Work ethic, church, bingo and a lady named Mary!

My first personal confessions blog following my run as Acting Associate Chair and this week I recapped the happenings in and around my little world.

Under the O, 68
This was a busy week at the girls’ school with it being Catholic Education Week. Julia and her grade 1 class put on a Mary celebration on Tuesday, Jordyn sang in the choir for the mass at church on Wednesday and Thursday was family literacy night at their school, with an open house featuring children’s performer “Markus” (http://www.markusmusic.com/) and free BINGO. I mention the free BINGO because it is my favourite part. Yes, I am the BINGO caller. Fulfilling a lifelong dream of one day becoming a professional BINGO caller. The whole room hanging on every word, the shear power of those little letters and numbers and the huge prize table is something to behold. This was the first year that one of my children won, and I only had to hear “Why didn’t you call B8” from one of my girls.

Work Ethic
Living under another’s roof is said to be a big challenge for most but our situations is amplified by the fact that it is 4 bodies, 5 if you count the dog, living under a roof that already contains 5 bodies of its own. Moving our family into my sister’s house was a difficult decision for us, but with 2 full weeks under our belt, I can say things are settling in. The extra drive, a couple of dog incidences and little girls that still struggle with the concept of picking up after themselves aside, things are going smooth and I want to thank Debbie and Guy for letting us invade their house.

One thing is clear to me so far. Guy is still one of the hardest working guys I know, being the first out of the house at around 5:30 – 6:00, and returning most nights after 7:30. His work ethic is something he has passed onto his son Branden, who after returning from his CO-OP placement most nights goes back out to cut neighborhood lawns for a couple more hours. If that was not enough, between him and his brother Rylan, they are both highly competitive soccer players, practicing or playing 2 or 3 times each week.

School / Work
I did come in this week after my vacation started last Friday, mostly to get my office cleaned up and help out my Acting coordinator, Jim with a little student advisement. But I had fun for a little bit on Thursday thanks to Tim Abbott’s invite to the hill for a little lunch break. Joined by JoAnn and Anthony, we had a fun discussion on some new program concepts for SCA. Look for an official proposal coming soon!

A good day
What is it that tells you early on in your day that today is going to be a good day? Today, Nathalie got a good sign on her commute to work when she came across a guy stopped on one of the back roads, unable to proceed. He was just laughing, with his hands up in the air, shaking his head because of what was crossing the road and what was likely causing him, and now Nathalie to be late for work; a rafter (I looked it up!) of Wild Turkeys. Now there is something you don’t see everyday on a commute from Mississauga. Hey Nathalie, what’s for dinner tonight?

In closing
The value of money is something we are always trying to teach our children, and there are times that they illustrate they understand the lessons by showing restraint while in a store filled with stuff they just have to have and sometimes they don’t. Our little shoppers are great at looking, especially with their hands, and love to touch, feel and sometimes try on things but they both know that we are saving for our house, and have been pretty good about things over the last couple of months. That is why, Julia offering to pay half of the cost of her Friday morning breakfast treat this morning, took me by surprise. In the past Julia has been the one to find money lying around the house and is happy to shove it in her little purse, so when I asked how much she had, I was expecting her to present that hundred dollar bill I thought I lost last year, but instead she gave me the 2 pennies she had.

Thanks Julia, and now you have my 2 cents as well…
Jim

Confessions of the Acting Associate Chair – Week 15 (promo week)

As the Beatles sing “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”, I present the love sharing, touchy feely, happy to be finished but sad to be done, looking forward to the future week 15 – Promo week edition of the confessions e-mail.

Promotion Meetings
It was so interesting visiting each of the promo meetings for the first time and dare I say a little revealing! For example did you know they have donuts and muffins in the IMP meeting, enjoyable adult beverages in the broadcasting meeting (for after the meeting of course!) and just like the life drawing classes, the AFD meeting is conducted completely in the nude? OK I might have made that last one up, but promo week for me this year was very busy but lots of fun. The passion each of the programs and for the matter each of the faculty has for each one of their students was an inspiration, and something to be truly proud of. You should be commended for not only putting your all into each class, but taking part in this last opportunity to catch and save or even let go of the students that need it.

I also love that CAB, GRA and AFD make a marathon day out of it. Going over all of their students transcripts (over 300 for GRA alone) and they still take the time to have a complete faculty / curriculum meeting after they finish with the transcripts. Thank you all for working as hard as you do for your program, courses and students.

Pot Luck
We did have a small handful of people enjoy the first SCA potluck, Tuesday and Wednesday so thanks to all who contributed and dropped in. I enjoyed Karen’s deviled eggs, Pat’s Almond squares, and Jed’s smoked pork but it was the fun we had just getting together in a casual way that I enjoyed the most. I look forward to setting up another potluck in the future and getting even more people out to break bread.

Baby News
Congratulations to part time DMA/MFD instructor, Brendan Sera-Shriar and his wife Jessica on the birth of little Kael Michell on the 25th of April. For a quick picture introduction, take a look at Kael’s very own website (http://kaelmitchell.com/).

Guest Lecture
Congratulations to Jim Zubkavich and all who helped organize the inaugural Valery Tokmakov Animation Innovation Lecture Series that featured celebrated Canadian animator Jacques Drouin and paid great tribute to Valery. I am told it was a great turn out and a huge success.

In closing
334 paragraphs, 1,532 lines or more then 13,400 words in a little over 16 weeks and if you said to me week 0 that I would have been able to write this much, I would have called you loony! When I accepted this job in late December, I did it with 3 goals in mind. One to get to know the other programs within the School of Communication Arts, second to get to know some of the great faculty that we have within our walls and last to learn and grow as a manager and person, and in the end I have gained tremendously from this experience. Admittedly it was a lot easier always having an end date in the back of my mind, and there are a couple of things I have “shifted” to the bottom of my pile, and subsequently have left for Mark to work out, but I have truly loved this experience and thank Jed and Mark for giving me the opportunity.

I am back to the Faculty group on Monday and have a non-teaching summer so look forward to spending some quality time with my family. I also look forward to starting my very own blog, were I will continue to write a weekly observation style recap of my family and life on Fridays. Actually committing theses thoughts in the form of words on paper has proved to be a large part of my growth over the last semester so I don’t want to stop. Thanks again to all who have helped me along the way and in the end I have this to confess: I am one lucky guy, and I will work hard to remember this everyday!

Thanks! 14 (+2) down and 0 to go.
Jim

Confessions of the Acting Associate Chair – Week 14

I had such a good week I wrote two openings and just could not pick one…
The frantic exam week and why did I ever think that it was a good idea to give out so many projects that all have to have marked by Monday edition of the week 14 Confessions e-mail.

Or:
The Carr’s are moving, almost packed, shrink-wrapped and bubble packed, “oh my god where did we get so much stuff” week 14 edition of the confessions email.

Potluck
I understand that this is a big undertaking, and I may be just a little crazy for thinking I could do it all myself, but I think it would be a lot of fun to take a couple of minutes out of your promo meetings and dig into some fantastic home made grub in the form of a pot luck. The signup sheet is in the SCA lunchroom (S2080B) and we have 4 or 5 names on it to this point, but I think we can do MUCH better. If you are able to contribute and as such take part in the event on either Tuesday or Wednesday, please sign up today or send me an e-mail with your contribution.

Jed Reception
It was great to see so many out on Thursday afternoon for Jed’s end of semester “take a breath” reception. Not only attended by a great number of faculty and staff, it was very nice to see Mark Jones back in the building. It was also great to meet Mark Ingram, the coordinator of the new SCA Acting program and it was especially nice to see our new president, Dave Agnew.

Thanks also to Jed for presenting me with a gift, and his kind words. The thank you speech that I wished I had given goes something like this “Thank you Jed and Mark for giving me the opportunity to see things from a different position. I only hope that I will take all that I have learned in this role and continue to grow as a manager, coordinator professor and person. Thanks also to the staff for accepting me and not giving me too much of a hard time. Thanks also to those who have given me so much positive feedback over the last 14 weeks, I have enjoyed every minute of the job.”

SCA Media awards
I have only missed a couple of theses shows over the last 7 or 8 years, and I was sorry that had to miss this years’ considering all of the positive feedback I have received about it. Word is that even the new college president in attendance was very impressed with the professionalism of the student run event. Congratulations to the TV faculty and students for once again dismantling the entire airpack studio and successfully re-assembling in the YORK Theater next door, congratulations to the CMP faculty and students for running such a great show and thanks to all of the staff, parents and students who contributed to the success of the event, including all the nominated students from CMP, DMA, JBC, RTVR and RTVT.

Marks Due
Just a reminder your marks are all due by Monday morning at 10:00AM. If you have a second today, login to myseneca (https://my.senecacollege.ca/) select “Employee Services” from the tabs along the top, and in the “Enterprise Applications” module select “Faculty Tools”. After you login one more time, select “Grade Students”. If you are able to get to this point in the process, you will have no problem doing this before Monday and if you do have a problem, you will be able to work with the computer help desk (416-491-5050 x 2129) on making sure you are able to login in advance of the deadline.

After you submit your marks, please don’t forget to send your final mark breakdowns to Karen and your program coordinator. This can include your print off of the final marks as submitted via my Seneca, but should also include either a spreadsheet print out or a printout of your grade book on blackboard or for those not in the electronic mood, a printout of your personal mark log.

FITC
Seneca and the School of Communication Arts has played a key role in the very popular design and technology event – Flash in the Can over the last couple of years, and this year it is even bigger with Seneca as a key sponsor, the provider of the cyber café, and we also showcase our student work at our very own booth. The event starts Saturday and runs until Tuesday. Special thanks to Mark Jones and Joseph Bodick for their organizing skills and thanks also to Hassan Assiri, Adrian Klymenko and Luis Marmelo for providing all the computers for the event.

Brian Thomas
It was the late 70’s and in Toronto when you wanted in depth news coverage and thought provoking commentary of what was going on in the world you listened to the radio. News names and voices you can still hear today including Dick Symth, Mark Daley, Brian Williams, Rick Hodge, Brian Henderson and Seneca’s own – Brian Thomas. Investigative journalism at its best with the only interview ever conducted with Steven Truscott, by CHUM’s Brian Thomas. His amazing work is now being recognized by the Canadian Film Institute at their AV Trust Masterworks at a Gala in Ottawa on Monday. Congratulation to Brian on your well deserved award.

In the Screening room
Last Friday the TV faculty and students presented their year end screening of the 4th semester TV work, and judging from the positive feed back from all who attended the students have completed some incredible work this semester. Also, congratulations to the JBC students for screening their semester ending documentary work this past week at the first ever Doc Fest.

Portfolio Night
CAB has become an official sponsor of the annual portfolio review night for ihaveanidea.org know as PORTFOLIO NIGHT 7 Toronto to be held June 11th, 2009. It is the world’s largest advertising portfolio review and this year they will be hosting over 12 international cities and ihaveanidea.org is the “centre” of the creative advertising world website. Visited by “adlanders” and agencies personal daily. Our profile will be on the event site, which will run worldwide at http://portfolionight.com/7/archives/category/cities

Animation Book
The second edition of the ARTbook has been released this week and it looks FANTASTIC. Student work included is from all 3 years of the ANI program. Students purchased 2 pages each and are beautifully featured in this great looking book. With special thanks to Isabelle Babici for coordinating the ARTbook committee, Jim Zubkavich for handling the printing and Jim Graves and Lara (The Design Girl) Graves for layout and student advisement. Purchase a book today for $25.00 from Isabelle up in the AAC.

In closing
With the e-mail more then 300 words more then it normally is, I will close with just a short observation. One faculty member that I had met for the first time on Thursday told me that reading my confession e-mail was a highlight of her week, and that she liked it because she felt like she was part of the big team. OK here is the post game press conference, in the locker room after the big game. By the way, we won!

“Well I just can’t say enough good stuff about this whole team. Right from the training staff to the big guy over there, they all put in 110% the whole time, and just never gave up and it paid off, we won this 14 week tournament, we made it and I could not be prouder’. Ohh gosh I think I am going to cry”

Have a great marking weekend and see you next week for promotion and potluck!

Thanks! 14 (+1) down and 1 to go.
Jim