Giving back by empowering others

As a child, Pamela (née Young) Rice, BA 74, had a Girl Guide leader who had been a mechanic and truck driver for the Red Cross during the Second World War. Hearing these stories — along with the sense of confidence Rice gained from participating in Girl Guide activities — opened her mind to pursuing what many people at the time would have considered a nontraditional career path for a young woman.

In fact, as a geography student in the early 1970s, Rice, who went on to serve in the Girl Guides of Canada for a span of 40 years, was the only woman in her honours program.

“There wasn’t a single female professor in my department back then, either,” she recalls.

Rice built her career in the railway industry, which was also male-dominated, for much of it. “There’s still some ground left to make up, particularly in management, but we’ve come far,” she says.

From her leadership roles with the Girl Guides to grandparenting multiracial children, Rice’s appreciation of the role that diversity and inclusion play in fostering equality of opportunity has grown into a major source of inspiration for her philanthropy.

That’s one of the reasons why she’s made a significant donation to Concordia’s Otsenhákta Student Centre, which supports and connects Indigenous students. It also motivated her to establish the Rice-Ramsey Bursary, to encourage Concordia students to participate in programs that benefit Black communities.

“I’m not equipped to advocate in the public sphere on behalf of communities that I’m not a member of,” says Rice. “But I can use the financial resources that I’m fortunate to have to empower other people to do so.”

Giving back has always been important to Rice. “It’s a value you learn in Girl Guides,” she explains.

Even so, Rice is quick to acknowledge that Girl Guides of Canada has deep colonial roots and has mainly focused on empowering white, middle-class girls. She’s been taking part in ongoing efforts to reckon with the organization’s past and set it on a more inclusive path.

Rice is also passionate about the role of libraries in community life and education. She chairs the board of the Friends of the Beaconsfield Library, a non-profit that supports a facility serving the City of Beaconsfield on the Island of Montreal. And she’s a long-time donor to the Concordia Library, which was comparatively small back in her student days.

“I’ve watched Concordia grow and change, and it’s extraordinary to see what it has accomplished,” Rice says. “We should be very proud: It’s having an extremely valuable impact on the community in Quebec and beyond.”