B.E.S.T. Project Fund

Overview

In 2010 a Bishop’s graduate (who wishes to remain anonymous), with a strong belief in our University and a desire to help our most promising students achieve their full potential, made a gift to establish the B.E.S.T. Project Fund.

The B.E.S.T. Project Fund is the premiere experiential learning opportunity at Bishop’s.

This unique fund is intended to assist students to determine their career paths and realize their ambitions.

The funds are awarded to students whom the Selection Committee believes have the potential for significant achievement and impact once they graduate from Bishop’s.

All project proposals should:

• Assist the student in defining and/or achieving their career objectives.
• Include a significant interaction with a mentor.
• Articulate how the project relates to the student’s area of academic interest or links to future studies or career directions.
• Describe how this learning experience will be shared with the Bishop’s community upon the student’s return to campus in the fall.

Here are the successful applications for project funding in 2024:

Joen Blumer

Hometown: Gatineau, Quebec

Joen, a second-year Biology student, took part in a research internship at the Plant Biology Research Institute at the University of Montréal, studying cell shape changes during stomata development.

Anäelle Bohbot 

Hometown: Montreal, Quebec 

Anäelle, a third-year Biochemistry student, participated in an internship at the University of Almeria, in Almeria, Spain. Anäelle studied the benefits of using algae for the treatment of greenhouse wastewater.

Zachary Fry

Hometown: Hamilton, Ontario

He attended the University of Wollongong in Australia to complete a 12-week research internship. He entered and analyzed data from questionnaires on well-being and suicidality and assisted with manuscript completion.

Ghazaleh Hamzeh

Hometown: Tehran, Iran

Ghazaleh, a second-year Master’s student, virtually attended DeepLearn 2024, and explored how natural language processing architectures and cross-modal attention mechanisms could improve MRI-based image reconstruction models. Through lectures by leading researchers, she deepened her understanding of machine learning advancements, applying these insights to enhance her thesis on multimodal learning for high-resolution image reconstructions.

Grace Johnston

Hometown: Peterborough, Ontario 

Grace, a second-year Sports Studies student, volunteered with the International Volunteer HQ’s Sports Project in Sigatoka, Fiji. She developed her skills in teaching, coaching, and mentoring by creating and delivering lesson plans tailored to various abilities for an after-school program in local villages.

Sasha Kardos-Machado

Hometown: Sechelt, British Columbia

Sasha, a fourth-year student in International Studies, attended the NATO Field School and Simulation Program, a 6-week intensive international affairs and security program in three NATO states throughout Europe. Participants were immersed in the work of NATO and engaged in high-level negotiation and decision-making simulation.

Maria Carolina Lopez

Hometown: Sherbrooke, Quebec

Maria Carolina, a graduate student in Environmental Science, conducted research analyzing soil samples from cemeteries in Lennoxville and Sherbrooke, as well as natural organic reduction (NOR) facilities in Seattle, USA. Her work focused on detecting heavy metal contaminants like arsenic, lead, and mercury to compare the environmental impacts of traditional burial practices and NOR methods.

Anne-Marie Viens-Larin

Hometown: Weedon, Quebec

Anne-Marie, a fourth-year Biology student, attended the Plant Biology 2024 Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, an event where undergraduates, graduate students, and experts in plant biology shared discoveries about Plant Science, trained, and networked. Anne-Marie presented her research to further develop her public speaking skills.

Range of Funding

Applicants may request up to a maximum of $7,000 in support. These funds may be used to fund:

• Travel or accommodations if the project takes place outside of Lennoxville/Sherbrooke.
• Purchasing necessary equipment (which would remain property of Bishop’s upon completion of the project), supplies or related fees.
• Workshop fees.
• Conference fees.
  • Participation in a conference will be considered by the committee, but there must be strong reasoning as to why it would be an exceptional experience for the B.E.S.T. Project Fund to support; for example, presenting a paper or a poster at a conference.
• As a general rule, compensation is not provided for lost earnings; however, this may be considered under exceptional circumstances.
• The range of funding requested in 2024 was from $2,600 to $7,000. The average funding requested was $5,000. The average funding awarded was $5,000.

Eligibility

Applicants for B.E.S.T. Project funding must be full-time students at Bishop’s and be endorsed by a Bishop’s faculty member or senior administrator as a sponsor/mentor for the project.

Students must have completed at least one year of full-time studies at Bishop’s prior to starting the project. The student must not receive Bishop’s academic credit for the project.

The project may take place during the academic year, the spring or the summer, and must be completed while the student is a full-time student at Bishop’s.

Students not returning to Bishop’s University will not normally be considered except under exceptional circumstances.

A student may apply for one project per year. Preference is given to applicants who have not previously received funding.

The student must have a minimum 70% cumulative average in courses taken at Bishop’s. The cumulative average for last year’s recipients was 88.8%.

Application Process

The details of the B.E.S.T. Project Fund will appear on the Bishop’s website and shared via internal communications to students. If you have any questions, please contact Sarah Haddon, Special Projects Officer, Office of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor, at shaddon@ubishops.ca or 819-822-9600, ext. 2424. Completed applications must be received by Monday, February 3, 2025.

Applications must be submitted electronically by completing the online form.

The B.E.S.T. Project Selection Committee will review applications with a goal of advising students and their sponsors of the Committee’s decisions in late February/early March.

The Committee may wish to interview students prior to making a final decision.

Each application must include:

• An explanation of the project and how it fulfills the objectives of the Fund.
• The intended outcome or goal of the project.
• The timeline for the project.
• A detailed budget and the amount of financial support requested from the Fund.
• A reference letter from the sponsor/mentor which states why the candidate should be considered and why the project will help the student achieve their goals. The sponsor/mentor letter should also include how they will provide active support/supervision to the student before and during the project.
• A biography of the student.
• If the proposal includes participation in a program, include specifications of the program, as well as what makes it exceptional.

Additional Information

The B.E.S.T. Project Fund is not a travel fund. Consequently, if travel is proposed, the applicant must demonstrate why a similar experience could not be attained without such travel.

If you are participating in an internship or a program and have not yet received notice of acceptance, you may still submit your project for review. If you receive the B.E.S.T., your remittance will be conditional until you receive official acceptance to the internship or program.

Frequently Asked Questions