Article by Kate Baggot originally appeared in Department of Economics news (photo of Alexis Lu, supplied)

When Fuyan Liang turns 82, Alexis Lu will take extra joy in the occasion. Liang’s family has two reasons to celebrate this spring. Six months ago, the octogenarian was fighting for her life. Lu, her eldest grandson, was struggling to keep up with the MA in Economics program in Toronto while staying by her side in China. While Liang’s medical team did their job, an informal team of Department of Economics members assembled to ensure Lu could both do his academic work and stay with his grandmother.

“During the winter break, I heard from my family that my grandma was having very serious emergency medical issues,” Lu explained. “She had several surgeries during that period. I couldn’t leave the country to get back to U of T for fear it was my last chance to be with my grandma.”

After spending two weeks at his grandmother’s bedside, she had a very successful surgery and Lu felt he could return to UofT. The unexpected journey home for winter break, however, was not over.

“I was trying to get back to Canada when I realized my student visa had expired!” Lu remembered. “It was bad enough that there had just been a family medical emergency, but then there were terrible issues with the visa and the only thing you can do is wait for IRCC to issue a new one.”

Lu didn’t get back to Toronto until February. Missing that first month of the second semester was intense. The course work for the Master’s in Economics program is compressed into just eight months of study.

While the clock was ticking on the program, the School of Graduate Studies (SGS) was able to intervene and provide Lu with the letter IRCC required to prove he was a current student who needed to return to Canada to complete his studies.

While SGS helped with the bureaucracy, members of the Department of Economics got to work to support Lu.

“I got nothing but support from my TAs and my professors,” Lu said, “especially Professor [Courtney] Ward, because she helped me both academically and emotionally. It feels strange to say that, because I hadn’t really met Professor Ward before our first interaction online!”

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