Logan CarmichaelLogan Carmichael’s record of community service, campus engagement and academic achievement have earned her the 2017 President’s Medal.

Wide range of enthusiasms earns notice for graduand

Working on a research project with professor Jamey Essex inspired Logan Carmichael to set a new course for her career. As she prepares for her graduation from the University of Windsor, the political science major plans to pursue a life in diplomacy.

Carmichael will collect the 2017 President’s Medal during Friday’s 10 a.m. session of Convocation. The award recognizes a graduand who has made significant contributions to campus and community activities while maintaining a superior academic record.

Carmichael coupled classroom success — culminating in this year’s Board of Governors medal for top standing among graduates of political science — with achievement across a number of fields.

A middle-distance runner for the Lancer track program, she was named an academic all-Canadian in 2014 and 2015. She has worked with the Annual Giving Program phonathon throughout her UWindsor career, and mentored several first-year students through the Connecting4Success program.

Her philanthropic activities include planning benefit dinners to sponsor refugee families through Project Syria, and founding the charity Knit One, Purl One, Give One, which donates knitted goods to the needy.

“Over two years, we have donated well over 100 pieces — mittens, hats, and scarves,” Carmichael says. “I am so excited that we have people committed to taking it over for next year.”

An additional project that she describes as “a work in progress” is Another Mile Sneakers, which seeks to pass on gently-used athletic footwear to aspiring athletes in needy countries.

“As a Lancer runner, I could go through a pair of shoes every two months,” she says.

Still, she describes her experience with Dr. Essex as the best of her time at UWindsor. An academic appointment as an Outstanding Scholar grew into a term as a research assistant on a project exploring the 2013 creation of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada.

Seeing the resulting paper published in the Canadian Geographer was “very exciting,” says Carmichael, and nurtured her enthusiasm for Canada’s foreign service.

She is currently waiting to learn whether she will receive a scholarship to pursue graduate study at the Russian International Olympic University in Sochi, allowing her to combine her interests in sports, diplomacy and Eastern Europe.

Whatever the future holds, she will continue to rely on her primary support system: her family.

“My mom and my brother — they are in my corner no matter what!” Carmichael says.

Business major to receive Governor General’s Silver Medal

Colin Poulin, a graduate of the Bachelor of Commerce Honours – Business Administration Co-op program with a concentration in accounting, will receive the Governor General’s Silver Medal at Wednesday morning’s session of Convocation.

The medal is given to the graduating undergraduate honours student with the highest cumulative percentile score for his or her faculty, using the cumulative graduation average and based on a normal distribution computed from the grade distributions of the principal faculty in which the student is enrolled, taken over the most recent three-year period.

Poulin’s professors describe him as a student with a strong work ethic who applies himself meticulously to his course work as well as having a passion for analytics. He has demonstrated a willingness to share his business acumen with his peers as a teaching assistant and a tutor.

During Poulin’s co-op work terms, he demonstrated a strong work ethic and understanding of accounting principles, attributes that helped him to secure a job with Ally Financial in Detroit.