Skip to main content

Search the:

Apply Donate Crisis Centre

Rene Massie Scholarship

Name	Rene Massie Scholarship
Type	Undergraduate
Faculty	Health Sciences
Program	Nursing
Year	Second year Third year Fourth year
Amount	$1,000
Program load	Full-time
General information	One award is available. To be eligible, students must: Be enrolled in the Nursing program. Have a minimum GPA of 3.7.
About the Donor	Honouring a Mother’s Memory with Scholarships Watching the popular television series, Call the Midwife, took the late Rene Massie back to her nursing training days at a hospital in northern England, cycling through town to help deliver a baby. Rene, who died in January 2020 at 82 years of age, spent her nursing career bringing new lives into the world. She began her working life as a nurse in Macclesfield, England, but spent most of her career at Oshawa General Hospital (now Lakeridge Health Oshawa). She came to Canada with a group of other young nurses in the 1960s, intending to travel across the country and move on to visit Australia. Along the way, however, she fell in love with Alexander Massie, a transplanted Scot, and settled in Ontario. Oshawa became Rene’s home and Oshawa General Hospital her second home. She worked as an obstetrics nurse until her retirement, serving as Director of the Birthing Suite for the final years of her career. Rene was known for being caring and feisty, not afraid to stand up to physicians and administrators for what she believed was necessary and right. The Rene Massie Scholarship was created by her daughter, Alison Broadworth, Director, Engagement Services at Ontario Tech University. Alison says the scholarship is in loving memory of Rene’s strengths as a mother and grandmother and in recognition of her significant contributions to the medical community as a professional nurse. Alison’s generous gift was matched by the Board of Governors’ Matching Fund to establish an endowment from which two awards of $1,000 will be disbursed annually to nursing students beginning in the 2021-22 academic year. In 2020, Alison made a separate donation on Pi Day, an Ontario Tech celebration, to fund the scholarships for the 2020-2021 academic year. “My mum would have loved to attend university, but she grew up at a time when it was more important to get a job and start contributing to the family,” Alison said. “She always emphasized how important education was in opening doors. It was always a given in our family that my brother and I would earn university degrees.” At the hospital, one of her favourite tasks was working with nursing students who were on her floor to get some practical experience. Therefore, it made perfect sense to Alison to honour her mother by opening doors for others entering Rene’s beloved profession. “Here at Ontario Tech, we have many first-generation university students whose parents have given up a lot so they can go to university,” Alison said. “To know my mum’s name is tied to nursing and helping others to become nurses is wonderful, and if their coursework takes them to Lakeridge Health Oshawa, that’s extra special.”