Undergraduate Student Awards

January 29, 2018

The annual student awards reception took place on Thursday, January 25th with faculty, staff, students, their proud parents and donors in attendance. Twenty six awards were handed out in total this year, one to Laird Alexander Morris, who received the The Mary Keenan Award.

With his sights firmly set on law school next year, Laird, who has been busy picking up a number of awards while at U of T, was eager to thank his parents for their unending support: “I’d like to thank the department of political science, the donors who make these awards possible and of course the faculty, TA’s and professors from whom I’ve learned so much. As a mature student, returning to school in my late twenties has been a challenge academically, socially and otherwise. Despite my perseverance and hard work, none of it would have been possible without my parents. I left school quite young and remained a high school dropout until I was twenty-six. My parents told me that if I was to willing to work hard, put in the time and stay focused there isn’t anything they wouldn’t do to support me. So at twenty-six years old I received my high school diploma followed by an I.T. apprenticeship from Niagara College, a paralegal law diploma from Mohawk College and admission to the University of Toronto where I’ve won three academic scholarship awards. Next fall I’ll finally be applying to law school. Although it’s been a long road full of hard work and years of sleepless study nights, at the end of the day it was my parents who made everything possible.”

Associate Chair and Undergraduate Director Dickson Eyoh, who was the M.C. for the celebrations said: “It’s wonderful to see our best and brightest students being recognised for their achievements and to share this experience with our remarkable benefactors. The diversity of award winners attests to the department’s commitment to providing the best undergraduate education in political science for these young Canadians.”

The complete list of the 2015/2016 award winners is available here.

Donors present this year included Nora Born-Clarkson, Anne Dupré and Brian White.