February 26, 1999

B of M pitches in to help scholarship fund

Clockwise: B of M's Pamela Robertson and Derral Moniyama, S.U.'s Sheamus Murphy, President Rod Fraser and Dr. Louis Desrochers, Chancellor Emeritus

The Bank of Montreal is donating $1 million over 10 years for students entering or transferring to their first undergraduate degree program at the U of A. The scholarship is called the Bank of Montreal Citation, awarded under the university's Scholastic Distinction Program and available to students in any area of study.

President Rod Fraser received the gift at a Faculty Club reception last Monday from Pamela Robertson, senior vice-president of the bank's Alberta division.

"A lot of universities were telling us they were focusing on scholarship funds and they needed money for that," says Nada Ristich, the bank's national corporate donations manager. "The focus is not on bricks and mortar anymore - it's on the students themselves... our main area within our philanthropy program is education."

Ristich says the citation is the largest donation the Bank of Montreal has ever made to a western Canadian university, and the first earmarked specifically for scholarships. Each citation is valued at $20,000 ($5,000 per year for four years) and will be presented annually to students with superior academic achievement. In addition to academic standing, candidates will also be assessed according to future academic potential and financial need.

For high-school students, academic standing will include courses taken in Grades 10, 11 and 12. Transfer students will be assessed according to their grade-point average at the institution from which they are transferring. Recipients must have a minimum average of at least 95 per cent.

In the first year of the citation, one $5,000 scholarship will be awarded, two in the second year, and so on, up to 10 in the final year (or more depending on the earnings of the endowment). The first scholarship will be awarded to a student entering the U of A in September, 1999.

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