Confessions of a...

The last full week of March is in the books and the forecast looks good for the remaining 4 weeks of school, so I am happy to present the home stretch, room moving edition of the confessions e-mail for week 10.

Student success
Great news and congratulations to the 4th Semester CAB group who presented to their program partner zig this week. They provided students with a real “live” brief for two of their clients, Burt’s Bees and PeakSaver and this week the students presented their fully integrated advertising campaigns to Lynda Torneck, the account director on both accounts for zig and the Burt’s Bee client who was “blown away” and completely floored with attention to detail and suggestions made for the brand. The two winning groups will now be given the opportunity to present to the zig team and might even get the opportunity to have the work created for execution. They used total new media as the “push” and even the Lynda was blown away by the engagement of using YouTube and Twitter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnOWOGSuX5k

Our faculty Rock!
As I write this, James Cullingham is presenting a talk at L’Alliance francaise about Jacques Soustelle, the French ethnologist of Mexico-politician-journalist who is a principal subject of his history PhD dissertation. We will let you know how it goes next week.

Program success
A great public endorsement for the CAB Program got from Scott Goodson of StrawberryFrog in New York City. Anthony is quoted as saying “This is like getting Speilberg to say your wedding video is Oscar worthy” http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/03/award-shows-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly.html

Guest Lecture
The renowned illustrator, James Gurney whose many accomplishments include “Dinotopia”, which he both authored and illustrated, presented his work at S@Y on Wednesday and a GREAT time was had by all. Faculty member, Jim Graves had this to say “That was exciting, inspirational and just plain FANTASTIC! What a great thing to do for our students!” Thanks to Phillip Woolf for organizing and to all the people who made it out.

Lunch Room
At the start of the semester, when I posted my schedule on my office door, I added “lunch club” to each day in hopes I would get an opportunity to get to know more staff and faculty in a casual setting. Some of the best conversations I have had with faculty over the years, dated back to Peter Houston’s office with Ron Lowe and Michael Monty. We solved more of the issues plaguing the world in those 1 hour lunches then I can even count, so the idea of bringing it back was something I have been thinking about for a long time. When Karen said to me, “we need a lunch room” it all made sense. We started talking about it 4 or 5 weeks ago, and it has sure come together with furniture almost completely moved. Thanks so much to Anna for coordinating the whole thing and stay tuned for an upcoming event to launch our new SCA lunch room.

In closing
I understand from years of asking smarter people then me, that the appearance of the first Robin around this time each year signals the TRUE launch of spring. Well at the start of the week, on my front porch, I had my fist sighting. Although, I am not holding too much trust in this particular bird’s seasonal predictability, on the account of the fact he keeps flying into the top edge of my window as if looking for a safe place to land with NO place to do so. I have even built a little shelf, in hopes he would find a safe place to sit, but no luck, he (or she?) keeps hitting the top edge and falling down, and then flying to the railing looking back as if to say “wow I thought that I could fit”. I understand that Einstein said that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, but maybe we have had it wrong all this time. Maybe sometime over the weekend he will stick the landing.

I do know this… I am going to fly back to my little ledge in room 2061 on Monday for week 11, and I look forward to seeing you in the lunchroom.

Thanks! 10 (+1) down and 4 (+1) to go.
Jim

With the winter clock of 2009 ticking down to its final seconds and chants of “bring on patio weather” definitely audible, I am happy to present the vacuumed, washed and fully spring cleaned edition of the week 9 confessions email.

Pub
With pending legal action, I am unable to give specifics accounts of what happened at the SEQ staff pub this Wednesday but I have cleared the following through legal. We had a blast! It was nice to see so many turn out, even if only for a quick drink and a handful of chips. Thanks to Andrew Schmitz at ELS for sponsoring the event, and Tim Abbott for doing such a great job arranging it. I look forward to the next one for sure!

Sayradio Sign
An issue a little close to my heart is the campus radio station, S@Y Radio (sayradio.net). All of its’ RTVR and JBC student staff members were given a window to the world at the beginning of the semester that many are not aware of. First, the window is new, (overlooking the cafeteria) and second, there is no sign telling people what it is you are looking at through the glass. The good news to share this week is that thanks to Rick Greenlaw with facilities and Arrow Graphics, a new sign will be installed next week. Thanks also to Richard Slaven for taking the student designed logo, and modifying slightly to include “the Seneca approved font”.

TAVIS
Well the verdict is in and the design they have selected from the 10 GRA submissions is the slightly retro inspired yellow and purple eye catching logo designed by Bradley Cousins, Amanda McCarthy and Ashley Facciolo. Congratulation to all involved, and the TAVIS project has already started the next phase of the project. Look for more in future updates. (For the Seneca story visit http://www.senecac.on.ca/media/news/2009/2009-03-18.html)

Media Awards
The posters are up and the buzz around the building has begun. The School of Communication Arts Media awards are coming April 23, 2009 so pass the word. For more information check out the posters and please pass the word on to your Radio, Television, Journalism and Corporate Media Production students that this years’ event is promising to be bigger and better then before.

Thank you
I wanted to say thank you to all those who have taken the time to reply to my confessions emails and tell you that your stories and encouragement is why I love doing them. I wanted to share one such reply from last week from Susan.
“I followed your suggestion and sent a few students acknowledgment of their commitment to their work in this semester. The kind response from each that I received back was humbling. It made me realize they simply do not get enough pats-on-the-back in their college career. I am grateful to you for giving us this inspiration. On that note, I have to say that your ‘Confessions of …’ has been inspiring. As a brand new part-timer at Seneca this semester, I have looked forward to your weekly email and somehow it has made me feel part of a bigger picture.” Thank you so much for your thoughts Susan, and welcome aboard.

Mistakes
I sure hope you are noticing the little mistakes I am making on purpose, each week in the confessions e-mails, (like last week, thinking St. Patrick’s Day was last Saturday that was a crazy one!). YES the rumor is true, I will select the name at the end of the semester of the person that is closest to the correct number of mistakes (double negative?) I have made, and award a very special treat, so make sure to keep track of them.

In closing
As I sit here trying to come up with a creative way to end this week, I keep watching the little digital frame on my desk that is full of family pictures. There is the shot of my 3 ladies in total rock star stance, and the picture of me and Cinderella at Disney world, and so many more great pictures, but the one that always makes me smile is a shot from the CNE a couple of years ago.

Now I know on the first day of spring, the last thing you want to think about is the end of the summer and the CNE, but to me this picture says have fun, and even if you are on a ride keep smiling and I think that is good advice. The ride that is week 9 is over but get your tickets ready and get back in line because the next ride is only 3 sleeps away!

Thanks! 9 (+1) down and 5 (+1) to go.
Jim

I think Kermit the frog said it best when he said – “It’s not easy being green”, but for one day and one day alone, we can all pull it off. As one of the busiest weeks draws to an end, with thoughts a drift to St. Paddy’s day tomorrow, I present the fully polished, pressed and steam cleaned, green inspired week 8-edition of the confessions e-mail.

Pub
Thanks to Tim for pointing out, among other things, he seems to have too much time on his hands. A reminder that next week we will be having a S@Y pub celebration in the Hive. Just refer to any of the e-mails in the past week in reference to it.

OAB Career Day
On Monday the Ontario Association of Broadcasters hosted its 4th annual career development day for all of Ontario’s Broadcasting students and Seneca was well represented. The format of the event involves 15 tables that represent different jobs in broadcasting each with a couple of Industry reps and a recent grad. Students take time visiting different tables to talk shop and Seneca not only was well represented by student attendee’s but Seneca Grads where there in good numbers too. The OAB also awarded the second annual Michael Monty scholarship award to a student from Ryerson and Sheridan.

Faculty Success
Congratulations to Suzanne Price for completing her Myers-Briggs Type Indicator training during the reading week with a very nice certificate to prove it. She battled not only the intense course load, working more then 10 hours a day on curriculum stuff but she did it all while battling a bad cold. The benefits of this Myers-Briggs training include understanding unique personality characteristics, offering insight into strengths and challenges, applying this knowledge to improve training, team building, and communication in organizations or for individual clients. Theses are great skills that will not only benefit her students, but also SCA in the future, so great Job Suzanne!

Student success
JBC student, Matt Kang will have his radio documentary about an elementary school in Barrie with a “no homework” policy aired on “CFRB Presents” on Newstalk 1010 at 2pm this Sunday afternoon.

This week, CMP student Paul Caristena left for the Dominican Republic to work with a charitable group called Power Trips. They have an annual trip that takes 100 Grade 11 high school kids to the DR to help local communities with various improvement projects. Paul returns on Thursday next week and Cassandra Steiner will take his place for week 2, all part of a team of five 4th semester CMP students whose final project is to document this trip and produce a 10 – 15 minute “Corporate” video for Power Trips, to be used promoting their ongoing efforts. Other team members include, Emily McMillan-McKinley, Maria Ustyuzhaninova, and Antoinette Lee. Thanks to Jim Graves from Animation for bringing the project to Seneca and to Mike Curran for sharing it with us.

On Thursday afternoon, Jim Craig and myself attended the Radio Marketing Bureau “Crystal Awards” lunch. I am always moved when meeting Seneca grads at industry functions and this day was no different. Yes there was Adam from CHUM FM, from the class of 1993, Catrina at Skywards and Jesse from Z103.5 both graduates in 2006 and Jena and Adam who graduated last year, but it was Adam Morrison from the class of 2005 that inspired me to write this today. Adam was a nice guy, that had some struggles in school, taking a little longer then most to graduate, and one that many discounted from possible success including at times even me. He said “Jim, Seneca did such a good job preparing me for the work world and I owe it all to you so thank you so much for what you gave me”. That would sure be enough for anyone I guess as an acknowledgement of what you as a teacher were able to give a student but that is NOT what makes it the most special to me. It is the fact that Adam was my first blind student to graduate from the radio program, and he made it despite all the obstacles he faced. He made it and I was able to be a part of it and that was cool!

SWF
Today, fulltime faculty will notice that your summer SWF’s are in your mailboxes and you will notice that in all cases we are all doing just a little bit more. We have less money in the budget and expenses have in all cases gone up. Fulltime faculty utilization was the only answer, so thank you in advance for your support. If you have any questions about your SWF or need help in understanding it I would be happy to help in anyway.

March 2004
The Passion of the Christ was in the theaters and the price of gas was around 90 cents per litre and on the morning of the 10th, as we were making our way through what was another busy semester at SCA, we learned that a much loved colleague had lost his battle against serious health problems related to diabetes and passed away. Big John Small was a much loved teacher, broadcaster, ad man and music lover who touched many of our lives. If you ever had the pleasure to meet him, you would understand that the “BIG” in his name was not only a reference to his size, but also acknowledged the size of his heart and mind. I was very lucky to work along side John on a number of projects and among the many things he taught me, he always reminded me to take pride in the small things and always do my best. I often catch myself, when faced with a hard life decision, asking, “what would John say”. I am happy to report he has never steered me wrong with his advice. Thanks John for having been a part of my life. (For an article written by Jan Crowley about John, follow this link – http://www.senecaalumni.ca/pdf/Magazine17-2004-1.pdf to page 22)

In closing
I have heard about this for a long time, but tried it for the first time this week and recommend it highly! If you are having a not so good day, and you happen to be going to the bank machine and there is a crowd of people behind you, try this…

When the machine gives you the money say loud enough so that everyone hears you “I won!! I won!” and then walk out and see the smiles… Just a thought!

Thanks! 8 (+1) down and 6 (+1) to go.
Jim