 |
|
|
|
 STRENGTH TO STRENGTHThe Scholarships
It’s partly about reputation, of course. The College’s academic edge and its excellent programs account for much of its appeal to new students. It is partly about tradition, too: Trinity’s quirky blend of the establishment and the iconoclastic. And it’s partly about size: a small college community within a large city, with full access to all the benefits associated with the University of Toronto. Still, as costs of an undergraduate education climb and other institutions offer more attractive scholarship packages, the question – why Trinity? – becomes harder to answer. Reputation, tradition and community are no longer enough to meet the best students’ needs. To continue attracting the type of excellent students who will keep its standards at their peak, the College must create more scholarships – the kind that reward excellence, while at the same time helping those who could not otherwise afford to participate to the fullest in their education. The William and Nona Heaslip Scholarships, Trinity’s largest-ever student awards, created in 2005, are a case in point. Valued at $15,000 per year and renewable from second through fourth year, the Heaslips are one of the first major achievements of the Strength to Strength Endowment Campaign. Trinity is seeking to create a permanent endowment of $3 million, which will be dedicated to providing a range of renewable entrance scholarships to see exceptional students through to the end of their undergraduate career. Scholarships have the ability to change a student’s life, as evidenced by this year’s Heaslip winners, Bessie Qu and Johnny Nguyen, both 19. It is also clear that they are both potentially the kind of leaders who will go on to change the lives of others. Much of Qu’s young life has been spent in transit. At age eight she moved from China to Lithuania with her father, an engineer, and her mother, a doctor. While there she embraced the culture, learning Russian (she also speaks French and Mandarin) and developing a love of the piano, before the family moved to Toronto. Those years in Lithuania really helped her learn how to adapt, she says – a great advantage in the Trinity environment, where she’s continually meeting new people and new challenges. Qu has a dream that her language skills and mathematical prowess – plus an interest in politics cultivated during a stint as an information officer at the provincial legislature last summer – might one day lead to a job at the United Nations in New York. This summer, she’s thinking about going on an exchange to Italy or France, then maybe working at the Olympics in China …. “I’d like to think that anything is possible.” The Heaslip Scholarship has made that notion a much more likely proposition. In addition to class and his hospital work, Nguyen is a member of the University of Toronto karate club, and director of International Affairs on the executive committee of the Human Biology Students’ Union, a job that enables him to show his peers their medical-school options abroad. As a member of the Hart House Chess Club, he was chosen to represent U of T at the Canadian university chess championships in Ottawa this winter. And somehow, he has also found time to organize student participation in charity events. “I’m super-involved, but I think it’s a necessary balance, he says. Now that he’s living in residence, thanks to the Heaslip Scholarship, the two hours each day that he formerly spent commuting from Vaughan, north of Toronto, can be put to valuable use in his hospital research. He now has his sights on medical school. Aside from his profound interest in pathology, he wants to explore health care from the inside. Does that sound like a politician in training? “I don’t think so,” he says. “Doctors know the system firsthand. I think that’s significant when you’re talking about change.” Hmmm… understanding the infrastructure so that you can overhaul it? Maybe not a politician – but definitely someone who will change lives. The Strength to Strength Campaign priorities represent a permanent and lasting investment in Trinity’s future.
Design by Fresh Art & Design, Toronto |
