I am spending this summer in Quebec City honing my French skills, which will be indispensable to me as I build a career in international diplomacy and development. Toward this goal, I am studying Canadian marine policy. I am a master’s student at the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs and interested in marine management strategies that strike a balance between the protection of resources and the needs of communities. While in Québec, I will look at recent Canadian marine policy that allowed closed fisheries in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to be declared marine-protected areas and consequently counted towards the United Nations’ global conservation goals. Other countries are considering modeling their own environmental policy after Canada’s so that they can declare protected areas within their own waters and also help meet this global goal. Ultimately, I hope to assess this policy and its implications in both the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the global arena. On a personal note, I am looking forward to getting in touch with my Québécois heritage as my grandmother was from Québec, and I still have family in the province that I plan to connect with.
The Canadian Studies Center is a recipient of a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships program grant. The grant provides allocations of academic year and summer fellowships to assist meritorious graduate students undergoing training in modern foreign languages and Canadian Studies. The Canadian Studies Center is extremely proud in having awarded several Fellowships in least-commonly taught Canadian Aboriginal languages including Inuktitut, Dane-zaa, Musqueam Salish, and Anishinaabemowin.