When arriving in the honours history program at McGill, I already had a healthy degree of curiosity, but there’s no question that the professors really opened my eyes to the forces involved in the making of history: geography, economics, ethnicity, cultures, diplomacy. All of these factors are really important in trying to figure out how the world works, how and why relationships between countries ebb and flow, how and why political movements rise and fall.
Following graduation and a couple of years work in Montreal, I attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania for graduate studies in finance and then found a job with a major investment banking firm in New York. McGill was a great calling card! I’ve been in the securities industry ever since.
After my parents passed, I thought it would be a good idea to memorialize them by creating an endowment at McGill. The Fred and Betty Price Faculty of Arts Research Award was created to provide graduate students with financial encouragement to explore the many resources in decorative and visual arts around the Montreal area.
Of my three children, two have graduated from McGill: my daughter Caroline was a university scholar who pursued a successful business career and eventually returned to Montreal and is contributing to society there. My younger son, John, managed the photo lab in Douglas Hall, became a cinematographer and won the Canadian Screen Award in 2017 for best cinematography in a feature length documentary. Two McGill success stories!
McGill is an amazing place. It’s very diverse! It’s forward looking and very interesting because it’s in an environment where there are numerous cultural forces at work. As a student, particularly coming from outside Quebec or Canada, you’ll receive an education you’re unlikely to receive at any other place I know simply because of the diversity of the student body and the general population. It’s a great story to tell any students about to go to college and I’ve been successful in persuading several to go to McGill.