Hilary and Mark

Two nice photos to keep. Mark with a few of his friends from both high school time and university time (photo taken before they have a night out in St Catharines before Christmas 2018). And Hilary with her friend Shaid from New Zealand out in BC (I think the photo was actually taken somewhere in California where they just went for a week vacation). Happy young professionals enjoying life.

Mary and volleyball team

Just a nice photo to keep. Today (Dec 1, 2018) Mary & friends participate in a full-day volleyball tournament. I stick to my swimming and regular gym work-outs....

Peterborough campus

Today we hosted a group of colleagues from Polytechnic Institutions in Indonesia at our aviation campus in Peterborough. It is always a real nice campus to show; a mini airline in operation with a variety of training aircraft, simulators and a full dispatch operation.

Having the visitors experience the simulators is always a hit.....

Ottawa

Being in Ottawa for the annual CBIE conference, I always love walking around in the city. My favorite is the bridge between Ottawa and Hull. During the period 1991 - 2005 I ran many times over the bridge and then along the river on both sides during my stays in Ottawa during periods I was doing training for the five marathons I ran. No more running now, but still love the sight from the bridge towards Parliament Hill. On the other side is the Museum of History where the conference opening reception was held last night.

Wakefield in Quebec

While in Ottawa this weekend for a conference starting tomorrow, I made a short visit to Wakefield in the Gatineau region. Just a short half hour drive and you are in the middle of a beautiful nature area. The small town is known for several historic sites such as this covered bridge. The views over the river and lake were again beautiful, even in this early winter weather in the middle of November..

Kenya project documentary

Our colleagues at Durham College in Oshawa had a nice "red carpet" event taking place tonight with the "screening" (premiere) of a documentary made by a group of their broadcasting program. They went under the guiding eye of one of their teachers to Kenya and filmed during three weeks. The result was a short documentary of 30 minutes describing the work of 9 Canadian institutions working on a 5 year program financed by Global Affairs Canada and managed by "Colleges & Institutes Canada" (CICan). Seneca has one of the projects in this program (see some of my posts in August).

A brief reception was offered and then some speeches before the screening started....

After the viewing of the documentary the students and their professor were interviewed. A nice evening and well organized by the team at Durham. I am now on my way to Ottawa for meetings and a conference of the Canadian Bureau of International Education (CBIE).

New offices complete

The new offices of Seneca International are almost complete. A few photos on how the space looks now. The entrance has a nice welcoming design for our mostly external visitors: this area is visited by prospective students (both in person and "virtual" through e-mail and phone) who have questions on how to apply for programs at Seneca. Our team of student ambassadors speaking 9-10 languages is there to assist them.

We have introduced an open office concept including three small "break-out/meeting" rooms.

The work stations all have desks that can be moved up and down so that staff can vary from sitting to standing work. Better for body and mind according to health & wellness studies.

In the back we have what we call a "hoteling" station area for frequent travelers and visitors. This area has some locker space and cabinets for the winter coats & boots.

Happy and proud to have made this transformation possible. This will be a good place for the team to work in for many years to come.

Halloween 2018

The team of Seneca International had fun today dressing up as a Canada Olympic team. we rewarded ourselves with a wonderful potluck lunch; look at that nice food from different parts of the world...

Fall convocation

Sandra - with whom I worked in 2013 during my year of work in Colombia (see my blog posts from that year) - came to Seneca in January 2017 to improve her English. Afterwards she enrolled in one of our post-graduate programs (International Business) and she graduated in August - with honors (meaning all "As"). She now studies a 2nd post-graduate program (Global Logistics - Supply Chain). Today she had her graduation ceremony of the International Business program (called here in Canada the "Convocation"). It was nice to see a proud Sandra who in Colombia obtained a law degree.

It was nice to see the hundreds of graduates walk over the podium, including Sandra. Many of the graduates - like Sandra - came from elsewhere in the world. A long journey for all of them.

We also got a photo with the current Seneca college President who gave a very nice convocation speech to the graduates and to many of their parents as well as friends. The valedictorian today was a student from India who at home already had obtained a bachelor degree in computer sciences as well as and MBA. Today he celebrated graduating from an Events Management post-graduate program.

Rotary and Polio

Today this year's President of the Rotary International Foundation spoke at a conference of Rotary Clubs in the Niagara region. He is from the Bahamas where he managed for many years one of the larger local hospitals and he has been an active Rotary member during most of his career. During the past two decades he dedicated a lot of time to organize assistance projects in Haiti with a focus on the availability of water & sanitation. Today he spoke about how close we are as humanity to rid the world of the polio disease. No cases for the past two years in northern Nigeria anymore. Four cases in north-west Pakistan and sixteen cases in the east of Afghanistan. This remains the only region in the world where vaccination still faces challenges. Last year's RI President met with Taliban leaders to ask for one day dedicated to no fighting so that UNICEF & Rotary teams could vaccinate, and they agreed. We are so very close to eliminating a disease which crippled and killed so many people around the world 60-70 years ago. The Rotarians around the world are the largest donors towards the vaccination campaign together with the Bill Gates Foundation.

Working on new generations of young professionals to embrace the work Rotary Clubs around the world work on. And many of the new members come from more and more diverse communities which is fantastic to see. Thank you Barry for coming to Niagara and giving the folks here some nice compliments and extra motivation. The Rotarians are a dedicated group of people who have an interest to make their community better and who support such activities also around the world....

Training groups from China

During October and November we are hosting five different training groups from China at Seneca. This week a group who train students in China for professions in the Broadcasting sector. One of our professor worked for 30 years at the CVT News Desk and developed their digital media strategy. He now teaches at Seneca to the next generation of media professionals. He did the session today together with a recent graduate from Seneca who has specialized in digital media. She stopped her studies (Psychology) at a University in Toronto to complete a two year specialized diploma in this field at Seneca. The visitors from China were fascinated by the approach used at Seneca.