New student award recognizes inclusivity and kindness

A new award established by the 0T3 class from the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy recognizes two classmates’ extraordinary kindness and ability to bring people together. The award, named after John Connelly and Robyn Knight Fazel, recognizes a student who is actively involved in student life through clubs, the Undergraduate Pharmacy Society and intramural sports.

The class says that they wanted to validate and celebrate the diverse ways in which students can excel and provide financial support while honouring the lives of their classmates.

“We want to do what we can to help current students start their career off on the best foot.”

“We hope that the award will help to support students because the financial burden is significant,” says Anna-Lisa Athaide (Campos), 0T3 alumna and hospital pharmacist at Lakeridge Health Oshawa. “We want to do what we can to help current students start their career off on the best foot.”

At the class’s 20-year reunion in 2023, they discussed the possibility of starting an award and using it as an opportunity to honour Knight Fazel and Connelly. Connelly was in his third year of the pharmacy program when he died suddenly, and Knight Fazel died of cancer in 2019. Athaide and a small group of classmates – Steven Ellis, Jennifer MacIntyre (Yaeck) and Manju Sharma (Gursahani) – undertook the fundraising efforts for the award.

The 0T3 class remembers both Connelly and Knight Fazel of them as outgoing, inspiring and natural leaders who were interested in their classmates and made them feel important and included.

“They really made the effort to talk to everybody. Despite our differences, we can all work together, and Robyn and John were models of that,” says Athaide. “In the end, it wasn't their academic success that impacted us; it was their kindness.”

The losses of their classmates brought the class close together, while they were in school and after graduation. Those connections provided support and guidance, as well as the beginning of a strong professional network after graduation. The fundraising team drew on those strong connections, which inspired classmates to give generously to establish the award.

The fundraising team hopes that classmates will continue contributing to the award fund so that it can continue to grow to benefit more students. And, since the 0T3 class is the first class from the 2000s to establish such an award, they hope their efforts will inspire others to use their shared connection to the Faculty to establish their own awards.

“Establishing an award keeps us tied to the faculty and keeps us as part of the pharmacy family,” Athaide says. “We launch into careers and travel in different directions, but we share a common period of life and this award maintains that connection.”

“We hope that other classes and even the recipients of these awards foster their communities and maintain the connections that they have built at the Faculty.”