Haskayne creates five full-ride scholarships after donation

By Mitali Pradhan, April 8 2019 —

Incoming Bachelor of Commerce students at the University of Calgary will have the opportunity to receive full-ride scholarships after a $500,000 donation to the Haskayne School of Business from long-time donors.

Every year for the next five years, an incoming undergraduate student will be selected to receive $25,000 per year for four years — a total of $100,000 per student.

The Richard and Lois Haskayne Legacy Scholarship is named after its donors. A donation of an unspecified sum from Richard Haskayne in 2002 saw the business school adopt his surname.

Haskayne was a former executive for TransAlta and TransCanada Pipelines and has served as chair of the U of C Board of Governors.

“It’s about attracting students from all over the country as well as really retaining our top students in Alberta,” said Sherry Weaver, associate dean of undergraduate programs at Haskayne.

Weaver said the U of C has several programs, including study abroad opportunities and international competitions. This scholarship aims to ensure that the selected student has the ability to participate fully in these activities.

She stressed that the winner of this scholarship will be an individual invested in pursuing these opportunities at the university.

“Our students benefit with a world-class scholarship, our school benefits by recruiting high-achieving students, and ultimately our community benefits when we invest in our youth,” said Haskayne dean Jim Dewald in a UToday article.

Incoming students can apply for the scholarship using the general scholarship application, which has a December deadline.

The application will include an essay on leadership and a description of activities that the student participated in during high school. In these, the committee is looking for contribution to community, leadership and an entrepreneurial spirit — pillars of the business school.

“We are looking for students that have demonstrated community and school leadership so we are looking at how they have contributed,” Weaver said.

Potential candidates will then be invited for a one-hour interview with several members of the faculty, including the dean, associate dean, one of the advisors that is heavily involved in recruiting and an instructor for the honours program.

According to Weaver, while this year saw only the essay and community engagement sections as part of the application, in following years candidates will likely be required to submit a reference as well.

“I am really looking forward to seeing the kinds of applicants that take note of this scholarship and decide that they want to choose the University of Calgary as opposed to the other schools that they have perhaps traditionally migrated to,” Weaver said.