Bagpipes carry with them a strong sense of pride, bravery and honour, and for us, they bring our esteemed guests to our Annual Awards Ceremony. The bagpipes represent strength and perseverance, just like our students who have shown relentless strength not only in their academic performance but overall transformation.
This year, we celebrated our 14th Annual Awards Ceremony with High Commissioner of Canada to India H.E. Nadir Patel, Ms. Mia Yen, Dr. Kathy Denton, Prof. Prem Vrat, Mr. Sean Coote, Prof. DJ Sandhu gracing the evening with other prominent educators of the region.
The evening began with Dr. Joanne MacLean, President and Vice-Chancellor, UFV Canada, who took to the podium and delivered the President’s address and appreciated the tireless efforts she saw over the years that Fraser Valley India has put in making the Chandigarh Campus a successful choice for the students of India. “It is amazing for me to learn about your hard work and your accomplishments. I find it quite easy to find myself in your shoes and the shoes you will wear when you move to Canada. When you arrive in Canada to study, things will be exciting, new, engaging and challenging. You folks as the youth of India are wonderful examples of the youthful spirit of India. You are embarking on the remarkable journey of growth.”
From the day students become a part of Fraser Valley India, their learning goes through a tectonic shift. Being a university of applied education, UFV always encourages its students to be a part of the real work field and experience what happens out there in the corporate world. FVI facilitates various platforms that the students can use to have a better understanding of their curriculum, some of which are the Summer Practicum, Student Company Program, Tech Gear, and more.
Following this inspiring address by the President, the first awards for the evening were meant to reward the students who successfully completed their Industry Internships in the summer, followed by recognition of the Student Company program 2019 for their extraordinary year-long journey.
After these recognitions, Nadir Patel took to the stage and shared his remarkable tale. “Walking on to campus is one of the highlights of me being in India. If it weren’t for education, I wouldn’t be standing here. UFV has played a role as an ambassador for the Canada-India relationship, just as I do. Three simple things,
1- Embrace your program, think with a global mindset.
2- Be resilient, become leaders and learn to be resilient in coping with adversity.
3- Chase the lifelong pursuit of knowledge.”
Those who lived this and applied their knowledge to become a part of the Dean’s List were then facilitated after this inspiring speech by the High Commissioner. The academic achievers of all the semesters lined up to receive their glistening plaques as their family members looked on and captured the moment. Select students were also awarded academic scholarship for their continued academic achievements, namely Prerna Arora, Aakash Dean, Hitesh Juneja, Dinkey Verma, Manpreet S. Dhaliwal, Manpreet Singh, Navneet Kaur, and Rushali Verma were awarded INR 25,000/- each while Tushar Malhotra, Gurseerat Singh Brar, Varsha Kashyap, Gurkirat Singh, and Vaibhav Kharbanda were awarded INR 10,000/- each.
The first-year students who entered the university with the highest grade average from school were also recognized for the feat of being the first rankers of their batch.
Ankit Kumar Nirankari also won a very unique and deserving scholarship for his remarkable achievement, Opinder Dhaliwal Academic Excellence Award. Opinder was a student of the BBA program from 2010-2014. Since the beginning of his journey, he was a scholarship recipient under every single award category. We lost Opinder to an Asthma attack leading to multiple organ failure. In honour of his record-breaking academic performance, Opinder’s family and UFV India jointly announced a scholarship in his name of 24,000 each on the 11th Annual Awards Ceremony. With the highest CGPA of 4.30 in the last academic year across all undergraduate students in India, Ankit Kumar Nirankari was a well-deserving candidate for this special scholarship.
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Giving away awards and scholarships to more than 125 students was an overwhelming experience for not just the guests, but brought about a sense of pride to the parents and the faculty as well. The closing note by the Fraser Valley India principal, Prof. Sham Vyas encapsulated not just the academic year that the students went through, but also the year of transformation the entire organization underwent. “We will continue to engage learners and seekers, transform lives and communities. We will continue to strive for growth and experience. The idea of perseverance and belief in what we set out to do has been elemental in our journey for the last 14 years. What you dream of today is what you may create and realize tomorrow.”
