School

This is it. Week 4 and things are just humming along. Jed is up to his hips in budget fun, we are thinking about application totals and orientations that start next week, and I had quiche for lunch today… OK there are more exciting things to report about this week then just that, so here it goes!

Back to the Class
Thanks to CAB coordinator – Anthony Kalamut for inviting me to attend his 2nd semester Creative Advertising class. This very bright, question-asking group hammered out some very cool concepts around marketing campaigns. I learned that ROI, may stand for return on investment in the business sense, but in advertising it is almost the “caramilk secret” in the design of a campaign – Relevance, Originality, and remaining Interesting. The highlight for me was seeing a glimmer of one of my teaching heroes channeled in Anthony’s incredible command of the class – Its like I had a chance to go back in time, and take part in a Big John Small class! Thanks Anthony I had a blast!

Lunchtime fun!
Thanks to JoAnn Purcell, we had some visual stimulation during one of the afternoon lunch club gatherings, where we screened – Skylight (originally called “Penguin”). Written and directed by former Animation Arts instructor, Dave Bass. The creative team included the DAN coordinator Sean Craig, instructor Rob Silvestri and a large group of gradated students over the past 5 or 6 years, working only on Sundays! They received Bravo Fact Funding and as a result you can see it on Bravo or I also have a DVD to share. Dave is also shopping around the festival market, so sky’s the limit for skylight!

On the tube!
Our very own James Cullingham was a guest on TVO’s “The Agenda” with Steve Paikin on Thursday night. Other guests included Mary Ormsby from The Star, Bruce Dowbiggin from Calgary Herald and former Leaf, Bob McGill talking about fighting in the NHL. From all reports, it was a great show.

Student Success
4th semester JBC students Daniel Alcinii and Matthew Kang have been selected for highly sought after Internships at CBC Radio beginning in May and as spring approaches a few more of our Journalism students may be selected by CBC TV. This makes 4-5 years running that our students have been selected for this competitive Internship that in the past was only awarded to students from Ryerson, Carleton and Western.

David Stein, almost CAB Graduate was a member of the winning team that entered a contest put on by the Virgin group of company’s to design an advertising campaign for V-Fest concerts; one of Richard Branson’s charity efforts aimed at homeless youth. The team was to be made up of 8 members, but due to bad weather, only 3 members showed up so congratulations to Daniela Sanz, Vijay Setlur and Seneca student David Stein.

Application numbers
Although we are still a little early in the crunch to look at our application numbers for the upcoming 2 semesters, generally speaking we are at the same or MORE then this same time period last year, and that is a GOOD thing. With many orientation stating next week, I want to extend an offer to help anyone who needs it with anything related to applications / offers. If there is anything I can do to help you get your offers out as soon as we are able to, I would be happy to help.

Coordinators meeting next week
The agenda is coming together nicely for the program coordinator’s meeting next week… If you have something you would like us to discuss, please forward it on to your coordinator or myself.

In closing
I was looking for a story from my home life this week to share as a fun way to end my confessions this week, but I am coming up blank… I asked my wife if she could think of anything that happened significant this week, and all she could come up with was her beautiful new haircut (it is very nice) but I said no… there has to be something that I can pull from week 4 from around the world that would have relevance… then it came to me.
My Answer to ALL I do not know – Google!

I type in “funny quote” and select the first webpage (http://www.coolfunnyquotes.com/). And find my closing thought for week 4!

“It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives.”

Week 5 arrives in 64 hours!

Thanks! 4 down and 10 to go.
Jim

With a busy week 3 wrapping up, I present to you my 3rd installment of my confessions email. The strike free addition! I am so happy and a little surprised at the number of people that have stopped me in the halls and commented on how much they look forward to this peek into and around the School of Communication Arts. Please keep the feedback coming (and maybe the criticism too).

What I learned this week!
Well this could almost be what I didn’t learn this week, as it started with a class visit to Michael Smith’s NAT150 – Human Sexuality class… Lets just say I was fairly confident that I would be able to handle the week three class on female / male anatomy, given my happy 12-year marriage (19 years together) and my two beautiful girls. That made the 62.5% on the 24-question true false test a little concerning. In fact, I had to rush home and hit the books and study all night. I am so glad that I found my original 1991 textbook from the first time I was a student in this same class with the same Mr. Smith (I earned a B on my transcript).

I turned my academic aspirations toward Corporate Media Production, and visited A CMP class on teambuilding, facilitated by Michael Curran. What a great class, with a very participatory group, narrowing down the big four of teambuilding to respect, communication, trust and leadership. It was great insight into the dynamics of the CMP program and their strong group of 4th semester students.

Faculty News
This week, there where two stories of “accomplishments in their fields” with SCA faculty, and although you may have heard some of the news before, I wanted to spotlight it again.

Peter Houston was acknowledged in an online story about the NEW CTV recording of the famous Hockey Night In Canada Theme. It would seem that our very own Peter was the original recording engineer and was consulted by the new team of engineers on mixing the latest version of the song. But it doesn’t stop there… Current TV faculty members, Michael Nunan and Paul Sellers were the supervising engineers and Seneca Grad – Brian Sheridan also worked on the project. Congratulations to all involved! For the Canada.com article here is the link!(http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/story.html?id=5d934378-322a-493e-a85c-39d2e6735473&k=62954)

Great news for IMP faculty member Linda M (www.lindam.org) who found out this week that her L.A. publisher is so happy with the interest in her work, and the placement of her songs over the last 5 years, that they have renewed her contract! Linda, an award winning songwriter shares the skill of crafting a song with her IMP students.

If you have some good news to share please let me know!

Baby News!
We are happy to report that Michael Curran welcomed to his family, a 102 pound golden retriever named BECKER. We were also happy to welcome a very young and cute visitor to the halls of SCA this week, with the surprise drop in of little Sheyla and her proud father Mark of course. For a great insight on family life for our Associate Chair, check out his great holiday video! (http://www.cyberstage.org/photos/sheyla_firstxmas/). Watch for her in the IMP program in 18 years.

Seneca / YORK Joint students
With the end of the strike, YORK has released their plan on an adjusted fall and wither schedule and it will certainly impact on our 46 Seneca / YORK joint students. As a result, of the increased YORK work / class load, we have asked all the coordinators to pass on messages to their entire faculty regarding doing what we can to support our students in completing what they need too do to get back on track. If there is anything I can do to help you or your students, please let me know.

On a Personal Note
Back to things I learned this week for a second… I personally am having a great time in this new role, and feel that I am learning something about the school, the faculty, programs and myself each and every day. This week, I was also taught things at home, that can apply to us all so I would like the share them with you. First my daughter Jordyn, who is 9, and very nervous about public speaking, got an A on her speech. This taught me that its ok to say you are scared about doing something, as long as you have a little support and you try it anyway – you CAN succeed. My 6-year-old Julia taught me the importance of positive affirmation… Nathalie and I read a great entry in her grade one journal… “My name is Julia. I am in grade 1. My eyes are green. My hair is brown. I like to sing when I’m at school. I like being me”

I enjoy singing at school and I like being me too!

Thanks! 3 down and 11 to go.
Jim

Week 2 is almost in the rear view mirror… Passing the all important day 10 mark, with a new US president and a big pile of snow to show for it.

To get you caught up, in my new role as Acting Associate Chair for the next 12 weeks, I feel the need to document all that goes on in the form weekly recap, so I can first soak it all in, and second to be able to share with Mark on his return a sort of Coles notes version of what he missed.

Week 2 was a very busy one, and with three off campus meetings, desk time seemed very short, and the week flew by. It would seem the grade change forms have settled down to a small trickle – and I think that is a good thing… Here are the headlines!

Student News
Natasha Thombs, a first year CAB student is about to break the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) All-Time Scoring Record. She is just 5 points away and will be playing Friday, January 23 at 6pm at the Newnham Sports Centre. This is a record that has stood for over 25 years and is a remarkable accomplishment. Congratulations to Natasha in anticipation of your great accomplishment tonight!

Around Our Halls
It’s a new day in our News Studio this week! The backdrop was changed from the nighttime cityscape to the daytime one! I will work on getting approved the purchase of a Caribbean beachscape and some heat lamps so we can start having mini vacations during the day in that class room. The SCA print shop will only accept electronic print submissions now via http://scaweb.senecac.on.ca/scashop, or by using the terminal in the print shop so please get the word out to your students.

Class Visits
Thank you Michael Curran for inviting me to a class next week to take part in a teamwork exercise with CMP students. I also hope to take up Ron Erwin on his offer to visit an IDP class next week!

Keep the invitations coming! I love the idea of getting a better sense of what is going on in as many programs as possible within SCA.

Healthy Discussions
We sure have had a large number of comments regarding a suggestion made to sca.allstaff regarding demand setting for OPSEU. I personally feel that this is a good form of sharing ideas and spurring conversations but I would like to remind people to remain respectful to one another.

Week Highlight!
A highlight from week 2 for me was the campus almost shutting down for 40 minutes while faculty, staff and students crowded around the RTX monitors and in the Hive to watch the US inaugurate its’ 44th President. The sight in the halls was powerful, and the speech was very compelling, but for a part of it, I was thinking about Seneca and how what President Obama was saying had a relevance to our SCA community.

“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history.”

SCA has more programs, more students and more faculty than ever before in our young 20 year history and yet we have started this semester off with the same passion and commitment to the future we have always had and all this with troubling economic times upon us, the YORK strike and talk of our own labour issues. Truly commendable to all of you!

Please let me know if you have comments or anything you would like me to include in future weeks! 2 down and 12 to go.
Jim