Myrna Holden Award
The CFUW Saanich Peninsula Education Trust Fund (ETF) is delighted to announce a pathbreaking scholarship for a woman working toward a degree in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science (FECS) at the University of Victoria.
Myrna Holden was an enthusiastic founding member of our Club in 1995. When she passed away, her two children decided to honor her connection with our organization by each contributing $25,000 to create a $50,000 award in her name.
The ETF struck a sub-committee in April 2024 to consult with the Holden family and with the University of Victoria as to what that award could look like. Myrna’s degrees and early career were in Mathematics and Computer Science – in fact, she was an early female pioneer in those fields while working as a young researcher in the Canadian Department of National Defense on such projects as missile trajectories and emerging computer technologies.
Our sub-committee quickly agreed that this potential award field for women should be explored, especially because the percentage of women graduates in Engineering and Computing Science today remains small.
University of Victoria was excited to be working with us to shape the terms of this award, and so was the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science who happens to be a dynamic recruiter of women into these fields, Dr Mina Hoorfar. We are hoping to introduce her as a guest speaker next year, perhaps when our first Myrna Holden award winner is ready to be revealed!
And speaking of dynamic women, our own Club Treasurer, Susan Lane, and our past Chair of the ETF, Deb Dancik, proved to be talented sub-committee negotiators, encouraging the FECS to bring on board an anonymous donor which allowed the Myrna Holden award to be topped up by another $10,000, to a total of $60,000. This will provide enough money for each of the next ten years to pay almost the full tuition fees for one year of a female recipient who is in financial need.
Many thanks to Myrna’s children, Susie, and Mike, for their generosity and to the ETF sub-committee of Susan Lane, Deb Dancik, Penny Rinald, Alison Gardner, and Anne Callon for their hard work in bringing this project to fruition.