The Balsillie School offers warm congratulations to Kim Rygiel for being one of this year’s recipients of the Laurier Faculty Award for Service Excellence and Community Engagement!
The award recognizes exemplary academic and professional service in three categories: leadership contributions to professional or learned societies; service and/or influence on government, commissions and/or policy development in a professional or consulting capacity; and contributions to the community-at-large and to cultural, community and service organizations.
Kim’s research, teaching in PO610, and her work at the International Migration Research Centre (IMRC) distinguished her in all three categories.
Since 2016, Kim has led a graduate course on social advocacy for the Master of Applied Politics program. Students in her course undertake community service-learning projects in partnership with local community organizations, where they experience how changes at a global level make a local impact. Kim’s classes have worked with the Community Coalition on Refugee and Immigrant Concerns and the World Refugee Day Planning Committee to organize local events and communications for the United Nations’ World Refugee Day. They have also worked with Reception House Waterloo Region on initiatives to support refugees in their search for employment, which has contributed to successful grant applications.
As the associate director of Laurier’s International Migration Research Centre (IMRC) at the BSIA, Kim added a community member to the centre’s Board of Directors, and engaged with individual community members and local organizations to build relationships and increase attendance at the centre’s public events, including the IMRC’s 10-year anniversary event in November.
Kim has also served as the graduate program advisor for Political Science and has been a member of admissions and examinations committees at the BSIA, where she also teaches.
Kim will be presented with her Award for Service Excellence and Community Engagement on June 11 at 9:30 am during Laurier’s Waterloo spring convocation ceremonies in Lazaridis Hall.
Read Laurier’s press release here.