Logan Keoughan is a third year UNB student-athlete who welcomes the opportunity to be involved in the community. He has been involved with UNB’s “Heads Up with the Reds” and has also coached volleyball to younger children in Miramichi. He plans on participating in UNB’s “Read with the Reds” this month. Keoughan is taking a Bachelor of Science in Environment and Natural Resources (BScENR) and has been an Academic All-Canadian his first two years at UNB. He is striving for this honor again this year.

Most may not have heard of the BScENR program. It is a program “learning to solve environment and natural resource problems from a holistic, systems perspective, incorporating knowledge, of land, water, air, plants, animals, and people. Also, students learn how to analyze, characterize, and predict change. Keoughan says, “I’ve always been interested in the environment and animals.” One of the reasons why he chose to do his education at UNB is for this program, which is not offered anywhere else in New Brunswick. “The professors are really involved, and there are small class sizes so they know your name after a short time of meeting them. They really want you to understand what they’re saying.”

The second reason why Keoughan came to UNB, some of you may know, is for volleyball. He was recruited from Miramichi Valley High School. He was able to visit the campus and meet the rest of the coaches and players and he says, “I really liked the team and the program”.

Keoughan has achieved a lot since coming to UNB, however, he says, “When I first got here, I was worried about the workload and balancing sport.” It seems he has been able to balance the workload and sport with ease and continues to work hard as a student and as an athlete, “I am a hard worker and at practice I step it up competitively and go hard every time to get the ball”. Lately Keoughan has been playing offside (right-side).

Last year UNB won the AUS Championship for the first time since 1979. Dalhousie has been the top competitor in men’s volleyball having won every year since 1987, until last year. UNB didn’t even realize they had won until seconds after the winning strike on Dalhousie. Keoughan says, “It was great winning against such a great team, especially knowing there was a long period of time of losing to DAL”. UNB plays DAL next on Feb 10^th. They will play twice to finish up the regular games because the ‘Best-2-of-3 AUS Championship Series’ starts Feb 17, 19, and 25^th.

When Keoughan was a child he loved reading encyclopedias. Now he is “not sure yet” about his future after his undergrad but he knows he would like to be outside of Canada to “get an idea of what other countries are doing in this field”. He wants to work with threatened or endangered species as a wildlife biologist. He is thinking of doing a Master’s Degree probably in zoology at the University of Toronto because it is close to the Metro Toronto Zoo. He says, “I will always keep trying to be involved with the community, and if the opportunity arises after school I will still play volleyball”.