U of T’s Faculty of Arts and Science is a vibrant intellectual community of students and scholars who are deeply committed to excellence, discovery and diversity. Today, more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students pursue studies in the humanities, sciences and social sciences on the St. George campus in downtown Toronto, as they prepare to participate in society as tomorrow's leaders and community partners.

Our responsibility as Canada’s leading university, therefore, is to create an exceptional educational environment that fosters global citizens who are able to draw connections across knowledge areas, and to relate that knowledge to complex and constantly changing situations in the workplace and the world. It is, in short, to help our students to meet challenges successfully and to act on opportunities, intelligently and responsibly.

That is why we are once again focusing this year’s Arts and Science Annual Fund Campaign on awards for students: to recognize their academic achievements, to motivate them to enter an exciting world of new knowledge and discovery, and to enable them to take part in new learning experiences on campus and abroad.

We invite you to consider supporting tomorrow's leaders by giving to the Arts and Science Annual Fund.

Meet the kind of students you'll be helping

Rida Mourtada, BSc 2010 — Pharmaceutical Chemistry (Specialist)

Rida has just completed his BSc in the pharmaceutical chemistry program, where he was learning to combine his expertise in synthetic organic chemistry with the art of drug design and delivery. As an undergraduate researcher in Professor Shana O. Kelly’s lab, he was involved in developing a new anti-cancer delivery pathway to overcome drug resistance in certain cancers. For him, it’s important that research impacts people directly. Rida is undertaking a MSc degree as he wants to develop new drug treatments and implement them in a clinical setting. He says, “I am grateful to the donors as the scholarships have allowed me to devote more time to my studies rather than to working part-time to finance my education."

Story by Cynthia Yao
Photo: Derek Shapton

• To find out more about supporting the Arts and Science Annual Fund, please contact Leslie McCarley at 416-946-5192 or leslie.mccarley@utoronto.ca