For Lily Emrich, ArtSci ’28, studying Canadian history means looking beyond major events to the stories of people and communities often left out of the historical record.
The third-year History and Gender Studies student was named the 2026 recipient of the Canadian Immigration Historical Society (CIHS) Molloy Bursary. The $1,000 award provides financial support to students studying Canadian history and offers recipients support from CIHS members for future work related to immigration history.
The Molloy Bursary was established by the CIHS in honour of the Society’s past president, Micheal J. Molloy. According to an announcement from the CIHS, Molloy played a central role in expanding the organization’s research capacity. The award is intended to advance the society’s mandate of promoting the study and communication of Canadian immigration history.
Emrich is the third recipient of the bursary.
“I was very excited,” Emrich said in an interview with The Journal. “I received an email, and it just felt like such an honour.”
She applied for the bursary approximately a year and a half before receiving it. As part of the application, she wrote a roughly 1,000-word essay explaining the award’s importance to her and how she met its eligibility requirements.
She wrote about her interest in Canadian history, extracurricular involvement, and her goals beyond her undergraduate degree.
Emrich originally came to Queen’s with the goal of studying law, but said her experience in the Department of History shifted her academic interest.
“I ended up falling in love with history […] just because I’ve always been so interested in people’s stories and how communities understand their own past,” she said.
Her studies have since focused on modern Canadian history, particularly gender, sexuality, migration, and histories she said have traditionally been overlooked.
For Emrich, combining history with gender studies has changed what she looks for when studying the past. Rather than approaching Canadian history as a timeline of major events, she said she’s interested in the people and communities behind them.
Outside the classroom, Emrich served as a 2025-26 rts and Science Orientation leader before becoming an Orientation Coordinator this year. She also spent the past two years on the History Department Student Council, first as administrator and now as secretary and media coordinator.
She said those experiences have made Queen’s more than a place where she attends classes.
“It’s become a community where I can contribute while learning,” Emrich said.
Receiving the bursary will give Emrich greater flexibility to focus on those academic and extracurricular commitments, she said.
“Financial support just makes a real difference because it just gives me so much more flexibility to focus on my education and involvement at Queen’s,” she said, “rather than spending a lot of my time on the financial side of things.”
Along with the $1,000 award, the CIHS offers recipients access to members who can provide support for future research related to Canadian immigration history.
“I think that they have a lot of resources and connections that are great as I’m kind of building that repertoire and networking with other historians,” she said.
Beyond Queen’s, Emrich hopes to pursue graduate studies and continue studying history.
“It is such a vital part of history that has been overlooked for more centuries than need to be said,” she said.
Tags
Canadian history, gender studies, Molloy Bursary
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