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>> SALLY MAGNUSSON: I'm Sally Magnusson. My father was Magnus Magnusson and he was the
Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University for many years until his death in 2007.
He was a tremendously committed Chancellor because he believed very strongly in what
this university is trying to do. Its mission to serve the community, to serve
the common weal and also to bring the full potential out of every single one of its students.
When my father was very close to death, he got a call one day from the principal of the
University, Pamela Gillies, and she was able to talk to him and tell him that she wanted
to set up some sort of scholarship that would reflect his keen interest in the students
and in the fulfilment of dreams, which he always loved the idea of.
Unfortunately, he didn't have time to go into it anymore than that but soon after he died,
the principal was as good as her word and she set up the Magnusson Fund.
The Magnusson Awards are available to any student from second year onwards and any research
staff in the early years of their research work at GCU.
They are awards of up to £5000 and they are for the fulfilment of their dreams.
This is personal, this is guts stuff. This is the thing that you really feel passionately,
that you want to do, either to make a difference to the world or to enhance your career in
such a way that you can, then with that career, go and make a difference.
There's been a fantastic range of projects. Every year, you know, the judging panel sits
down and we think "what's going to hit us today?" and one student after another comes
in and you think these are so madly different and an incredible range.
But what links them all and what we look for as judges is commitment to the idea.
It's not enough just to kind of like the idea of travel abroad.
We are quite probing because we want to make sure this has been thought through and it's
a matter of passionate, not just passionate heart commitment, but steady intellectual
commitment as well. This is not a glib thing: this is about going
into the world and, you know, learning to be a better human being in all sorts of ways.