Student Leadership

Nice event at Seneca tonight to honor some of the leaders among the students with awards.

Sustainable Seneca

Today in the corridors of our main campus students from the Graduate Certificate program in "Sustainable Business" organized a market place on the topic of their studies. They had a variety of organizations - among them some of our own entrepreneurial students - display their activities.

The last photo above is a new company started by two Seneca graduates who believe in the concepts and opportunities of "urban agriculture": grow vegetables at the bottom with fish harvesting on top; this is called "Ripple Farms"; look it up. Also at the roof of Seneca in urban Toronto: bee-keeping with as result "honey produced at Seneca"....

Mark & taxes

Look at Mark working on his tax return filing over 2017. He has three computers going at the same time. Blows my mind but then again, I started University in 1974 being happy that I could buy a pocket calculator. His trusted advisor (a.k.a his mother) is keeping an eye on things....

Educators from Hunan, China

This week we have a group of 25 trainees from the Hunan Province at Seneca in Toronto. They are a mix of professors, administrators and the provincial Ministry of Higher Education. We run professional development sessions with them on modern curriculum development, teacher training, work-integrated learning and global developments in higher education. This is the third training group we welcome here from Hunan the past two years. Passionate group of international colleagues!

The old homeland

On the way back from the work in Egypt a short weekend stop in Amsterdam where the canals were frozen this time (first time in 5-6 years it has been this cold again). My brother-in-law Bert (75) has been skating again; he bought these skates when he was 15 - now 60 years ago. Still going strong!

And my two sisters (73 and 71) still looking great as well. They also still tell their little brother what to do, but hey...once a baby-brother, always a baby-brother.... The streets of Amsterdam are as always full of the many bicycles in all forms and shapes; gotta love that....

Lots of tourism in the city even at a cold March Sunday. The museum area is always popular and the famous Van Gogh Museum was busy. This museum is next to a large field where big events take place during warmer days. But no Dutch Orange Soccer (football) national team on big screens there in June this year. The "men in orange" did not qualify for the World Cup this time. I will be rooting for the teams on Egypt, Iceland and Panama this time...

Two more Dutch treats ("stroopwafels" and "hagelslag") and then on my way to Toronto again.

Goodbye to Aswan

This morning early we left the city of Aswan after a week of good work with our colleagues here. Last night we went for a boat ride which was lovely. These kind of sailing boats have traveled the river Nile for centuries. Our captain looked the role....

And my Seneca colleagues Sunny (documentary maker) and Nadim (project manager) enjoyed the boat ride with me. Sunny is on her way back to Toronto (with colleagues Mariana and Zina) and Nadim stays another few days for meetings in Cairo. I am on my way to my old homeland Holland, my favorite city in the world Amsterdam and my two dear sisters. Back to Toronto on Monday.