Award nights bring students and donors together
Garry Milton (left) and Wendy Hedrich pose with President Claude Lajeunesse to inaugurate the Garry Milton and Wendy Hedrich Bursary.
Ryan Blau
Always a heartwarming event, the Undergraduate Awards Ceremony, held March 27 at the Sofitel Hotel, was an opportunity for students who have received financial help for their studies to meet some of the generous people who provided it.
Approximately 300 people attended the event, which saw 50 new awards inducted. Eight of them were created by faculty and staff at Concordia.
They included the Claude and Nicole Lajeunesse Adopt-A-Student Bursary; the Elie Assayag Memorial Bursary, in honour of the father of Vice-President Advancement and Alumni Relations Kathy Assayag; the Patrick Tansey Memorial Bursary, given by Mary and Larry Tansey in honour of their son; the Trevor W. Payne, C.M., Scholarship in Black Music; a Continuing Education Staff Bursary spearheaded by Lance Evoy; the Eric Serdans Award in Environmental Science; and a Contemporary Dance Bursary.
The R. Howard Webster Foundation provided 100 first-year entrance scholarships this year, and created an endowment that will fund scholarships for four student athletes.
The hosts for the evening were Vice-President Assayag and Roger Côté, Associate VP, Enrolment & Student Services. President Claude Lajeunesse spoke to the audience of 300, as did José Gabriel Bran Lopez, recipient of Rogers Sportsnet Scholarship for Communication Studies.
One of those most gratified at this ceremony every year is professor Mahesh Sharma. An engineer who teaches information systems in the JMSB, he has long been chair of the undergraduate scholarships and awards committee, and it gives him great satisfaction to see the results of his work.
Sharma puts his feet where his heart is, too. He has taken part in the annual inter-campus walkathon, the Shuffle, since its inception in 1990.
“I do it because it helps the advancement of education by raising money for students,” he said recently. “As chair of the awards committee, I see first-hand how this great collective effort makes a substantial difference in a student’s life.
“I wish more students would participate to help their own colleagues. I also urge all teachers to join in, either by Shuffling or by contributing to this great cause.”
A similar though more intimate ceremony was held to honour graduate students and their donors on March 6 at the Montefiore Club. Eleven new awards were announced. Vice-President Research and Graduate Studies Louise Dandurand was among the speakers.
Once again, awards funded by faculty and staff were prominent. They included the Jay Mannadiar Family DIA/DSA Entrance Scholarship, the Clarence Bayne Internship Award, and the Mathematics and Statistics Graduate Scholarship, funded by the department.