Money for minds
HMDC creates Shad Valley fund at MUN
It’s a tidy sum that will hopefully help foster some leading-edge minds. The Hibernia Management and Development Co. Ltd. (HMDC) has invested $2.85 million to create the Hibernia Project-Shad Valley Fund at Memorial University. The idea of the fund is to encourage students from across the country to pursue their post-secondary education at Memorial and also sway those leaving high school to do that post-secondary education in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
The funds will encourage this by offering financial support for students across Canada to travel to this province as part of Shad Valley, a four-week enrichment program students face extreme competition to be a part of.
Local students looking to attend Shad Valley in other Canadian provinces and those looking to come to MUN from elsewhere will all benefit from the HMDC money. $450,000 per year will be invested for five years to support those students heading elsewhere and eight new positions at MUN’s Shad Valley will also be created. There will also be an investment of $120,000 per year for five years to support a new Shad Valley program co-ordinator at Memorial.
“The program at Memorial is considered one of the best in Canada and HMDC has given us the ability to make it even better,” Dr. Leonard Lye, Memorial’s Shad Valley program director said in a news release.
“We will be able to accept more students into our program here at Memorial and it also will allow more local students to travel to other parts of the country to participate in the program at other schools.”
Dr. Doreen Neville is the associate vice-president (academic) planning, priorities and programs at MUN.
“Collaboration with industry and education partners such as HMDC and Shad Valley enrich Memorial’s learning environment and help us provide an engaging experience for young students who come to Memorial each summer to learn from our award-winning faculty,” she said in a news release.
“Experiences during the Shad Valley program, in turn, help to attract students from across the country to our province to pursue their undergraduate and/or graduate studies.”
The Shad Valley program has operated at Memorial since 2003. It isn’t the only program HMDC has contributed toward. In 2014 HMDC contributed $1.98 million to Memorial creating the Hibernia Project Geophysics Support Fund to enhance geophysics education and research.