Nearly 400 students, family, donors, friends and faculty gathered at the Toronto Reference Library’s Bram and Bluma Appel Salon for the annual Student Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, October 23, 2012. The evening recognized Bloomberg Nursing student achievements and celebrated the launch of the $25-million Boundless campaign for U of T’s Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing.
The evening celebrated the accomplishments of many deserving undergraduate and graduate students, with 90 awards handed out and five newly-endowed student awards recognized and presented. The Pat and Doug Robertson Toronto-Eglinton Rotary Award in Nursing was awarded to second-year student Nolene Look. The Deborah Dewar Nursing Scholarship for Community Leadership was awarded to Lindsay McCarthy on her community and leadership accomplishments. Glenn H. Carter was in attendance to award the Glenn H. Carter Fellowship to PhD students Clara Juandó-Prats, Margaret Schwan and Maki Iwase. The Monty M. Simmonds Memorial Award was handed out to Heather Stewart for her strong work in clinical excellence and compassionate care. The Estate of Bluma Levitt Appel generously contributed to the new awards with the Bluma Appel Community Trust, which was awarded to Oliver Mauthner and Clara Juandó-Prats.
In her opening address, Dean Sioban Nelson spoke of the important role that generous volunteers and friends play in the lives of U of T Nursing students and faculty, and acknowledged the generous support of the late Bluma Appel, the co-executors of her estate Byron Bellows and Patrice Merrin, and Lawrence Bloomberg.
Dean Nelson then spoke about Boundless Promise: The Campaign for Bloomberg Nursing. An integral part of the University’s overall $2-billion Boundless campaign, Bloomberg Nursing aims to shape the future of nursing by training future leaders and advancing understanding and treatment of health care issues that affect Canadians.
Dean Nelson announced the ambitious multi-phase campaign that will enable Bloomberg Nursing to provide even more support for its students, attract the next generation of “rising star” faculty and researchers, and continue to provide outstanding programs committed to the student experience. The campaign will also increase development opportunities for students through global initiatives and advance the Faculty’s international leadership in nursing education and research.
As the Faculty enters the second phase of the campaign, it will build on this strong platform by seeking to raise an additional $10 million, half of which will be used to enhance the quality of the student experience.
The evening ended with a reception which saw donors, students and families meeting and mingling in the Salon endowed by nursing’s great friends and advocates Bram and Bluma Appel.
For more information on University of Toronto’s Boundless campaign, please visit http://boundless.utoronto.ca.