Loyola International College’s first graduate wins award
Four years after its inception, the Loyola International College has graduated its first student.
Evan Perigoe had the distinction of being its first graduate to ever walk the stage during fall convocation at Place des Arts on Dec. 5. He received his bachelor’s degree with a double major in History and Creative Writing.
Perigoe said he benefited from the intimate learning atmosphere at the College. Now in his first year of law school at McGill, he said he got there largely thanks to the relationships he forged at his alma mater.
“Three professors who had come to know me very well wrote my letters of reference. The International College wasn’t just a learning experience for me: It got me where I am now.”
Established in 2001, the Loyola International College fosters understanding about issues of global concern, and seeks to empower students with the knowledge and leadership skills that will ensure their success in an increasingly internationalized and borderless global culture. It now has an enrolment of about 50 students.
For Perigoe, it’s one of two firsts: He was also the first-ever recipient of the Nicolas Diniacopoulos BBC Undergraduate Scholarship, which he won last year.
The $2,000 prize is awarded to a student in the humanities or social sciences who proposes a research project that depends upon extensive use of the Diniacopoulos-BBC World News Collection, which have been preserved at the Concordia Centre for Broadcast Studies.
It honours the memory of a former Communication Studies professor who passed away in 1977. Denis Diniacopoulos, who was a BBC World News enthusiast, taped daily radio broadcasts totaling more than 8,000 hours between 1969 and 1986.
For his History honours thesis, Perigoe analyzed the 1970 October Crisis through the lens of the BBC archives, using CBC radio archives in Toronto for comparison.
The crisis was sparked when two public figures – one of them British – were kidnapped by the Front de libération du Québec. “The BBC definitely focused on the life of the British consular official … but they also stepped back and looked at it from a broader perspective,” Perigoe said.
“They took a tougher stand against what was happening, unlike the CBC, who didn’t want to act like there was a big rift in Canadian society.”
One might suspect his interest in journalism and its relationship to historical events runs in the family. Evan’s father, Ross Perigoe, is a professor in Concordia’s Journalism Department.