Erin Freeland Ballantyne continues a proud McGill tradition of heading to Oxford to study

Erin Freeland Ballantyne is part of a milestone — she has become McGill University's 125th Rhodes Scholar. A McGill honours student in International Development Studies, Freeland Ballantyne is a Yellowknife native, documentary filmmaker, human rights advocate and elite cross-country skier.

"Erin is a model Rhodes Scholar," says McGill Dean of Students Bruce Shore. "She's an accomplished student, athlete, volunteer, and a wonderfully engaging young person. As the 125th Rhodes Scholar, Erin also continues McGill's proud record of having more Rhodes Scholars than any other university across Canada."

Synopsis of a scholar

Freeland Ballantyne's interdisciplinary studies have focused on human rights, peace building, co-operatives, alternative theories of development and underdevelopment. During her time at McGill, she received the McConnell Award and Marion McCall Daly Award for outstanding scholarly achievement. She has just completed her honours thesis, "Participatory Actions for a Better World," which is a high school guidebook of development ethics. Freeland Ballantyne is a four-time recipient of the Yellowknife Elks Scholarship for academics, community involvement and athletics.

She is a Northern Lights Award recipient for community volunteerism. She remains actively involved with the Arctic Indigenous Youth Alliance (AIYA), which advocates for the rights of indigenous people in Canada's Northwest Territories. The group's current focus is raising awareness about the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, a mega-project on which Freeland Ballantyne is completing a documentary film. While in Montreal, Freeland Ballantyne has continued as a member and organizer with AIYA and helped raise awareness of environmental, political, economic, cultural, social, spiritual and health-related impacts of development in Canada's North.

After completing her McGill degree this December, Freeland Ballantyne will travel to communities across Canada's North with an AIYA team to host community and classroom discussions, as well as educational forums concerning the environment and the proposed Mackenzie gas pipeline. She will also head to Haiti for two months to film a documentary about community health care practices.

Rhodes to Oxford

At the University of Oxford, Freeland Ballantyne will use her Rhodes Scholarship to complete a Master's of Philosophy focused on development studies. She may eventually pursue a law degree, with an eye towards eventual public service. "If people work hard to change things I definitely believe the world will improve within our lifetime," she says, noting she encourages fair trade in produce and sustainable agricultural practices. "Food will be the root of the next revolution."

Read more on Rhodes Scholarships at www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/rhodesworld.html.

McGill has more Rhodes Scholars than any other Canadian university. Read on for a chronological list.

1904: Herbert Jennings, Rose John and Gordon Archibald
1905: Israel Rubinowitz and Talbot Mercer Papineau
1906: Alexander Robertson MacLeod
1908: Frank Ernest Hawkins
1909: Arthur Yates
1911: Hugh Cantley Warburton, Walter Josiah Pearse and Joseph Badenoch Clearihue
1912: Alfred Nelson King
1913: William Ewart Gladstone Murray
1914: Alfred Tennyson Seaman and Basil Elmo Atkins
1915: Eric Valentine Gordon and Percy Corbett
1917: Donald Gordon MacGregor, Sherwood Lett and Sir Harry Durham Butterfield
1918: John Hamilton Mennie and Terrence William Leighton MacDermott
1921: John Colborne Farthing
1922: Ralph Huie Le Messurier and Lawrence Henry Armstrong
1923: Cecil James Falconer Parsons and David Moffat Johnson
1924: Henry Borden
1925: Murray Fox Gibbon
1926: Eugene Alfred Forsey
1927: Herbert Frederick Moseley
1929: Kenneth Harold Brown and Henri Grier Lafleur
1930: Allan George Gillingham
1931: Kenneth Neill Cameron
1932: David Lewis, Rudolph Duder and Frederic Munroe Bourne
1933: David Pierre Caradoe Lloyd
1936: Orlando Harold Warwick
1937: John Syner Hodgson
1938: Arthur Leslie Pidgeon
1939: Donald Lavell Lloyd-Smith
1940: Douglas George Cameron and Duncan Josepeh Macdonald
1941: Percival Talbot Molson and Donald Barker Wellington Robinson
1946: H. Ferguson Scott, David Irvine Wanklyn and Mervyn Lester Weiner
1947: Allistair William Gillespie and James Alexander Paterson
1948: Ronald Leslie Bernard, Arthur Norwood Canter, Donald Francis Coates, Anthony H. Dunfield and James Reynette Leon
1949: Alan G. Kendall and Harry Chester Butterfield
1950: Robert Cranford Pratt
1952: Charles Hargrave Taylor
1953: R. Storrs McCall, Robert Neil Morrison and Charles Theodore Miller Collis
1954: Brian C. Goodwin and Robert Murray Mundle
1955: John Macleod Fraser
1957: Roberto Domenico Gualtieri and John Doehu Stubbs
1958: Joseph Massure and Louis Yves Fortier
1959: Gordon Joshua Wasserman
1961: Michael Barry Walker
1963: Marcel Masse
1964: Ralph Charles Sutherland Walker
1965: Paul Arthur Tichauer
1966: John Joseph Marcel Bergeron
1967: John Charles Tait
1968: James P.M. Waugh and Peter Perinchief
1970: David Phillip Jones
1971: Robert Dale
1973: Geoffrey E. Dougherty
1974: Philip Alexander Shandro, Fernant Beaulieu and Joseph Paul Singer
1975: John Anthony Coleman
1977: Brian James Ward
1979: John Charles Collis, James Der Derian and Lianne Irene Winnifred Potter
1980-81: Matthew Jocelyn, John H. McBain and Marc Tessier-Lavigne
1981-82: Danielle Fontaine
1982-83: Pierre Legrand and Warren Cabral
1983-84: William Hinz and Jeff Telgarsky
1984-85: Craig Scott
1985-86: Claude Genereux
1986-87: Desiree Cox-Maksimov
1990-91: Alexa Bagnell and Lesley Fellows
1991-92: Fiona Stewart
1992-93: Sujit Choudhry
1993-94: Carellin Brooks and Megan McNeill
1994-95: Stephanie Kuttner
1995-96: Lisa Grushcow, Shariq Lodhi and Diane de Kerckhove
1996-97: Melanie Jean Newton, Anne Andermann and Christine Desmarais
1997-98: Patrick Hayden
1998-99: Marco Gualtieri, Nicola Terceira and Sophie Dumont
1999-2000: Astrid Christoffersen-Deb
2001-02: Kimberley Brownlee and François Tanguay-Renaud
2002-03: Emily Claire Poupart
2003-04: Aleksandra Leligdowicz, Alexandra Conliffe and Simon Rabinovitch
2004-05: Erin Freeland Ballantyne