Today@Dal

Patricia Doyle-Bedwell admits that when she was told she’d be receiving a Diamond Jubilee medal, she wasn’t sure she was entirely deserving.

“There are so many more people more worthy than I am,” she says. “But then at the ceremony, Megan Leslie explained that the candidates were chosen by the community, which was certainly humbling.”

That Prof. Doyle-Bedwell would receive such an award is hardly surprising to those who know her and her work. She has an astonishing record of community leadership relating to the status of women, Aboriginal peoples, African Canadians and other groups.

The award was presented for her "academic and professional achievements as a Mi'kmaq woman, her passionate belief in being a mentor and her efforts on behalf of the Nova Scotia Council on the Status of Women.”

As the director of Dal’s Transition Year Program for the past 18 years, Prof. Doyle-Bedwell has been instrumental in supporting First Nations and African Canadian students gain access to a university education. A Dalhousie grad twice over (both a JD and an LLM degree), she was the first Mi'kmaq woman to earn tenure at the university and is also past director of the Indigenous Blacks & Mi'kmaq Initiative in the Schulich School of Law. She has been chair of the Council on Mi’kmaq Education, chair of the Nova Scotia Council on the Status of Women, and currently teaches in International Development Studies about indigenous peoples and international human rights.

Her most recent publication is an article in the book Living Indigenous Leadership (2012, UBC Press).

“What [the medal] means to me is recognition for my work, but it’s work that I didn’t expect any recognition for at all. It’s just what I do.”

She says that the ceremony, at which the Hon. Leslie’s community medals were presented, was “truly wonderful.”

“There was such an amazing cross-section of people who have done so many great things. It was quite moving to hear all their stories.”