William (Bill) Dowkes (ChemE 6T2) has spent countless hours reviewing student applications for financial assistance. He knows better than most how a cash infusion at the right time can make the difference between graduating and dropping out.
That’s why Dowkes, who graduated from the University of Toronto in 1962 with his BASc in Chemical Engineering, established a series of engineering scholarships and bursaries, creating boundless opportunities for students in financial need.
“I’ve seen desperate students,” he says. “I’ve got some money. Why not use it to stop a student from dropping out?”
Dowkes has worked at various times as assistant secretary of the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, chair of admissions, awards and student counselling at Innis College, chair of the Hart House camera club and as a chemical engineering demonstrator and senior lecturer.
Retired since 1995, he says early investments in a number of successful Canadian companies allowed him to donate valuable shares to the Faculty.
The first scholarship he established – the G.W. Ross Dowkes Memorial Prize in Chemical Engineering – was to honour his late father. The elder Dowkes was a pharmacist who completed his schooling at the University of Toronto after missing several weeks when his appendix ruptured.
“That was in the 1920s when appendix rupturing could be fatal, and he still graduated missing half a term,” says Dowkes.
Meanwhile, the younger Dowkes’ educational path in chemical engineering began in the photo darkroom he set up in his Owen Sound, Ont., home as a teenager. Dowkes, who mixed his own chemicals, was inspired to learn more about the reactions he was creating.
While he recalls being an average student, Dowkes still managed to earn his degree at a time when just 30 of his 80 first-year classmates graduated.
Today, he says it gives him a “warm feeling” to know his donation is helping others get their degree at his alma mater.
“I still feel part of the family at U of T,” he says.