The Georgetown, Ont. native served as a co-captain of the Acadia swim team this season. She qualified for the 2015 CIS championships in the 400-metre freestyle and holds the school record for the event.
A three-time CIS Academic All-Canadian with a cumulative GPA of 3.78, she is currently completing an honours thesis and working as a teaching assistant in the kinesiology department.
Skuriat is heavily involved in the community. She has logged nearly 200 hours of volunteer time helping patients with exercise programs at the Annapolis Valley Cardiac Rehab Program and also volunteers as a swim coach with Annapolis Valley Special Olympics.
On campus, she is involved with both the S.M.I.L.E. program, working with children with cognitive and/or physical disabilities and KinderSkills Acadia.
She has taken part in Acadia’s Relay for Life, is an active member of Acadia’s WITS anti-bullying campaign, and is active in the Acadia Players Association.
This past fall, she helped organize the Hoops for Luke charity basketball game to raise funds for a wheelchair lift for a S.M.I.L.E. participant.
In April 2014, she travelled to Honduras with the Acadia chapter of the Global Medical Brigade, a student-led global health and sustainable development group.
“Elizabeth is an outstanding student-athlete in every respect,” says Acadia swim coach David Fry. “She is an outstanding student with a tremendous work ethic.”
Skuriat, he said, has never missed a practice during his year as head coach.
“Her achieving a CIS standard was a testament to her hard work,” he said.
“She is a tremendous mentor and leader as one of our team co-captains. That she can combine this with many and varied community involvements is amazing.”
Skuriat is the third Acadia student athlete to receive an AUS Student-Athlete Community Service Award this season, joining Caoimhe McParland for women’s soccer and Sean Stoqua for football.
Since 2003, 14 Acadia student-athletes have won a total of 17 community service awards, with several being multiple winners.
Five of those athletes – Lori-Beth MacEwen (2003 and 2004), Jordan Sheriko (2006), Cathleen Bleakney (2011), Alana Fairfax (2012) and McParland this past fall, have gone onto win the corresponding CIS awards as well.
“People like Sean, Caoimhe and Elizabeth are great role models for all of our student-athletes, who work just as hard at what they do, but may not get the same level of recognition,” said Acadia athletic director Kevin Dickie.
“The pedigree of student-athletes we recruit is high when they come here.”
The Acadia Athletics program, he added, “is hard-wired into the community, and engaged in it” through the efforts of some pretty special student-athletes.
