Dr. Glyn Bissix Leadership Award

Awarded to a senior Community Development graduating student chosen by the faculty who demonstrates outstanding leadership to the program, university and broader community.[

Rachel Sparling
2019

Rachel Sparling has worked tirelessly across her four years for a more just, healthy and sustainable world starting with her own lifestyle, building community with others in the program, working in community organizations and on behalf of a more sustainable planet. She has been the primary leader of CODE to Success, the peer community development tutoring programming, has been a driving force in peer mental health activities at Acadia, a key contributing member of the ESST Student Society with a focus on working for climate justice, not to mention the endless hours of being the go to photographer for a wide range of groups and organizations. Rachel is always someone to go to when anyone needs an empathetic and wise listener. All this while, she has worked with academic excellence as an honour's student.

Past Recipients

2018 Garbin Cius
2017 Emma Wallace

About Dr. Glyn Bissix:

This award was established in 2017 to honour Dr. Glyn Bissix, who has been teaching in the Community Development program (formerly Recreation Management) since 1974. It is awarded to a senior Community Development graduating student who demonstrates outstanding leadership to the program, university and broader community. For over 40 years, Glyn Bissix has contributed to the development of the program and its many transitions. He is a figure and personality that no one forgets. His impacts on students are far reaching and many alumni of our program credit Dr. Bissix for their professional success. When one considers the number of graduations that Dr. Bissix has attended – the number of students he has reached-and where these alumni are now both nationally and internationally, the geography of this impact is immense.

Glyn is a champion of active transportation, challenging the county and local municipalities to develop trails to support active transportation and to connect our communities. The Kieran Pathways Society, which Dr. Bissix created in honour of a close friend that passed away, has been largely responsible for the development of a rail to trail system connecting the communities of Wolfville, New Minas, Kentville, Port Williams and other towns. When he took leave from Acadia University to work for the provincial government, he was instrumental in the development of legislation that provided more opportunities for outdoor recreation on Nova Scotia’s land base, as well as the Nova Scotia Outdoor Leadership Development Program. He is a teacher dedicated to providing challenging experiential learning opportunities and community projects for his students, as all those who have taken his intensive Policy and Planning course will attest. Dr. Bissix has been an exceptional role model for the criteria for this award over more than 40 years.