Acadia's McMillan among CIS Academic 'top eight'

BY JOHN DECOSTE

jdecoste@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

Acadia physics and engineering student and cross-country runner Justine McMillan is one of eight Desjardins Academic All-Canadians for the 2007/2008 academic year; the “cream of the crop” in terms of university student/athletes.

Academic All-Canadians maintain a Grade Point Average of 80 per cent or better while participating full-time in a varsity athletics program. There were more than 2,000 Academic All-Canadians for the 2007/2008 school year.

McMillan, a Truro native, was named the most improved athlete on the Axewomen cross-country team in 2007 and was also the recipient of the team’s Coach’s Award for overall achievement. The 22-year-old finished 26th at the AUS championship and qualified for the CIS championship in Victoria. She started her varsity career at Acadia in 2004 as a soccer player and joined the cross-country running program in 2006.

She holds a Bachelor of Science (Physics) degree and a Certificate of Applied Science, graduating in May of 2008 with a cumulative GPA of 4.00 (the highest possible score, representing an average of more than 98 per cent). She was a CIS Academic All-Canadian and a member of the Dean’s List each of her four years at Acadia and received, among many prestigious academic distinctions, the 2008 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Canadian Graduate Scholarship, the 2008 NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award and Acadia’s Governor General’s Silver Medal.