UAlberta professor emeritus, alumnus, and donor Faqir Khanna, who supports future students with three scholarships.
If anybody understands the value of education, it is Faqir Khanna. His kindness, generosity, and willingness to support future students is evidence of his exemplary willingness to uplift the whole people. The Faculty of Science is proud to call Khanna an alumnus and a donor.
You get what you give
There is kindness in his voice as Faqir Khanna speaks. A lifelong learner, Khanna received his master's in theoretical physics back in 1956, during the Cold War. Finding physics interesting and fun to do, he then moved from his home in India to undertake his PhD in 1958 at Florida State University. At the time, Khanna was given a scholarship to study overseas, which allowed him the freedom to study without having to worry about taking on student debt or coming up with money for rent and food. It is for this reason that Khanna chooses to give back. Because in the karmatic sense, what goes around comes around.
Khanna supports three scholarships: The D. M. Sheppard Memorial Scholarship Fund, the Helen Biltek Leadership Scholarship, and the Dr. E Nyland International Grad School in Geophysics. "All throughout my academic life, I received scholarships that helped me pay my tuition fees," said Khanna. "I myself know how much help scholarships give students."
The Alberta advantage
Khanna did a postdoc at the University of Iowa, and at Rice University in Houston before working with Atomic Energy of Canada for 18 years, he then joined us with a full professor position at the University of Alberta, where he stayed for 29 years. In his time here, he experienced what he called the "tremendous advantage" of UAlberta. From funding, to scientific resources, to support staff helping him crunch numerical data, UAlberta treated its researchers then much like it does today, with honour and pride. It was while working here that Khanna developed some very productive collaborative projects with a number of students and scientists from Brazil, many of whom would come to work abroad for a year in his lab at UAlberta. A home away from home, Khanna's wife would often invite these students home for dinner where they could sit, chat, relax and feel safe. This deepened the collegial relationship between the Khanna's and the Brazilians, turning colleagues into both friends and family. Khanna relishes the long lasting "very close" friendships he has made over the years.
Khanna also began an international physics symposium that ran for 25 years in Lake Louise. Connecting students with researchers and industry workers from across the world. Khanna expressed how this symposium served as a wonderful networking opportunity in the field of physics, and he was overjoyed that the University of Alberta helped to fund it every single year.
Even after all he has done, Khanna is still interested first and foremost in higher education. At 83 years of age, he still puts in five to six hours a day keeping abreast with new techniques for studying physics and promoting higher learning. Khanna is the prime example of what one can achieve as a lifelong learner, and how good it can be to give back.