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