UPEI psychology student Dylan Rose receives Leadership Award at 2021 JACAC Student Forum

The Japan-Canada Academic Consortium (JACAC) recognized UPEI psychology student Dylan Rose with its Leadership Award at the 2021 JACAC Student Forum, held this past February. The JACAC forum is a student-focused event made up of senior undergraduate student representatives from member institutions in both Japan and Canada. The forum includes twelve student representatives from universities across Canada and twelve from universities in Japan.

This year’s forum theme was Youth During and After the Pandemic: A Proposal for the New Normal. The goal of this forum is to provide students with the opportunity to interact with their peers from both Japan and Canada in order to gain insight into their current areas of academic interest and encourage a flow of ideas between both countries. The host institution alternates between Canada and Japan each year, with this year’s forum originally scheduled to have been held in Canada. The forum was moved online due to COVID-19.

Dylan’s Leadership Award recognizes his initiative to set up a private Discord server for students to connect virtually outside of the forum. The server was a huge success, as all of the participants were able to chat together through the server, meet online to play games, and even share pictures of food they had prepared.

Aside from the differences in format, the event was able to sustain the in-person forum’s spirit and the goals of intercultural discussion, connection, and dialogue.

Congratulations, Dylan!