“Some of things they’re working on in undergraduate labs today would have been science fiction when I was a student,” says Palin, who holds honours degrees from McMaster in geography and environmental science. He drives the 51 bus in Hamilton and encounters hundreds of McMaster students every week. “My gift of life insurance will support many more generations of learners in their education at Mac.”įrank Palin has a lot of fun at his job. “As a McMaster faculty member, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to educate many generations of students,” she says. This planned gift will honour all that McMaster has allowed her and her family to accomplish. “I told them the most important gift that my husband and I have been able to give them is education.” Her husband, along with their two sons and their spouses, joined with her to donate to the fund. “When I assigned my life insurance benefit to McMaster, I explained my decision to both my sons,” says Majumdar. She continues to travel in her retirement - to research, lecture, consult and organize international conferences in developing countries, where McMaster students can present their papers and gain international experience. This planned gift will support student travel bursaries, so that those without the financial means will be able to travel for their research projects.Ī fitting legacy, given that Majumdar has travelled to 69 countries. Majumdar is now extending her remarkable legacy through a gift of life insurance, of which McMaster is the owner and beneficiary. The scholarship helps nursing students complete a term studying and practising abroad. A long-time donor to Mac, she established the Charu Late Bhaduri Scholarship in Nursing in honour of her late mother. Like Peter in Delhi so many years before, Majumdar has made sure to give a financial boost to younger generations. “She was a feminist before the term was coined.” She also credits her mother, who didn’t have the opportunity to be formally educated but who expected her daughters to be. Regardless of your wealth, your knowledge can never be taken from you,” says Majumdar, now professor emerita in McMaster’s School of Nursing and Faculty of Social Sciences. “My grandfather and father always instilled in me the importance of education. In 1991 she was honoured as a YWCA Woman of Distinction and in 2009 she was inducted into the Hamilton Gallery of Distinction. She established courses in international health, helped to provide McMaster nursing students with clinical placements in northern Canada and around the world, and contributed to the development of global partnerships. She forged a career as an international scholar, global health researcher, educator and community advocate. In 1971 she came to McMaster, where she earned her master’s in teaching in 1987. Her academic credentials include RN, MSc, MEd, MSc(T), and a PhD in medical anthropology. Majumdar also made good on a promise to her family that education would always be a seminal part of her life. She arrived in the United States with $12 in her pocket and soon made good on her promise to repay Peter. But then a man - Peter - emerged from the back and said he would be my guarantor for the cost of the ticket.” From place to place, she was met with rejection. “I went to every head office of the airlines in Delhi to see if they would allow me to pay my plane ticket in instalments,” Majumdar recalls. But she wouldn’t receive the funds until she arrived in New York - and to get there she needed a plane ticket from Delhi. The year was 1968 and Basanti Majumdar learned she had been accepted to Columbia University on a scholarship.
It all began with a plane ticket and the kindness of a stranger.
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