By Helena Bryan

Ever noticed how people with the most to brag about often don’t?

Take Jesse Cale, for example. The Calgary native one is one of two SFU grad students to earn a Governor General’s Gold Medal this year.

The coveted medal is bestowed annually on graduate students with at least 60 semester hours of course credit who have achieved the university’s highest scholastic standing.

Having completed the requirements for an SFU PhD in criminology in 2010 there’s no question Cale meets the criteria. Not only did he maintain a 4.11 cumulative grade point average out of a possible 4.38, he did it while teaching full-time at the University of the Fraser Valley.

Experts in the field have described his doctoral dissertation, on the origins of sexual violence against women, as “groundbreaking”.

He has presented at 11 international conferences and has four manuscripts in progress and 10 journal articles or book chapters in the works or already published in top-ranking criminology journals.

Then there are all the awards and scholarships, too many to count on both hands.

Yet when asked how he feels about receiving the Gold Medal, Cale manages to deflect the attention away from himself.

“It’s been a great honor and, really, it speaks to my former supervisors and professors and the School of Criminology as a whole,” he says. “I’m so proud just to have been a part of that.

“I couldn’t have done it without my family’s support either.”

Okay, what about favorite memories then? “Many…but mostly all of the great friends I’ve made in my time there. And my former professors. All of them are just the most remarkable people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.”

Hmmm. Let’s see. What about the prestigious scholarship to conduct postdoctoral research on child sexual abuse at Griffith University, in Brisbane, Australia? That’s quite a coup isn’t it?

“Well, I specifically applied to work with professors Stephen Smallbone and Benoit Leclerc, whose work has had a major influence on my own.”

Clearly, the bragging rights are all Cale’s. He’s just not going to claim them.