Player. Clark was also nominated to stand for the Borden Ladner Gervais Award for the Canada’s Outstanding Male Athlete.
• Associate Professor of Music, Dr. Derek Charke, won a Juno Award for Classical Composition of the Year for his composition, Sepia Fragments.
• Both Acadia’s men’s and women’s basketball teams won their AUS Championships. The win for the women was the first conference title for the team since 1951. For the men, it was their 17th since 1961.
• Acadia alum, Hon. Peter MacKay, officially re- opened Patterson Hall after its $4.2 million renovation as part of Canada’s federal-provincial Knowledge Infrastructure Program.
• Acadia’s 85 Academic All-Canadians places Acadia among the top ten universities in Canada for the highest number of Academic All-Canadians on its varsity sports teams.
• Student Matthew Bluteau was one of five Canadian physics students awarded a Canadian Institute of Particle Physics (IPP)/CERN summer student research fellowship. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Bluteau will spend two months at Simon Fraser University reviewing data for CERN, and then he will head to Geneva to work at CERN headquarters, which is home of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.
• Acadia’s football Axemen won the 2011 Loney Bowl with a convincing 39-20 win over St. Mary’s. Acadia’s rugby Axewomen were defeated by St.FX in the AUS Championship.
• Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Acadia alum, Dr. Scott Landry, received approximately $750,000 in federal and provincial funding for his Human Motion Laboratory in addition to private and institutional funding of more than $100,000. This announcement was part of a number of federal Canada Foundation for Innovation grants announced by Hon. Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology.
• Acadia coaches Jeff Cummins (football) and Bev Greenlaw (women’s basketball) were named AUS Coach of the year in their respective sports.

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