John Stinchcombe has been giving to his own department since many of his current students were in middle school or elementary school.
For the last 11 years, the professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) in the Faculty of Arts & Science has been supporting graduate student scholarships and has no intention of stopping.
“Of course, I support the University’s overall public mission for education and research, but I like that our graduate scholarships help graduate students who are in this transitional period,” he says.
That ‘transitional period’ refers to when students have finished their undergrad, but they’re not quite out in the professional world, and they’re not quite established in academic world.
Stinchcombe remembers the importance of a scholarship when he was an undergrad at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. “It certainly made an expensive, private university much more affordable for my parents — it was really important,” he says.
“And with the rising cost of living in Toronto, being a grad student is getting harder and harder, so I try to do whatever I can do to make that more feasible and expand the opportunities for more students.”
He loves the fact that his donations help multiple students.
"The way our department trust is set up means that there isn't a single recipient or beneficiary of what I donate or the department is able to fundraise, rather these funds are used for things that benefit all of our students and the broader EEB community,” he says.
“U of T is a huge institution, but there are a lot of opportunities to give locally, where you can see the benefits of your support,” he adds. “So that might be people’s departments or graduate scholarships or colleges or some of the institutes, but within the big U of T universe there are lot of possibilities to really see the impact of your donation…It will make a difference, I’ve seen it personally.”
And becoming a donor is easy, he stresses.
“The paperwork to actually give is really simple,” he says. “You can give through a payroll deduction that comes out of your paycheque and when you get your tax slip, it’s already reported as a donation. You can set it up once and forget about it.”