Back in 1997, a teenage Alex Mazer watched a video changed his life.

“I remember borrowing a VHS tape from the guidance counselor’s office because I was looking into scholarships,” he recalls.

The video offered an overview of the Loran Scholarship. Mazer was thinking of going to university in the U.S., but changed his plans after learning about the scholarship.

“It was really the Loran program that was key in helping me stay in Canada,” says Mazer, now the CEO of Common Wealth, a Toronto-based financial technology company.

“That was one of the original purposes of the program, so when I found out I was selected, it was a no-brainer to stay and attend McMaster.”

After graduating from McMaster’s Arts & Science Program, Mazer went on to the University of Toronto, then Harvard Law School. In 2019, he received the McMaster Alumni Association’s 2019 Community Impact Award.

A history of success  

This year, McMaster celebrates more than 35 years as a partner in the Loran Scholarship program — one of the most high-profile and influential undergraduate scholarships in Canada.

Founded in 1989, the Loran Scholarship is a partnership between York University, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, McGill University and McMaster. Its goal is to support exceptional young Canadians who display strength of character, the potential for leadership and the drive to serve and uplift their communities.

“For decades, the Loran Scholarship program has inspired and empowered its recipients to make transformational societal change through leadership and service,” says McMaster President David Farrar.

“McMaster shares the core values of this remarkable program and is proud to support these extraordinary scholars through our world-class teaching, research, and commitment to local, national and global engagement.”

At the heart of the foundation is a commitment to values-based leadership in scholars and partners, says Meaghan Moore, CEO of the Loran Scholars Foundation and a Loran alumna herself.

“As one of our five founding university partners, McMaster University has shared our belief in investing in young people with integrity, courage and a drive to serve,” says Moore.

“Over 36 years, McMaster has helped shape the lives of 48 Loran Scholars, providing them with an environment where they can learn, lead and contribute to a better future.”

In addition to providing a significant financial award to Canadian university undergraduates, the Loran Scholars program brings recipients into a connected and collaborative post-secondary community that offers mentorship and experiential opportunities beyond the classroom.

Loran Scholars are part of a national cohort of students engaged in a comprehensive leadership-enrichment program that helped them build networks of both mentors and fellow students.

It’s hard to overstate the effect of those networks, says Mazer, who formed an enduring connection with his mentor, McMaster president emeritus Alvin Lee.

“He would have me over to his house and we would have dinner, and he would talk to me about life and academics and McMaster and travel and lots of things. I learned a lot from him and from lots of other people on the way.”

A diverse community of leaders 

McMaster grad and Loran alumna Kimia Sorouri remembers the application process, which introduced her to a community that has had a lasting impact on her life.

“I met one of my best friends at national interviews,” says Sorouri, a clinician-researcher and senior resident physician in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Alberta. “We were both finalists and years later, we’re still friends, and it all started with Loran.”

After completing her Bachelor of Health Sciences degree at McMaster as a Loran Scholar, Sorouri earned an MD at the University of Toronto and a Master of Public Health from Harvard University.

“I think what’s so fascinating and important about Loran is that it provides you with a network outside of your field of study and discipline of work,” she says.

“Oftentimes, we find our networks in those spaces, and so they tend to be quite homogenous or insular, but Loran offers this very broad and diverse network of people doing very different things from you. That has had such a significant influence on many of my most pivotal career decisions.”

McMaster and Loran alumna Debjani Poddar Hannigan agrees: She has vivid memories of her time with the foundation’s representatives and her fellow finalists.

“It was filled with all these really energized and exciting people, both in terms of the students who were there and the interviewers themselves,” she says.

“It was a great time. I got to know people well and it just felt like a really exciting environment to be a part of regardless of what happened thereafter.”

After graduating from Arts & Science at McMaster, Poddar Hannigan studied law at the University of Ottawa and worked for nearly a dozen years with the Justice Canada in Alberta before returning to Ottawa as legal counsel for Employment and Social Development Canada, where she focuses on labour and employment issues.

It was clear right from the application process that the impact of the scholarship extends far beyond the financial award, Poddar Hannigan says.

“I remember thinking: This all sounds like it’s really in alignment with the values that I have. It sounds like they really support the scholars along their journey. It’s not just a one-time kind of award. It really is about this experiential journey that you have throughout university.”

Through Loran, Poddar Hannigan participated in an internship with the Canadian Centre for International Justice, a nonprofit organization looking into war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“It turned out to be an extremely transformative summer for me,” she says. “It gave me the perspective to see that you can do a huge number of things in law, and that stuck with me as I pursued my university education, coming back to that sense of being really excited about the work that I was doing, having potentially an international scope for that work and being really engaged in the community.”

‘Find a need, fill a need’ 

The scholars also learned from the leaders they met at the foundation itself. Sorouri says a conversation with then-CEO Franca Gucciardi sparked her lifelong interest in research and advocacy on issues that include improving access to fertility preservation and understanding the ovarian toxicity of anti-cancer drugs and novel therapeutics.

“That conversation has really stayed with me over the years,” Sorouri recalls. “When I began my surgical residency many years after that conversation, there was always this thought in my mind: How can I generate meaningful impact at a macro level?”

“One of the themes in my work and my time with Loran that I have carried with me is this idea of ‘find a need, fill a need.’ ”

The scholarship offers a unique way to learn about the world and figure out how each of us can contribute to society, says Poddar Hannigan.

“If you have an interest in leadership and character and service, then Loran tends to be a great fit for people who are very motivated, who find themselves often in leadership positions and who see things from different perspectives.

The Loran Award emboldened her to take on meaningful risks well beyond university, she says.

“It continues to be a part of my career and my personal life now.”

Mazer says his time as a Loran Scholar inspired and challenged him to do more.

“It’s also helped me expect more of myself, to believe I could accomplish things that I didn’t think I could do and to hold myself to doing the right thing, as opposed to always the easy thing or the comfortable thing,” says Mazer, who is now a member of the foundation’s board of directors.

“It’s amazing that a foundation started 36 years ago has grown so much. It continues to get stronger,” he says.

“That’s not easy to do and that’s actually a huge accomplishment by the founders of the organization and the people who have stewarded it.”