Confessions of the Acting Associate Chair – Week 5

What a GREAT week! This was a very busy one, but all said and done, I sure feel like we accomplished some things, including this Friday 13th version of the Confessions e-mail.

Triskaidekaphobia
The fear of the number 13… To those who subscribe to this and other phobias (friggatriskaidekaphobia – the fear of Friday the 13th), the good news is, the day is almost done. This week Jed and the other Chairs in FIAT, along with our dean have been in some mad, number crunching meetings around the budget and there is no word yet if the fear factor played a role. I don’t want to start a rumour, but 3 chairs went in this morning, and only 2 came out… More news on the budget to come over the next few weeks but one thing is certain. We will need very careful in the upcoming three semesters to utilize our resources well.

HOMAD
On Monday I spent the day at Mohawk College for the HOMAD meeting – “Heads of Media and Design”. All the Ontario colleges with media and / or design programs are part of this group and reports back to the VP academic group. We spent the day talking about issues such as enrolment, marketing budgets and how the economy is playing a part in it all. One thing is clear when you meet other people doing the same or similar things across this province is that we are all facing the same issues, and I sure feel more then ever that Seneca is a leader, playing active role in organizations like this.

Coordinator’s meeting
Thanks to all the program coordinators and a few acting and students’ advisors for attending our first meeting of this semester (thanks for the chocolate Anna!). We had some great conversations about a number of pertinent topics including the budget, subject outlines, the SCA webpage and application numbers.

A couple of things that came out after the meeting such as the need for a SCA wide – skills bank database and some clarification on the standardized subject outlines. In answer to the skills database, Joseph Bodick and I will be sitting down next week to setup a quick online survey that all SCA faculty will be asked to take part in. The result will be the start of the ongoing School of Communication Arts Skills bank database that we can then use to quickly fill the needs of our incredible group of programs.

As for the Subject outlines, I will be very busy next week with coming up with a new approach / strategy to gathering all the subject outline information for all the SCA programs, then working with Kelly and Isabelle on the uploading of the data to the appropriate webpages. Look for more information coming from your program coordinators.

Back to Class
Thanks to JoAnn Purcell for the invite to a 1st semester Arts Fundamentals class, where I had a great time admiring some very talented student work of a still life of some fruit. I almost picked up a brush and gave it a try, but felt more comfortable watching. I did however learn something… If you want to make a colour darker it is better to add any other dark colour but not black… Who knew! OK all but me, but still that’s cool. I am going to buy a set of brushes in anticipation of another invite to a drawing class… I can’t wait!

I also brushed up on some Photoshop skills in Richard Slavin’s CAB class this week and thank him and his students for reminding me that I need a lot of work on my photoshop skills. His class was filled with a bright bunch of question asking advertising students that where fun to watch and listen too. With his straightforward approach, its obvious why he was selected by students in this month’s BUZZ newspaper as “Professor of the Month”. Congratulations Richard!

New Programs…
The Acting for Camera and Voice, the Illustration program (submitted by SCA), and the Independent Writing course (submitted by ELS) were all approved at the dean’s level this week and now need to prepare for presentation to the Seneca’s Boards new program committee. It is not clear when we will be able to present, because of some very full agendas but we are hoping to have one of the programs ready for the next meeting, with a projected start in September.

In Closing
I wanted to find something nice to close with this week, having Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and the fantastic Family Day holiday on Monday, I started waxing poetically about love, and family and jotted down this (with apologies to lovers of the English language):

Very superstitious, writing on the wall
Love with Red and no black
Pictures in the hall

Very superstitious, it’s written in the hall
Happy Mondays’ a holiday
Home with family, we’ll have a ball

I think next week, I should be visiting an ELC class, just to brush up a little…

Thanks! 5 down and 9 to go.
Jim