She’s a mother of four, grandmother of seven, and now the oldest person to receive a master’s degree from York University.
Varatha Shanmuganathan, 87, received her masters of arts from the Ontario university on Tuesday afternoon in a virtual convocation due to the pandemic.It’s actually Shanmuganathan’s second master’s degree, but although her achievement at this age may seem surprising to some, her family said it’s in line with the woman they know.
“We’re very proud of her,” Priya Merritt, her daughter, told CTV news. “But we’re actually not surprised. She’s always talked about how age is not a barrier in life, just like race and gender should not be.”“I was the only daughter and there were three brothers,” she said. “I was treated the same way. They knew I was someone who was studious and wanted to learn more.”
She went off university in India, returning to teach in Sri Lanka, where she met her husband, also a teacher. The couple soon left for jobs in Africa and England.And she’s seen the effects of war in her own country, and in Ethiopia when its civil war began in the 1970s.Shanmuganathan says those experiences, coupled with the teachings of Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela, led her to pursue her second master’s degree at York.
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