Student Leadership from Sudan to the Cosmos

While working toward a science degree at Trinity College, Anh Nguyen spends many extracurricular hours on international concerns: she has tutored refugee youth from Afghanistan as co-president of the Learning to Integrate New Cultures Canada (U of T chapter), and founded a program to raise money for scholarships for two refugee high school students. As the director of the Student Refugee Program, she coordinated the sponsorship of a Sudanese refugee to come to the University of Toronto. Nguyen also finds time to publish Antigone Magazine (U of T chapter), a periodical about women and politics written by women attending Canadian universities.

For her leadership abilities, Nguyen will receive a Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award on April 8. The ceremony will be hosted by University of Toronto president David Naylor at the Colony Grand Ballroom at 89 Chestnut Residence. The awards, established by the U of T Alumni Association and the Division of University Advancement, recognize students who have made outstanding extracurricular contributions to the university.

Nguyen is one of 131 students who will receive a Gordon Cressy award. Others include Leonard Elias, who has served as an actor, lighting designer and director for University College Drama Program productions and helped coordinate workshops with acclaimed German director Peter Stein and Japanese actor and director Yoshi Oida. Elias has also acted in The Rocky Horror Show and Reefer Madness at Hart House, and co-directed and managed the Innis College Cabaret, which raised more than $4,000 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Award winner Adam Muzzin served as both president and treasurer of the U of T Graduate Astronomy Student Association, and helped make the cosmos seem less complicated through his talks at University of Toronto Day and International Astronomy Day events.