The University of Toronto Chemistry Student Union has been awarded first place for the 2021 Student Chapter Merit Award from the Canadian Society for Chemistry. It is the first time the CSU at St. George has received this award.
"It has been an absolute honour to work with and lead this and last year’s CSU teams," says CSU President Anji Zhang. "Each executive member’s commitment towards building meaningful opportunities, events, and connections within the chemistry community is reflected in this award."
"At the start of the pandemic, I knew our biggest challenge would be making sure students still felt part of the tight-knit community that had welcomed us into the chemistry department in our first year."
"But from hosting our first-ever Graduate School Information Panel, where we featured U of T alumni currently undergoing graduate studies at institutions like Stanford, Caltech, Scripps, Oxford, and Cambridge, to inviting internationally located guest lecturers to speak, we decided every glass was half full the instant we knew our events would have to be online."
"The resilience and determination showcased by the CSU and the chemistry student body at large is a testament to the strength of the community our department engenders, and the success of the CSU, as acknowledged by this award, can be attributed only to the combined efforts of the incredible executive team and their willingness to uproot the status quo."
"We are lucky to be in a department with an incredibly supportive faculty and administration, and with another year filled with more exciting programs ahead of us, we hope this award will be the first of more to come."
