Georges-Philippe Gadoury-Sansfaçon awarded 3M Fellowship – Fifth Bishop’s recipient in six years

Georges-Philippe Gadoury-Sansfaçon, a graduating student in Mathematics and Applied Psychology at Bishop’s University from Bedford, Quebec, has been awarded the prestigious 3M National Student Fellowship.

The 3M National Student Fellowship recognizes up to ten full-time students at Canadian post-secondary institutions who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their lives, at their post-secondary institution, and in their communities. These students embrace a vision of education that enhances their academic experience through leadership and community engagement. Five Bishop’s students have been awarded the 3M prize in the last six years, including alumni Jason Earl (2015), Chloé Soucy (2018), Ethan Pohl (2019) and Maxim Jacques (2020).

Georges-Philippe has had a profound impact on campus as a student at Bishop’s University. As a Jarislowsky Student Leadership Fellow (2019 – present), his contribution as a Maple League Student Fellow (2020 – present), and through his role as an elected representative as Students’ Representative Council Vice-President of Academic Affairs (2020 – 2021), he has contributed significantly to student leadership and advocacy on campus and beyond. His work has been recognized internationally: he was selected to attend the 8th Heidelberg Laureate Forum as one of the top 100 young researchers in mathematics worldwide. Georges-Philippe was awarded the Chancellor’s Excellence Scholarship at Bishop’s in 2018, renewed every year since. He was also recently awarded the Joseph E. Cassar award which is given to the student who has contributed the most to the Students’ Representative Council during the past year.

Georges-Philippe’s achievements are impressive, but his leadership is best exemplified through his role in designing an innovative response to COVID-19 called Online Learning and Technology Consultants (OLTC). Georges-Philippe, alongside Dr. Jessica Riddell (Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence) and Scott Stoddard (Director of Information Technology), hired and trained 23 undergraduate students in pedagogy and technology to work with faculty on building COVID-19 classrooms for this academic year.

“Georges-Phillipe’s collaboration this year in the development of our OLTC program has been invaluable to me personally, but will also shape techno-pedagogical support at Bishop’s for years to come. His insistence that the student voice become a first-class consideration in the development and running of classes brings us closer to the student-centred goals of modern education,” noted Mr. Stoddard.

Dr. Jessica Riddell, 3M National Teaching Fellow (2015) and Full Professor of the Department of English at Bishop’s, nominated Georges-Philippe for the 3M National Student Fellowship. “He builds communities of learners and leaders who more fully grasp the ambiguity of advocacy and complexity through his guidance and facilitation, so that students, colleagues and collaborators take a leap of faith with him in order to exercise empathy. This act of opening themselves up to see and think differently is difficult – even scary – and it is a testament to his leadership that he builds the trust and safety so that these are positive transformative experiences for all. In doing so, he has transformed not just our university but also higher education in Canada through his national and international engagement.”

Bishop’s University is a member of the Maple League of universities, a consortium of four universities that also includes Acadia, Mount Allison and St. Francis Xavier. Together, this alliance of small, primarily undergraduate institutions collaborate to deliver an extraordinary 21st century liberal education. In 2020 four of ten 3M NSFs were from Maple League institutions and in 2021 three out of the ten 3M Student Fellows were from these four, primarily undergraduate institutions. This remarkable achievement is a testament to the focus on extraordinary student experience at Bishop’s and across these four universities.

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MEDIA INQUIRIES:
Olivier Bouffard
Director of communications
819-822-9600 ext. 2840
olivier.bouffard@ubishops.ca