Adieu 2014

The year 2014 went by fast looking back at it on the last day of the year. A year ago I was just back from living and working in Bogota, Colombia during all of 2013. A few months into 2014 the phone call came in to see if I was interested to apply for the job at Seneca College, and now I am already three months into that new job. Hilary graduated from her B.Sc. Nursing program and has been working crazy hours since the end of June in the emergency department of the hospital in Niagara Falls. She is there right now for another one of those 12 hour shifts. Mark managed to get a spot in the electrical engineering program at his university and completed a good term in his 3rd year. Mary has been busy directing all the traffic in our house of us coming & going as well as with her real estate business. My Dad of almost 95 is still holding up in Holland despite the fact that dementia has forced him in a care home since late 2013. My sisters Han en Ger report on him to me and are busy with the 11 grand children between their 5 children. I will see them briefly again on January 17 and 18. During Christmas we all got together again with Mary's family in Sarnia at Marcy & Joe's place. Wils, the youngest of the gang, is already 8 and the captain of his hockey team. So is his older brother Spencer who will start high school in September 2015. Parker in between the two of them is finding his own niche as well as Fiona, the daughter of Susan and Ralph here in Fonthill. Both Fiona and Parker have one more year of elementary school before starting high school. Sue and Ralph both continue at Niagara College. Mary's parents continue to manage well in their house in St. Thomas.

It has been another year with lots of world events, but more and more one realizes how careful you will have to handle the 24/7 news coming at you through the modern social media. As a stubborn optimist I like to convince myself that there is always more good news than bad news; more progress towards world issues than setbacks; and that we have way more good people among our 7 billion world population than bad people. In 2015 there will be new federal elections in Canada. I just read the book written by Justin Trudeau, one of the three sons one of the former Prime Ministers of Canada, Pierre Trudeau. Justin Trudeau will run against PM Harper as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, a party which was reduced to only 34 seats in parliament during the 2011 elections and became the 3rd party only after decadees of being the leading party in Canada.

I will continue this blog for a 3rd year even though I don't think I will make as many posts as during 2013 and 2014. It is a nice way to share some experiences with friends around the world.

Tot ziens in het nieuwe jaar. Nos vemos en 2015. See you in the new year!

The ending of 2014

One of the last activities at work this year was a signing ceremony for cooperation with the government of the small Caribbean island state of St. Kitts & Nevis. A fair amount of the investment in the island's main industry (tourism via cruise ships who pass by for a day) comes from Canada, and there is a need to do more vocational capacity building at the island to better service the needs of the industry in today's world. Through mediation  of a local MP the team at Seneca was asked to investigate what can be done during  the  coming years.

See also http://www.senecacollege.ca/media/2014/2014-12-22.html

For Christmas we all visited the home of Joe & Marcy Vandenboom in Sarnia, a tradition of the last so many years. Hilary and Mark made Mary and me a nice sign (Hilary lives in Fonthill again now that she works as a nurse in the emergency department of the hospital in Niagara Falls). On the photo also Opa and Oma Vandenboom, still going strong in their mid-eighties.

All the best wishes for everybody for a happy, healthy and productive 2015.

Already two months at Seneca

Two months it is now that I have been in my new position of Dean, Seneca International, and I have been enjoying every minute of it so far. The work is a really interesting challenge. Of course it helps that I have done similar work the past 20 years at Niagara College and the experiences during the seven years at MSF and the six years at Fokker Aircraft also are great influence.

One area of Seneca International houses the offices of our recruiters (our marketing & sales force working around the world) and our projects team. This is where I have my office.

Our area is in one of the older parts of the college but everywhere the modern TV screens keep the students and staff up to date about events and achievements, an excellent internal communications tool of Seneca College.

Close to this international offices area is the "Senecentre", the activity area run by the SSF, the Seneca Student Federation. To the right of the entrance you can see a small sushi bar where I every now and then get a delicious little lunch.

In the "Senecentre" our international team together with SSF and international students regularly organizes events. Last Friday they had an event organized by students from countries where the Russian language is the most spoken language. The organizers invited a Russian dancer/gymnast who had worked for "Cirque de Soleil". She gave a spectacular performance.

Many of these events are supervised by Sergio, one of our International Services Coordinators. Sergio grew up in Mexico and made Canada his new home many years ago. Most events take place during lunch time and international cuisine buffet style meals are offered for 1 or 2 dollars per person.

The "Senecentre" is not far from the student residence (with about 1200 beds).

Our other international office is embedded in the Student Services area. The information desk is serviced by international student ambassadors who are selected and paid by the international services team (this photo was taken around 8 AM; the students start in shifts as of 8:30 AM).

This is Stan, the other International Services Coordinator (next to Sergio). Stan has been at the college for many years and also serves on the college's Board of Governors as elected support staff member at the moment. You can not imagine the international team at Seneca without enthusiastic, innovative and creative guys such as Stan and Sergio!

Seneca College has an impressive art collection spread throughout its hallways. Here a few examples in one of the newer buildings. The art work has been very well placed and gives the building a special atmosphere. Seneca has many arts programs and every now and then they have "in house" artist who leaves some of their work at the college. Other pieces have been purchased during special auctions. The college launched a book last week describing the 30 years of history of the art collection with photos of 70 of the well over 200 pieces.

This is a group of students who are raising money for a WUSC refugee student fund. Most of them study para-legal programs at the college and you can see the diverse background of this group. In February they will be organizing an awareness/fundraising event and I offered to be one of their speakers to tell some stories of my years with MSF.

One of Seneca's "learning enterprises" is a clothes store with products designed and made by senior year students of the fashion management program.

The "learning commons" at this campus has many computer stations. This is the same at the other 4 Seneca campus buildings (Seneca @ York, Markham, King campus and Peterborough). The few smaller community campuses do not have this. This computer area is busy from 8 AM till 10 PM.

And there is a Starbucks.... :-)

The last slide is to celebrate one of my former colleagues at Niagara College, Shawna. A week ago I was at the annual conference of the CBIE (Canadian Bureau of International Education) and there were some posters. The one below is on Shawna's story from being a student to doing some global assignments around the world to become an International Student Advisor. Proud of her!

Temple of Heaven

In Beijing I used a few hours in between meetings to visit the "Temple of Heaven". I only had one hour and this place deserves more time with all its interesting aspects from thousands of years of history. The museum is located not far from all the new high rises (see in the back of the photo above) but walking through the grounds you feel you "go back in time" every now and then...

Hundreds of senior citizens hang out in the gardens of this temple/museum and play cards and other games, some knit together and other play music. I could have watched them for hours...

Impressions of two weeks in China

The past two weeks I traveled for work in China. The first few days I attended a conference of colleges and polytechnics around the world. One of my dear colleagues, Pat Bowron of College of the Rockies, received an award for internationalization.

There were also colleagues from Brazil. One of them, Chris Brackman (here at the photo), will help organize the next conference (held every other year) to be hosted in Brazil. Parallel to the conference there was a student fair where colleagues from Seneca and Niagara had booths:

Also at the same time there was a "world cup" hosted of ENACTUS, an organization in which 60 countries participate with student teams who present business plans around topics such as green & sustainable business and corporate social responsibility. Each country has national competitions and the winners are sponsored for the annual world cup. However, more teams can come (for example from Canada there were 16 teams competing). Lots of young people in business suits....

Outside the conference center is the Olympic village of the 2008 summer Olympics. One afternoon I had some time to stroll around. The "bird's nest" main stadium was nice to see.

After the conference we toured with representatives of 18 Canadian colleges to a few cities to give presentations and high schools and higher education institutions. Hereby a few impressions:

This was at a private high school where they teach Ontario high school curriculum. The principal wants the students to think also about colleges (and not only about universities) and he came up with this (for colleges) nice banner...

This was a day at a University in Guangzhou ( a city of 14 million people). It was a large gathering during which I gave a presentation on behalf of the Canadian colleges.

A tour with many airports, some traveling with more and others with less luggage (my luggage is on the left)....

We were a few times hosted for very nice lunches. Just an impression with a few pics...

At one of the hosting colleges they surprised us with a short concert of a group at instruments thousands of years old. These big gongs are replicates of one of the oldest instruments found:

All the cities we visited were huge in numbers of people (between 8 and 20 million). Hereby a few impressions from Guangzhou:

In Guangzhou we had time for an evening boat cruise on the river. The lights were very nice during the boat ride of about an hour. Can't get it well on a photo but anyhow some impressions...

We had our last meetings in the northern city of Shenyang where Seneca's President joined us for the day after having presented in Beijing with the Ontario Premier the day before.

As the last photo for this blog the booth of a specialized college for railway training. Something you would not quickly find in other countries but here with 1,3 billion people public transport has an entire different dimension. Of course they also have the world's best functioning high speed train network, so lot of jobs to train technologist and technicians for.

Back home on Sunday evening after the long 13 hour flight from Beijing to Toronto...