convocation Archives - University of St. Michael's College

St. Mike’s Student Dacian Dawes on Finding her Place

Grad Patrick Policicchio on Research, Connection and Belonging

Grad Anita Rajkumar on Giving Back to her Community

St. Michael’s graduand Julia Kim is off to do graduate work at Cambridge University on a Trinity College studentship in the fall. It is not surprising, therefore, that Kim is the recipient of the 2024 Rose Sheinin Award, recognizing the highest-performing female student graduating from a science program at the University of Toronto. She received the award at convocation on Thursday, June 13, 2024.

Julia Kim and St. Mike’s President David Sylvester

Julia’s strong academic record was the byproduct of her desire to learn.

“It was a drive to understand things as profoundly as possible. There are certain areas of pure mathematics and theoretical physics which I find to be beautiful, so it was natural that I should devote myself to these studies and try hard. The good grades and the possibility of being recognized by the university followed, though they were not the primary goal,” she says.

Julia was St. Michael’s nomination for this year’s Governor General’s Silver Medal, which is one of the highest honours a graduating student at the University of Toronto can achieve. She will also receive St. Michael’s Academic Achievement Award in Mathematics and Physical Science. She is graduating with an Honours Bachelor of Science degree, with a double major in mathematics and physics and a minor in statistics.

“The subjects I studied and the research I pursued were somewhat eclectic, being reflective of a broad number of my academic interests. I wished to determine what scientific research was like and whether it was for me,” she says.

Julia came to U of T, with St. Mike’s as her home college, to pursue her profound interest in physics and discovered that the field overlapped with other fields of study. Over the course of her undergrad, she also dabbled in computer science, engineering, statistics, and economics.

“I retain an attachment to physics, which was my primary passion when I began my degree. However, I am also focused on acquiring a more practical set of skills, namely in statistics and computer programming, she says ”Theoretical quantum computing is therefore interesting to me in its intersection between physics and computer science, and in its potential for useful applications. In pursuing it, I would be able to retain the beauty of studying theoretical physics, whilst gaining a more practical edge from other subjects.”

Her passion for physics arose from a romanticized notion of the great physicists. “I held in my mind a romantic view of the great scientists such as Einstein, Curie, and Rutherford. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to study the same things they studied and to be able to understand the phenomena they discovered. I felt myself inspired by them, and so I wished to follow in their footsteps. That combined with some talent and interest in mathematics got me started,” she says.

Up next for Julia is a Master’s degree in mathematics at Cambridge University in England, where she hopes to develop a greater mathematical maturity in topics of pure and applied mathematics, theoretical physics and statistics.

While planning her degree, she found herself often writing to ASK SMC, a resource offered by St. Mike’s Office of the Registrar and Student Services.

“I would wish to thank St. Mike’s for the number of resources which they provided to myself and other students. Throughout my undergrad, I ask questions about loads of different things like transcripts, exceptions, and scheduling courses. They were always incredibly helpful and responsive, and accessible over phone and e-mail. The resources and staff there were beneficial in assisting me with the questions that I had throughout my undergrad,” she says.

In addition to her studies, Julia was the academic coordinator for the University of Toronto Machine Intelligence Student Team (UTMIST), a student organization that promotes machine learning on campus by connecting students, graduate students, professors, and industry leaders in the field of machine intelligence. As a member of University of Toronto Aerospace Team’s (UTAT) Structures division, she helped build Defiance, the first experimental hybrid rocket flown in Canada. She has also written science articles for the Varsity, U of T’s student newspaper. Off campus, she wrote Instagram posts for Girls in STEAM, which promotes STEM education for girls and minority groups.

While convocation will be a celebration of Caroline McQuade’s commitment to her academics, it’s also recognition of the supportive community she gained through her involvement at St. Michael’s. On Thursday, she will receive an Honours Bachelor of Arts with a major in sociology and a double minor in English and women and gender studies.

Caroline McQuade

“When I came into university, I came in with the mindset that I was going to be very independent. I wanted to focus on school and do well. It was easy to become wrapped up in my grades and GPA, which was important. At St. Mike’s, I met all these amazing people who supported me and helped shape what I wanted to do that really rounded out my university experience,” says Caroline.

Caroline met many of these amazing people through St. Michael’s Peer Mentorship Program. With classes being offered solely online in her first year, her gateway into college life was through mentorship. She describes her first-year mentor as exceptional —she helped her navigate her first year and offered guidance on possible career paths—they remain friends today.

Due to the pandemic, Caroline didn’t step foot on campus until her second year. As a commuter student, she was sometimes on campus all day and needed a place where she could do some reading or unwind between classes. She found the COOP.

“It was the people that really drew me to St. Mike’s. It was so easy to get lost in lecture halls that could have 1,500 people. It was nice to have somewhere to go where I knew people and people knew me,” she says.

Wanting to give other first-year students the same experience she had, she became a Mentor in her third year and in her final year she became a Senior Mentor in charge of the events portfolio. In the later role, she organized events to help mentees and mentors bond, including a Halloween scavenger hunt, Christmas cookie decorating, and a painting event in January for Mental Wellness Month. The most popular proved to be a new event for the mentorship program, an Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan in March that brought together more than100 people.

“We wanted to create events that were inclusive for everyone,” she says. She attributes the event’s success to working across organizations. For the Ramadan event they collaborated with the Muslim Students Association (MSA), Victoria College’s Student Association (VUSAC), and St. Michael’s College Student Union (SMCSU).

“It’s great pulling from different groups on campus because everyone brings their ideas and we were able to reach a larger pool of students,” she says.

In September, she’ll embark on a Master’s degree in Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto, a decision that was formed with the help of her first-year mentor. When Caroline was unsure what she wanted to do after graduation, her mentor, an Industrial Relations and Human Resources major, encouraged her to take a couple courses in undergrad to see if she liked it.

“It was a mix of her exposing me to the industry, but also my own experience and realizing that I want to be the person responsible for making a workplace inclusive, positive, equal, and fair,” she says.

More Convocation 2024:

St. Mike’s Student Dacian Dawes on Finding her Place

Grad Patrick Policicchio on Research, Connection and Belonging

Grad Anita Rajkumar on Giving Back to her Community

“Research is a labour of love,” says Patrick Policicchio as he reflects on the things he has learned in his time at St. Mike’s. Now he is looking ahead to convocation, his work on a double major in health and disease & cell & molecular biology, with a minor in human immunology, complete.

Patrick Policicchio

Patrick arrived on campus as a commuter student in 2020 amid Covid protocols and lockdowns. With a virtual orientation and online classes, he found it daunting to meet people. “The initial stages were not easy,” he recalls.

Soon, however, he discovered that everyone was looking for the same thing: human connection.

“We were all like-minded,” he says.

He was able to make friends and get to know classmates fairly quickly, but a key component of his university experience was missing, and that was the opportunity to do lab research, given strict lockdown.

But being a creative thinker, as soon as restrictions eased he started reaching out to professors on his own in search of a research opportunity. In 2022, he found himself in the lab with Dr. Bradly Wouters, senior scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Executive VP Science and Research, University Health Network (UHN). This connection led to the research he has been working on since then, which is, in layperson’s terms, designed to sensitize cells to help them become more receptive to radiation.

“Talk about daunting! It makes your head spin,” he says, recalling his first entry into the lab, where he found himself working with PhDs and medical doctors. “You hunker down and get to work.”

Patrick soon realized that time in such intense and important surroundings would be a true test of whether medical research was the place for him.

“I found out I wanted to go on. I fell in love and realized I belong here,” he says of his lab experience. In time, one of the doctoral students he worked alongside became the supervisor of the undergraduate thesis he recently completed, which explored the relationship between oxygen consumption rate and radiosensitization in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

With that decision confirmed, he began figuring out ways to organize his week for the most productive results. One of the steps he took was to leave his research days free of classes so that he could wait on results because, as he says, “You could be in the lab for one hour or for 14. There’s no way to tell what cells will do,” adding that pre-dawn visits to the lab are now part of his life. “The fun thing about research is that you can set your own agenda.”

The days he did not have classes included not only the data analysis he’s been working on but also taking on tasks like preparing for talks and presentations. As he notes, “part of research is being able to convey your findings in a way that helps make a difference, and being able to apply what I’d been exposed to in classes clearly demonstrates I learned the material.”

In spite of long hours of classes and lab work, Patrick remained mindful of the need for connections and a social life. Even though his own orientation was online, he recognized that it helped launch him into life at St. Mike’s. In gratitude, he became involved in orientation, keen to help new students learn the importance of finding the balance between studying and socializing.

Because of Covid, “my experience on campus was limited. I would have loved more time and I would encourage incoming students to make the most of the social side of St. Mike’s, whether it’s spending time in the Coop, or attending cultural nights, or participating in any of the many events that are happening all the time,” he says.

As he plans his next steps—likely graduate research and then perhaps medical school– he has carved out a special place in his heart for St. Mike’s.

“I have a long family history at St. Mike’s. I remember coming to campus as a kid and asking myself ‘Is this what I want?’ and knowing that it was.”

When he takes a break from his busy schedule, Patrick relaxes by listening to music and engaging in a range of sports, and credits being active with helping him in his research.

“One of my goals is to figure out ways I can be better at everything I do,” he says.

Planning for a future in medicine, his conversation frequently returns to topics such as the importance of personalized treatment and the need to be mindful not only of patients but also of their families, an awareness heightened by his opportunity in 2022 to take part in UHN’s Cancer 360 Program, which helps students in related fields learn more about the various issues cancer patients must contend with. The next step in his long academic journey is U of T’s Medical Biophysics Program. Already, though, this St. Mike’s grad already speaks in a way that offers listeners reassurance that the medical world is in good hands.

More Convocation 2024:

St. Mike’s Student Dacian Dawes on Finding her Place

Grad Anita Rajkumar on Giving Back to her Community

For Anita Rajkumar, giving back to her a college was priority throughout her studies. On Thursday, June 13 she will receive her Honours Bachelor of Science with a specialization in health and disease from the University of Toronto. Through her many leadership roles at St. Michael’s, she has achieved more than academic success and her contributions will have a lasting impact on the St. Michael’s community.

Anita Rajkumar

“I’m excited just to graduate because I didn’t have a high school graduation due to COVID. I’m really going to miss all my friends and the community I’ve made here at St. Mike’s,” she says.

Having attended a Catholic high school, she wanted to have the same experience at the post-secondary level by attending an institution the prioritized both faith and academics. “I chose St. Mike’s because I thought the integration of spirituality and a service-oriented community with my academics would be beneficial,” she says.

When she arrived at St. Mike’s she was eager to involved in the array of co-curriculars on offer. But like many in her cohort, Anita’s introduction to undergrad was completely online due to the pandemic. By her second year, the campus was reopening, and she signed up to be a mentor because she enjoyed being a mentee in her first year. She received the Excellence in Peer Mentorship award in recognition of her commitment to this role.

Her willingness to give back drove her to become further involved in her third and fourth years. She became a Senior Mentor in the Peer Mentorship program, Student Campus Minister – Interfaith and Social Outreach Coordinator, and an executive of the Advocacy Student Advisory Group.

In preparation for these roles, she went on the leadership retreat in May 2023. “It was a fun way to get to know everyone prior to starting our roles and be able to plan what type of events we wanted. We were able to collaborate across all the different clubs at once,” she says. She noticed that the St. Michael’s staff members were very willing to hear from the student leaders. “They would think of ways to build on our ideas or integrate them with events already happening on campus. They wanted to make our ideas flourish and come to life,” she says.

This past year, Anita looked into how mental health resources could be added to the mentorship program. Information booths were set up to get these resources into the hands of first-year students to help them fully integrate into college life.

In her role as campus ministry’s Interfaith and Social Outreach Coordinator, she organized a student interfaith panel where St. Michael’s students of various religious traditions came together to discuss how they practise their faith in university. “It was a great event that allowed students to recognize that there were very diverse faiths present at St. Mike’s,” she says.

Her generosity extended outside of the St. Michael’s community. This year, she helped launch a student-led Snack Outreach Program that prepared and served meals to Toronto’s most vulnerable on a weekly basis.

In September she will begin a research-based master’s degree in medical science at U of T, which she hopes will lead to a career in research and health advocacy. While pursuing graduate studies she wants to keep in touch with her St. Michael’s community, particularly by continuing to volunteer for the Snack Outreach Program.

More Convocation 2024:

St. Mike’s Student Dacian Dawes on Finding her Place

Grad Patrick Policicchio on Research, Connection and Belonging

Para Babuharan is among those who will cross the stage to receive their diplomas on Thursday, June 13. For him, convocation is the final celebration of his undergraduate career. “It feels like it’s finally time to celebrate that I’ve completed all my coursework and reflect on all that I’ve achieved,” he says.

Para Babuharan

For Para, convocation isn’t goodbye to St. Mike’s. Having earned his Bachelor of Arts with a specialist in Mediaeval Studies and minors in philosophy and political science, he will be returning to the University of Toronto in the fall for graduate studies at the Centre for Medieval Studies.

“As a humanities student, I saw my undergraduate degree as a chance to explore liberal arts like philosophy, history, and social sciences. Based on my interests and wanting to know more about culture, I chose what I thought I wanted to learn and that led me down other avenues that I hadn’t thought of at first,” he says.

He initially chose St. Mike’s because of the natural fit with his program —Mediaeval Studies is one of the St. Michael’s sponsored programs offered at the University of Toronto —and because it was the Catholic college on campus.

When he was in the middle of completing his degree, he realized that his community drew from St. Mike’s. “In my first year I had taken courses all over campus, but later my community really came from this college,” he says.

In addition to campus liturgies and socials, it was the Gilson/Junior Fellows Book Club, associated with the Christianity & Culture program, where he felt he truly belonged and thrived. “The book club was a constant presence throughout undergrad. We read lots of books and had many interesting discussions that went on for hours, late into the night,” he says.

Through his involvement with the book club, he was asked to be an editor for Saeculum, a student journal for the Christianity & Culture program. In his final year, he was the faith editor for The Mike, St. Michael’s undergraduate newspaper. “St. Mike’s gave me my first entry into publishing my own work. It took a lot of me pushing myself to do it, but there were ideas I really did want to put on paper and have published. In the end, I wrote four articles and received a lot of good feedback, particularly for my reflection on Lent,” he says.

This past spring, he participated in St. Michael’s Research Colloquium. “I was interested in the conference theme of ‘Labour, Leisure, and the Good Life,’ and I wanted to contribute a paper that came out of my own interest rather than a course assignment,” he says. He found the experience rewarding on many levels. “It was an enjoyable experience to present my own writing and receive feedback from faculty, as well as to hear other presenters and engage with them,” he says.

Para outlines some of the benefits that came with the niche nature of his St. Mike’s courses. Not only were the professors knowledgeable and passionate about the courses they taught, but the small class sizes lent themselves to being taught in a seminar-style like at the graduate level. “The professors were interested in hearing from the students and there was an openness to go where the students wanted to go,” he says. These courses awakened new paths of research that he is looking forward to exploring at the graduate level.

More Convocation 2024:

St. Mike’s Student Dacian Dawes on Finding her Place

Grad Patrick Policicchio on Research, Connection and Belonging

Grad Anita Rajkumar on Giving Back to her Community

Vanessa Choi

When Vanessa Choi arrived at St. Mike’s from her home in Hong Kong, an orientation marshal took her on one of the most iconic of Canadian experiences: a trip to Canadian Tire. Four years later, that kindness remains fresh in her mind, even as she prepares to graduate in a few days.

Running this errand, which also included a stop at Walmart, not only helped her pick up some items she needed for her dorm room in Sorbara Hall and helped her familiarize herself with public transit, but it also convinced her she had landed at the right university.

Before deciding to apply to St. Mike’s, Vanessa had gone online to do research into universities and saw many that put forward their academic credentials and stellar reputations. But when she stumbled across St. Mike’s, what impressed her was that the University’s presence also included emphasis on community, something equally important in Vanessa’s books.

“I saw videos that showed community spaces and activities and I thought, ‘This is a cool little community. It seemed a warmer place,’” she says.

And while Vanessa was part of the Covid cohort, arriving in the summer of 2020, she is appreciative of the efforts made to overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic. Her don, Lara, for example, would check in students via her “Weekly Whatsup” virtual event, and even managed to introduce Vanessa, a keen guitar player, to another floormate looking for someone with whom to jam. The two began to play guitar together in one of the common rooms.

Vanessa’s experience in first year drove her desire to become an Orientation leader in second year and then, in a big step, to join the administration of St. Michael’s College Student Union (SMCSU) in third year to help create a climate where students can thrive both academically and socially.

“I was going to interview for a Don’s position but discussions came up about SMCSU and the position of Vice President Arts being open. SMCSU staff advisor Emma Oliver noted that the person who had held the position before me was into visual arts, but I was assured it could be about anything and, since I play guitar and am interested in music, I said yes,” Vanessa says.

One of the benefits of Vanessa holding the VP Arts position? “I have a few guitars here, so anyone can borrow one” for things like open mic night at St. Mike’s own Kelly’s Korner.

At the same time she joined SMCSU, Vanessa also joined Collegium as an undergraduate representative on the University’s highest governing body, representing the student voice in key discussions on everything from the current budget to long-range plans.

“I’d taken Eco 105 (Principles of Economics for Non-specialists) so I figured I could handle the financial reports,” she says with mock seriousness. “It was a steep learning curve!” – and one she says offered her tremendous exposure to governance, meeting procedures and other skills that will help her in her future.

During her undergraduate years Vanessa did translation work as a part-time job. Today, she works in a position that helps companies assess the possibilities and costs of converting to alternative energy options, whether introducing solar panels or moving to electric vehicles. She has worked with a variety of international clients and a current project has her based in Scotland, she adds, noting that her Collegium responsibilities carry on until the annual general meeting in the fall.

When asked about what advice she would offer to incoming students, she says that when opportunities and experiences present themselves, “let it take you where you’re going to go. Be open-minded and sign up for everything that interests you. Take it one step at a time. University is hard. Just chill!”

As she thinks about moving on, Vanessa, who majored in criminology and psychology with a minor in political science – and a Certificate in International Affairs on the side – says: “I will miss the staff at St. Mike’s, including the staff in the Canada Room who sang me Happy Birthday on my birthday.”

And about that trip to Canadian Tire? Vanessa returned the favour the very next year, taking a brand-new first-year on the very same route.

More Convocation 2024:

St. Mike’s Student Dacian Dawes on Finding her Place