McMaster honours four outstanding students

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For the first time, McMaster will honour four graduating students for obtaining the highest cumulative grade point average of their class.

Alaina Benoit, honours linguistics; Christian Kurtz, honours business commerce; Jonathan Little, honours kinesiology; and Matthew Schmidt, honours French-A and linguistics, are recipients of the 2005 Governor General's Silver Academic Medal for each receiving a grade point average of 11.9.

The students will receive the honour at their respective convocation ceremony this week.

Lord Dufferin, Canada's third Governor General after Confederation, created the academic medals in 1873 to encourage academic excellence across the nation. Over the years, they have become the most prestigious award that students in Canadian schools can receive.

For more than 125 years, the Governor General's Academic Medals have recognized the outstanding scholastic achievements of students in Canada. Pierre Trudeau, Tommy Douglas, Kim Campbell, Robert Bourassa, Robert Stanfield and Gabrielle Roy are just some of the more than 50,000 people who have received the Governor Generals Academic Medal as the start of a life of accomplishment.

2005 Governor General's Silver Academic Medal recipients

Alaina Benoit

Alaina Benoit

During her time at McMaster, Alaina Benoit has received four In-Course Awards and the Junior League of Hamilton-Burlington, Inc. Community Contribution Award for service to the community-at-large.

She is the recipient of an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award. Working in the Cognitive Science Laboratory in the Department of Psychology she studied errors in speech production and what they can tell us about the language production system in the human mind. Benoit also earned two Dr. Harry Lyman Hooker Scholarships for overall academic excellence and the Mabel Stoakley Scholarship for outstanding female academic achievement and leadership.

This fall, Benoit is looking forward to immersing herself in Montreal's French Canadian culture when she attends McGill University.

Christian Kurtz

Christian Kurtz

Over the past four years, Christian Kurtz has been a teaching assistant, an amateur jazz pianist and a youth mentor. He began at McMaster as a George and Nora Elwin Scholar and will enter law school as a Harley D. Hallett Award Winner. He is on the Provost Honour Roll List and has received a number of scholarships from the Faculty of Business.

Kurtz is confident that his Honours Bachelor of Commerce will be a firm foundation for a career that should prove to be unique and exciting: he plans to work with organizations dedicated to improving quality of life in developing countries. With the business side of his education complete, he is looking forward to a four year JD/LLB program in International Law and Social Justice, which he will pursue jointly at Osgoode Hall (York University) and NYU School of Law.

Jonathan Little

Jonathan Little

Jonathan Little has been a member of the McMaster Marauder cross-country and middle distance track teams for the past four years, the last two as captain of both teams.

He was the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) nomination for the TSN Award, which is presented to a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) track and field athlete that best displays athletic, academic and community involvement.

Away from the track, he was also involved in research with the Exercise Metabolism Research Group (EMRG) lab in the Department of Kinesiology. In the community, he volunteered at Shalom Village Nursing Home in Westdale for three years, assisting residents and community seniors with their exercise programs. He is now working in the Exercise Biochemistry lab at the University of Alberta.

In September he will be starting his masters of science at the University of Saskatchewan.

Matthew Schmidt

Matthew Schmidt

Matthew Schmidt, a linguistics and French literature student, says he discovered his true passion for language and literature at McMaster.

On the McMaster campus, Schmidt has volunteered on a variety of committees and has represented the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in a variety of ways, including a stint as a teaching assistant. Off campus, Schmidt has been intimately involved with the Dominican Republic Faith Experience, a volunteer-based organization which seeks to educate Canadian youth about the Dominican Republic.

He has received a number of scholarships, including the SSHRC Master's Scholarship, an offer of an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the Chancellor's Gold Medal, the Linguistics Prize, the E.D. Lawrence Scholarship, an Undergraduate Research Award, and the University (Senate) Scholarship.