Scholarship & Awards History
The origin of the Concordia University Retired Faculty and Staff Scholarships and Awards Endowment Fund.
The Concordia University Retired Faculty and Staff Scholarships and Awards Endowment is the result of a formal Agreement, approved in principle by the Concordia University Pensioners’ Association (CUPA) membership at its general meeting held on October 2, 2001, and finalized by the University and CUPA in November 2001. The Agreement was to use the proceeds of the demutualization of the Sun Life Insurance Policy to provide, in perpetuity, in-course support for graduate and undergraduate students in any Faculty at Concordia University. From that Agreement, the Concordia University Retired Faculty and Staff Scholarships and Awards Endowment Fund was created, and the Endowment Fund is managed by the Concordia University Foundation (now called the Intergenerational Fund). The first awards were introduced in the fall of 2002. Over the years more than 250 students have benefited from these awards.
How are the funds paid out from the Endowment?
There are four graduate awards, four undergraduate scholarships and four undergraduate bursaries, ideally split evenly by Faculty. The annual payout from these invested funds is split equally between graduate awards and undergraduate awards. At the undergraduate level, the allocation is equally divided between scholarships and bursaries, and they are administered by the Financial Aid and Awards Office through their Undergraduate Student Awards Committee. Scholarships are awarded based on academic merit while bursaries are awarded based on financial need and academic merit. At the graduate level, award recipients are selected by the Faculties, based on academic excellence, and the awards are administered by the School of Graduate Studies. To qualify, students must be *Canadian citizens or permanent residents and must have completed one year of full-time studies at Concordia University. * In 2014 a request by the Faculty of Fine Arts to make an exception and award an international student a graduate scholarship was denied. There has been no exception to this stipulation. In the same vein, the 2001 Agreement required that graduate award recipients be selected on the basis of financial need. This was amended in 2011 to include both academic excellence and financial need.
What is the value of the scholarships, bursaries and awards?
While values were stipulated for each category in the original Agreement, it also provided that if the total payout amount required to meet the specified obligation was not possible, the value and/or number of awards in a given year could be altered without amending the Agreement. Over the years this has proven to be a wise provision as the values of the awards have fluctuated depending on the dollar amount of the payout in a given year. As to the historical value of the individual awards since inception, the graduate level range has been from $4,000 to $5,000 while at the undergraduate level the range has been from $2,000 to $2,500.
Has the CUPA Endowment fund been able to fulfill its funding objectives?
In 2014-15, with a view to growing the Concordia University Foundation (now called the Intergenerational Fund), the payout, from all Foundation Funds, was reduced from 5% to 3.5%. It had always been a CUPA goal to ensure that students from all four Faculties benefit from CUPA awards and that the awards are at the highest possible monetary amount. The objective is to offer $5,000.00 awards to graduate students and $2,500.00 at the undergraduate level, requiring an annual Endowment payout totalling $40,000.00. These award values are the recommended minimum amounts suggested by the Faculties and School of Graduate Studies. At that time, the Endowment payout was about $33,000.00. In order to bridge the shortfall, in 2021 CUPA created a separate fund named the CUPA Development Fund. Fortunately great successes in CUPA fundraising efforts via the University Shuffle and individual contributions allowed CUPA to grow the capital in the Endowment Fund so that the annual Endowment payout now meets the annual obligation. As a result, the Development Fund was closed in 2025 with all residual monies going into the Endowment Fund and any future monies raised going directly into growing the Endowment Fund to ensure no future shortfalls.
What is the status of the Endowment Fund and payouts in 2026?
Due to the generosity of our members and the success of the various fundraising efforts resulting in the growth of the CUPA Endowment, it is anticipated that this year’s annual payout will meet our obligations. Thus graduate awards will be valued at $5,000.00 each while undergraduate awards will be valued at $2,500.00 each.