Cambrian College dedicates new scholarship for single parents to former instructor

Paula Wharton says that when she learned Cambrian College had created a scholarship in her honour, she was shocked. Then she was elated.

Wharton taught at the Sudbury, Ont., college for nearly 20 years, but it was the story that brought her to that point that inspired the Paula Wharton Single Parent Bursary.

As a new immigrant to Canada in the 1960s, Wharton was living in Windsor, Ont., and had just separated from her husband.

"He was behaving so badly that I thought I will tell him to leave," she said.

"I didn't think he would, but he left, and so I was left with three children."

Wharton said she didn't have a cent to her name at that time, and her youngest daughter had to ask the neighbour for a loaf of bread.

She said she called an immigration officer and asked to be deported back to her home country of Guyana.

"And he said, 'Lady, we don't run a travel agency. We don't just deport people when they want to go back to Guyana.'"

Instead of deporting her, Wharton said, the immigration officer suggested she go to school and get an education.

"And I had never before thought about it because in the '60s when you were married, your husband went to school and the wife worked."

Wharton said she walked to the University of Windsor that day and stayed for the next seven years.

She said a graduate student who worked in admissions knew her husband and helped convince him to pay for her first two courses.

After that, Wharton relied on scholarships to pay for her schooling.

"Various professors noticed me and they also said I was very bright," she said.

"So they often told me about a bursary or scholarship that I could apply for. And that's how I made it through."

Wharton said it's an honour for her to help students who are in a similar situation to hers to pay for their education.

She is helping to collect donations for the scholarship, and for this month, Cambrian has said it will match those donations.