UVic announced the recipients of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Awards on March 4 and Fine Arts was once again proud to see three of our outstanding graduates included among the 18 recipients being recognized across the three categories: Presidents’ Alumni Award recipient Carrie Tennant (Music), Emerging Alumni Award recipient Dennis Gupa (Theatre) and Indigenous Community Alumni Award recipient Ivy Martin (CRM). You can view all the awardees and read about them on the alumni awards webpage.
“This diverse group of graduates contribute their skills, passions and leadership to many different fields, including the arts, education, law, science, engineering and business,” says UVic President Kevin Hall. “Advocacy, community building and climate action are common threads woven through their work. In that sense, they shine a light on the values and priorities that define and unite us at UVic.”
Once again, the awards show the calibre of UVic alumni and their impact across the world—but it’s also a great reminder of the potential future impact of the work we do every day to create positive student experiences.
Carrie Tennant, Presidents’ Alumni Award
Presented by UVic’s President and the President of the UVic Alumni Association, this award recognizes the outstanding lifetime accomplishments of alumni who have either earned national or international regard, or had a significant local impact as a result of their outstanding professional achievements and/or service to society.
For the past 20 years, the Vancouver-based Carrie Tennant has worked with young singers, developing their leadership and artistry. Holder of a Bachelor of Music in Music Education (1999) and a Teaching Certificate from Faculty of Education (2000), she is currently the founder and artistic director of the Vancouver Youth Choir.
Carrie’s choirs have won several awards and have performed at international events in Istanbul and New York City. She is also an affiliate conductor with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, and a frequent clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor across North America and around the world. She is the editor and curator for two choral series: the Vancouver Youth Choir Choral Series (Cypress Publishing), which promotes diverse Canadian voices on the international stage, and the brand new Carrie Tennant Choral Series (Hal Leonard). She received the 2023 YWCA Women of Distinction Award for Arts and Culture, and in a past life she toured, performed and recorded with her husband as a member of Vancouver-based indie-pop group the Salteens.
When asked for her favourite memory of attending UVic, Carrie points to playing in the ensembles with retired Music Ed and Wind Symphony director Gerald King and singing in UVic Chamber Singers with Bruce More. “I went to Korea and Thailand and China with him and the choir,” she recalls. “Bruce was an incredible mentor and a fantastic role model, and he let me conduct in Korea. That gave me the conducting bug. It was really a transformative experience for me.”
You can hear Carrie and the Chamber Singers in action at a special 50th Anniversary concert at Vancouver’s Pacific Spirit Church on April 21, which will also feature an alumni reception before the concert.
One aspect of her UVic training that really helped shape Carrie was what she describes as the “spirit of thinking outside the box, which I really have carried forward with me.” But she also credits our “incredible” music education program: “I walked out of that program ready to be a successful teacher in the public system, and I didn’t realize at the time that that was not the norm until I connected with other first-year teachers from other post-secondary programs who were overwhelmed and treading water and couldn’t handle it,” she says. “Even though I’m not a teacher in the traditional sense now, I think a lot of the foundational principles and methodology comes from that strong background of music ed from UVic.”
Read more of the interview with Carrie here—including her thoughts on community building, her own personal motivations, the best advice she ever received, her go-to karaoke song (spoiler: it’s Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5”) and her secret talent.
Dennis Gupa, Emerging Alumni Awards
Recognizing the outstanding professional achievements and/or contributions of recent alumni (graduated within the last 10 years) to the community, one of this year’s Emerging Alumni Awards goes to the now Philippines-born but now Winnipeg-based Dennis Gupa (Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Theatre, 2021).
Dennis is a theatre director, performance maker/researcher, applied-theatre practitioner and an assistant professor at the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Winnipeg. He has an MFA in Theatre (Directing) from UBC, an MA in Theatre Arts from the University of the Philippines and completed his PhD in Applied Theatre at the University of Victoria as a Vanier Scholar; his dissertation centred on climate change and Indigenous ecological knowledge, which was amplified with his role as UVic’s Ocean Networks Canada Artist in Residence during the pandemic.
Dennis has directed and devised performances in Southeast Asia and North America. He received the 2023 inaugural Green Award (Individual Artist Runner-Up) from the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) and Boca del Lupo and RBC Foundation’s 2023 SLaM (Successor, Leadership and Mentorship) Program. He is a Dwight Conquergood Laureate of the Performance Studies International (PSi) and The Ada Slaight Drama in Education Awardee of Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre. Dennis is mentioned in the Cultural Centre of the Philippines’ Encyclopedia of Philippine Arts for his contribution to the contemporary theatrical heritage of the Philippines.
He describes his experiences at UVic as “life transforming,” noting that he’s the only person in his family who received both an international education and a PhD.
“But having such an achievement is empty when you are not connected to the purpose of the work that you’re doing,” he says. “UVic taught me to have an attentiveness to one’s purpose—a kind of an attention to the things that I wish to contribute to the world. It made me reflexive, value collaboration and to have the courage to constantly interrogate and question the work I create, communicate and circulate. My academic and artistic experiences at UVic made me realize that I have to constantly evolve with my own craft as a scholar, teacher and artist to become a better human being.”
Read more about Dennis here—including the one essential trait for his continuing work (humility), a good piece of advice, his favourite way of relaxing, one food he can’t resist (Filipino adobo) and who (or what) he’d like to play him in the movie of his life.
Ivy Martin, Indigenous Community Alumni Award
Long before obtaining her Diploma in Cultural Resource Management in 2023, Tofino-based (but Port Alberni-born) Ivy Martin played a key role in caretaking, documenting and promoting the traditional knowledge and cultural treasures of the Tlaoquiaht First Nation.
She has successfully repatriated several ancestral treasures to the community and helped build a custom space with temperature and humidity control to secure their long time use and preservation. Ivy works with Tlaoquiaht’s Tribal Parks department and archaeologists on cultural surveys to ensure cultural sites and treasures are handled with the proper traditional protocols of the Tlaoquiaht First Nation, and to establish a repository for artifacts found within the traditional territory. She records, documents and shares cultural knowledge, and is currently building an online database and learning resources as part of the nation’s efforts to revitalize the endangered Tlaoquiaht language.
When asked for a favourite memory of her time at UVic, Ivy recalled the cultural regalia that went missing from her family years before. “My mother’s the eldest daughter of my grandfather, who was chief,” she explains. “I was in my 20s when I started collecting, documenting culture and our history, because it was intriguing to me . . . and [my grandfather] shared his wish for me to find this regalia and to bring the regalia home.”
So when one of her CRM assignments was to do a repatriation request, Ivy already knew what her family wanted. “Now we have a room that is a designated chief’s regalia space. That’s come from part of my course work with UVic. It’s helped me to see how it can be a reality for my community. It’s been an awesome journey, very culturally healing. My experience has made it such a personal thing, connected to that identity in my family, of having that regalia coming home.”
Read more about Ivy here, including key skills, underappreciated characteristics (“We don’t shine enough light on our abilities to push forward each day”), valuable advice, what she does to relax, and what brings her joy (“seeing my kids enjoy life”).
“My education with UVic has helped me to create opportunities for my family to learn and experience things that are meaningful,” she concludes.
Nominate a Distinguished Alumni
You can read more about previous Fine Arts Distinguished Alumni Award winners.
Nominations for the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Awards are now open through October 18, 2024.