Incoming student earns RBC Students Leading Change scholarship

Landry awarded $10,000 for leadership in LGBTQ+ community

Image supplied by: Journal File Photo

“I remember doing the application and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll never get this.’”

When Emma Landry got the call that she had received RBC’s Students Leading Change scholarship, she was in one of her computer science classes at her high school, Cobequid Educational Centre in Nova Scotia.

According to a statement provided by RBC Communications Manager Sophie Connor, the Students Leading Change scholarship, valued at $10,000, is awarded to 15 Canadian students annually who demonstrate “a passion to lead and inspire positive change in their community.”

After the long application process, Landry’s happy to have won the award.

“I will have time to be involved in more activities because I have this extra money [and now I] don’t have to worry about working a job to pay for school,” Landry said. of her school’s Gender Sexuality Alliance, Landry developed a passion for advocating for the rights of members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“Everyone should be able to feel safe no matter who or where they are,” Landry said. “A lot of people [in] the LGBTQ community can’t really feel that, especially as a student.”

Student leadership is especially important to Landry because “it’s easier to create change when people aren’t so cemented in their ways.”

In her scholarship application, Landry proposed the idea of creating a class to teach students about the history of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I had this idea about how with education you can broaden people’s horizons and make ignorance less prevalent in a community. When you learn about a group of people it motivates you to help those people, or just to understand them and be accepting,” Landry said.

Aside from her efforts as an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, Landry spent her after school hours coaching a local Special Olympics swim team and organizing an initiative to offer extra math tutoring to students once a week.

Landry hopes to continue these leadership efforts when she arrives for her first year at Queen’s this fall. Starting in the Faculty of Arts and Science, Landry plans to major in Computer Science.

When asked what she’s most looking forward to at Queen’s, Landry had a lot to say.

“The culture of Queen’s, the environment — it’s a really nice campus and everyone just seems so happy to be there. I’m also excited to learn. I’m not really being specific but just, everything.”

— With files from Sarina Grewal.

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content