Iguazu

Last week Friday the NC team organized a farewell party with cake and all. One of the room decorations was a world-map with pins on where my work and travels had brought me over the past 35 years.

 

 

And then today I was again at the Sao Paulo airport on my way further south.....

 

 

The Iguazu waterfalls in the distance seen from the aircraft I was in today

 

 

 

 

And after a good 24 hours "on the road" from Fonthill I reach my hotel in Iguazu on the Argentina side at the three-country point (in front Argentina, to the right across the water Brazil and on the leaft across the water Paraquay).

 

On my way to Brazil

On my way to Brazil for my last two work weeks for Niagara College. The past 12 years we have been able to build important trust and partnerships with a variety of post-secondary institutions in Brazil, and this visit is to discuss a future path for these institutions with NC without my presence.

I will also introduce two colleagues from Arequipa, Peru to the Brazilians. This will be their first exploratory visit to their neighbors in Brazil. It will be interesting to see if we can maybe create some activities between the three countries over time.

I will start in Iguazu (in the south on the border with Argentina), then Sao Paulo (the massive 20 million people metropolis), Fortaleza (on the Atlantic Ocean coast in the north-east 4 hours flying from Sao Paulo)), Recife (also on the coast a bit further east) and finally the country's capital Brasilia where we will have some meetings with the national Ministry of Education.

Last week Friday was my farewell party at Niagara College. In the all the excitement I forgot to make photos, but maybe others did. If so, I will make a post of that later. A strange feeling after 19 years....

A relaxing Saturday after that emotional Friday and now on the Sunday on my way down south.

Visitors from India

Last week -  during one of my "pre-working-for-Seneca" visits to meet with some of my new colleagues at Seneca - I attended the hosting of a group business people from Gujarat State in India. 

Seneca's President David Agnew welcomed the delegation and spoke a few words of his recent visit to their State earlier in 2014. Joy McKinnon afterwards led the discussion together with two members of the international projects team. Joy is very knowledgeable on doing business in India and did her PhD studies on this topic. The visitors were pleased to hear - during the more informal part of their short visit - that this Dutchman had met his future wife Mary in their country.....

The gift exchanges between Joy and the visitors at the end of their visit.

My last "Niagara Day"

Today was my 19th and last time that I attended "Niagara Day" at Niagara College. This day is always organized in late August to start the new academic year and originally it was called the "Welcome Back Day". Increasingly many of us (especially in the international department) worked all throughout the summer months with special summer ESL groups, and we suggested a name change. "Niagara Day" is always a fun half day kicked off by college President Dan Patterson:

His message was positive but always with a few cautions of challenges on the road. Colleges in Ontario went from 70 % to now 40 % funding from the provincial government and that will probably become even less. Students therefore pay higher tuition fees and for NC the almost 25 % of overall revenues through international student tuition fees and special international contracts has become a very important part of the financial health of the organization. I am very proud to leave such a well run team at Niagara International behind now that I will focus soon on my new job at Seneca.

The morning has a variety of award ceremonies for health & safety, best support staff, best professor and best administrator of the year. Updates are given on the sustainability plan of the college (the "greening"  of the college's  operation with respect to reducing electricity and water use, reducing the carbon footprint and slowly but surely becoming close to "paperless"). This is followed by a speaker and this time it was all about "work & life balance".

A very dynamic presentation with good food for thought about the pillars of exercise, nutrition, stress management and enough quality sleep. She was thanked by the President of the SAC (Student Administrative Council) who this year is an international student from Jamaica.

I still have to pinch myself that this is almost it after 19 years at Niagara College. One more week here and then a two  week work trip  to Brazil, and then it will be September 22 and my Seneca work adventure starts. I am ready....

Getting ready for Seneca

This will take some getting used to.  After living almost 20 years in "Niagara stuff" now I have to wear the "Seneca colors". Yesterday I spend a day at Seneca in Toronto meeting some of my new colleagues and taking over my new office (ready for me to start in on September 22)...

A large institution with close to 30,000 students of which about 20 % come from around the world. More updates when I start there later in September.

Leadership training

This week I facilitated a session at the 1st International  Leadership Academy organized by "Colleges and Institutes Canada" (CICan), the national association for Canadian colleges formerly knows as the ACCC,  the  Association of Canadian Community Colleges. I worked with the 19 participants on a number of aspects on international development projects and contracts based on my experiences.

The course was hosted a bit outside of Ottawa and attracted international education leaders from west to east of the country. These photos are from yesterday evening's dinner during which all participants introduced each other through observations they had made during the week.  Lots of good laughs...

A week in the cottage

We just came back from a very nice week in a cottage with Mary's family as we have done for the past 7 or 8 years. Mary's sister Sue, her husband Ralph and their daughter Fiona, Mary's brother Joe, his wife Marcy and their sons Spencer, Parker and Wil, and the four of us get together for a week in a large cottage near Fenelon Falls on Cameron Lake (not far from Peterborough).  This week Mark could only come for one weekend because of his work and a math exam next week. Hilary came in between two weekends of work.

The few photos are from the last evening (Friday) when Mary and Hilary had just left. On the photo above Marcy and Fiona taking a foot bath in a cooler..... creative use of things....

Sue gives her feet the full treatment and earlier in the week I noticed Mary did the same....

The cottage has six bedrooms and a large sitting area plus open kitchen. Weplayed lots of rummikub and the kids wrote their journals each day. Here Spencer reading and Wil  and Fiona debating their journals...

Parker reading his journal entry to his Dad (Joe)...... and Joe takes a nap afterwards....

Outside you can see the lawn with the dock on the river leading to Cameron Lake. Ralph catching up on the news outside on the deck. And Marcy will kill me for posting this photo....