For Martha Crago, BA’68, MSc’70, PhD’88, Vice-Principal of Research and Innovation, her bequest to McGill is the chance to create an opportunity for a student who might not otherwise be able to attend university.
She is naming the undergraduate scholarship for Indigenous students after Vilasi Annahatak, the woman who gave her a home in Northern Quebec while she did research for her PhD.
She spoke to us about her experience at McGill in the 1960s and her inspiration for giving back.
What was it like to be an undergrad at McGill in the 1960s?
We thought we had the power to make change, as 20-year-olds. Because a series of changes came in by 20-year-olds getting involved, from ending the war in Vietnam to integrating things in the US. I’m an American originally, so a lot of my sense of the sixties was born out of what was going on in the United States.
You felt you were an era that made change. We got students on the Board of the University. We were activists, we were out there. We weren’t going to let things go.
There was an article in the Daily that was pulled because it was against the war in Vietnam and it was a little ribald. In the voice of academic freedom, a bunch of us slept in the James Building for three days.
I think it stays with you. Believing that I can make things change is a fundamental part of who I am.
Why is legacy giving the way you’re choosing to support McGill?
I wanted to involve my children in learning about giving. I thought it was an important activity for them to understand that a piece of money that normally would have gone to them would go to something else.
Why create a scholarship?
I came from an academic family and my way to university was paid for by my parents, and I tried to do the same thing with my children, so I felt that we should, as a family, help someone else go to university.
Why name the scholarship after someone else – not yourself or your family?
I learned by example from our present Chair of the Board of Governors, Ram Panda. When he created a graduate fellowship, he didn’t name it after himself, he named after his supervisor. That was such a profound lesson for me: he didn’t want it to reflect on himself, he wanted to disappear into the background. He was saying, this is the person who made me who I am.
So I knew I didn’t want to name this scholarship after myself. I thought I would name it after a woman, and I decided it would be after the person who took care of me in the north during my PhD research. The woman who, if you will, nurtured and mothered me in Arctic Quebec and she did the same for my children as well.
What inspired you to give to McGill specifically?
In past years, there were posters of professors who had given money, either by bequest or direct funding. I would see posters of all these people who I knew and see that they were giving money. I would think to myself, ‘Well, they’re doing it. I guess I should do this someday.’
What will your legacy be? Learn more about legacy giving.