Graduate Awards continue to grow

Power Corporation of Canada Graduate Fellowships: Seen at the Graduate Awards Breakfast on Dec. 2 are Rector Frederick Lowy, in the front row, with recipients Charlene Vacon, Ning Shi, Sheila Oakley. In the back row are recipients Anik Teasdale- St. Hilaire, Jian Qi, Nicolas Goudreau, Pangiota Karava. On the right is chair of the Concordia Advancement Committee and vice-president of Power Corporation Peter Kruyt.
Photo by Andrew Dobrowolskyj

The School of Graduate Studies celebrated its best students on Dec. 2 at the annual Graduate Awards and Teaching Assistantships Breakfast, held at the Delta Montreal Hotel.

This year, 24 graduate awards were inducted, including 11 scholarships established by Abe and Harriet Gold and named in honour of their close friends.

This brings to 22 the number of graduate awards at Concordia created by the Golds, through generous endowments now referred to as the Abe and Harriet Gold Scholarship Bank. A number of the new awards were established through Concordia's Campaign for a New Millennium.

More-than 180 faculty, graduate students, administrators and benefactors attended.

Speaking for all the recipients, engineering PhD student Anik Teasdale-St. Hilaire said, “The decision to pursue graduate studies is not always an easy one. The option of going into the work force and all that comes with it has a lot of appeal, but students pursue graduate studies to gain an in-depth grasp of their field and to dip their toes in research.”

Teasdale-St. Hilaire received the R. Zarboni Graduate Fellowship, an award open to graduate students across all faculties set up by Ralph Zarboni, L BComm 73, a plastics chemist. She was also awarded one of the 18 graduate fellowships established by the Power Corporation of Canada through the efforts of Power Corp VP Peter Kruyt, BComm 78, who is also the vice-chair of Concordia’s Board of Governors.

Teasdale-St. Hilaire thanked donors for their generous support. “It makes the sacrifice more bearable,” she said with a smile. Rector Frederick Lowy said that while the university's endowments have risen impressively from $8 million to $81 million over the last nine years, almost all are devoted to student support, one of the big challenges is to increase these awards to the level of other universities.

“Unlike older universities, we do not have generations of graduates who have had time to reflect on the significance of their university experience and make donations. This is happening now at Concordia.”