Speech by SUSS Provost, Professor Robbie Goh at the SUSS Scholarship Award Ceremony 2025

Date: 28 Aug 2025

Welcome students, guests and SUSS colleagues to our annual Scholarship Award Ceremony

 
1. We are gathered here to celebrate the achievements of our students – the recognition of their hard work, commitment, sacrifice and passion. 

2. Scholarships in most universities are a recognition only of academic excellence – but at SUSS we do not think that book smarts, while important, are the only way to go. Book smarts will take you so far, but to have a well-rounded successful life, and to impact lives (which is our SUSS mission), you need more than that. You also need resilience, passion, the ability to work with people, and many practical skills. 
 

3. Along the way, you also need to have empathy and compassion for others, particularly others who may have suffered disadvantages in life and need the help.

4. At SUSS, scholarship and awards recognise student excellence in this wider and more wholistic way – students who have excelled in studies, but also shown character through service, leadership, passion for causes, and other ways. They also support students who have tremendous potential but may need some help to realise it.  These are also our potential leaders of society.  

5. Let me just recount a few inspiring stories of our awardees:

6. The strory of Raksha d/o Balakrishnan, recipient of the Irene Tan Liang Kheng Scholarship, demonstrates admirable courage and determination. When her father lost his job, Raksha had to shoulder household responsibilities while keeping up with her studies. At the same time, she stepped up to support and protect her mother and sister through a challenging home environment. That she has persevered and triumphed in her studies despite these challenges, speaks of her determination and commitment.  

7. Today we are also recognising eight recipients of the SUSS Spirit Award.

8. One of them is Faith Chua, who is the Director of the Central Cluster for East Youths Organisation. She has been tirelessly serving, organising workshops and food distribution to the community, and forming deep connections with the client families. For example, she went above and beyond the call of duty to check up on and assist an elderly client with mobility challenges by organising home delivery of groceries. She also stayed behind after a house repainting project to help reorganise the family’s belongings, ensuring they returned to a clean and liveable space.

9. We also recognise this year’s recipients of the SUSS Provost 3H Fund – Community Impact Award, which recognises student-led initiatives that foster positive and sustainable community outcomes, in collaboration with community stakeholders. For example, Valery Tan and Elmer Yap co-founded Surety – Midlife Management in the conviction that no woman should face the dramatic life changes of menopause alone or in shame. Valery and Elmer forged partnerships with various Social Service Agencies, corporate organisations and medical experts, to create greater awareness and support for the challenges of menopause.  

10. These and other awardees and members of the SUSS community are inspirations to all of us for their selflessness and empathy.

11. To support our students in these meaningful endeavours of their studies and service to society, the SUSS system of scholarship, awards and bursaries is obviously very important, so let me say a few words about this.  

12. In AY2024, a total of 4,253 students received support through our scholarships, sponsorships and financial aid schemes. I think that is quite a significant achievement for a relatively new university. But we are constantly doing more to help our students.  

13. We have just created the SUSS Education Access initiative. With a generous $7.5 million gift from Dr Lillyn Teh, we expanded tuition coverage to include students with a per capita income of $1,100 or below, as long as they maintain a CGPA of 2.0. 

14. What is interesting is that Dr Teh’s generosity also allowed us to create the Pay it Forward Award, where we encourage SUSS students who have benefited from such support to themselves contribute to the award after they graduate and when they are financially stable. SUSS faculty and staff have also been contributing into this new Pay it Forward fund. I think this is a remarkable initiative which allows the SUSS community – faculty, administrators, benefactors, students themselves – to live out our convictions of helping others fulfil their potential. I hope that many of us here will be able to contribute, either to this Pay it Forward initiative, or else in other ways, to SUSS and to society.

15. I’m also pleased to share that, with the support of our partners, we will be introducing new scholarships for both full-time undergraduates and graduate students.

16. To our full-time students, we will be extending five new scholarships, namely:

  • EnGro Scholarship
  • EPS Computer Systems Scholarship
  • Hong Leong Foundation Scholarship, which was previously open to only part-time undergraduates, will now be extended to full-time undergraduates.
  • Ronald Wong Excellence Scholarship
  • SCCCF-SUSS Scholarship

17. And for our graduate students, we will be extending six new scholarships, namely:

  • Liem Yok Bien PhD Scholarship
  • Nurturing Future, Transforming Talent (NFTT) Scholarship
  • Tekad Maju Scholarship
  • SBIZ Inclusive Fintech Scholarship for the Graduate Diploma of Financial Technology programme
  • SBIZ Inclusive Fintech Scholarship for the Master of Financial Technology programme
  • World Scholars Fellowship

18. In conclusion, I want to sum up a few key points:

1. SUSS awards recognise wholistic achievement – not just academic excellence, but also leadership, character, commitment to society and others.

2. This wholistic approach, and our focus on others and on social good, reflects SUSS’s unique whole-of-university commitment to social good.  This is also evident in our university RAISE values of Respect, Adaptability, Integrity, Service and Empathy.  

3. We are constantly seeking to expand and enhance our support for our students, and this year we have been blessed with significant new support in the Dr Lillyn Teh gift, the Pay it Forward fund, and our 11 new scholarships.

19. SUSS will continue to work hard to find ways to support and enable our students.  But I also hope that our students – especially our award winners today – will also continue to think of SUSS, and if possible pay back to the SUSS community to encourage future generations of students.  And of course, do continue to persevere, to achieve your goals, and to impact the lives of others around you. In so doing, you are living out the SUSS DNA.

20. My congratulations again to today’s very worthy winners.  Thank you.