News

Canadian University Survey Consortium (CUSC) results

Last month I reported that the 2018 CUSC survey was once again highly complimentary with respect to our work, and that we were in the process of comparing the results to those of previous years. This task has been completed, and I am proud to note the following results, which are a marked improvement over the last time a graduating class was surveyed in 2015.

CUE to host 2019 CCAA Women’s Soccer National Championship.

We have been selected to host the 2019 Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) Women’s Soccer National Championship, Nov. 6-9, 2019. This follows our successful hosting of the 2018 CCAA Badminton National Championships. The soccer Championship will take place at Clareview Field, on turf installed for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015. The eight-team tournament will include conference champions from the Pacific Western Athletic Association (PACWEST), ACAC, OCAA, Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) and Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association (ACAA) along with two wildcard teams. As host, Concordia is also guaranteed a place, although we wont need it as we plan to be Alberta champions. Thank you to both Joel Mrak and Barb van Ingen for their extraordinary work in putting together our successful application.

Senior administration retreat 2018: Cold Lake.

On July 30-31 I travelled to Cold Lake with our four Vice Presidents for our annual retreat. We stayed and held all of our meetings and sessions at the Cold Lake First Nation (CLFN) owned and operated hotel on CLFN land. We met with members of the CLFN Council and decided to negotiate an MOU whereby CUE will serve as a hub for Dene language and culture in Edmonton. This is an exciting partnership that offers genuine support to CLFN people living in Edmonton, while at the same time differentiating our work in the Indigenous area from that of other institutions in Alberta.

We spent a considerable amount of time improving how our senior team works together. Although we have a very healthy working dynamic within the team there is always room for improvement, and we engaged in a number of workshop activities designed to do just that. We also examined how we might improve school spirit at CUE, and generated some good ideas that you will see implemented over the next year, including direct invitations to you and your colleagues to various CUE events. The results of this two-day retreat certainly exceeded my expectations and we are now primed for another exceptional year ahead.

International update.

            This semester we have a Spanish teaching assistant visiting through our partnership with University of Malaga, her expertise will be used to compare teaching of Spanish as a foreign language in different countries.

With respect to upcoming exchange activities we have three students heading abroad (two to Coventry, and one to the Basque Country in Spain) and 32 exchange students will join us for Fall 2018 from 11 different countries. Dr. Sergey Butakov is heading to Szczecin (Poland) in October 2018 and Malgorzata Kopalska from Szczecin’s International office will Join us in September 2018 for a week, all through our Erasmus+ program partnerships.

Summer programs through our Centre for Chinese Studies are once again proving to be very successful. The 2nd Chinese Teaching Summer Seminar was conducted on July 5- 6 with 17 Chinese teachers from Edmonton Public Schools, the Calgary Board of Education, St. Albert Public Schools, and Chinese Heritage Schools. The CCS received 33 Chinese students from CNU, QLNU, and SWU to take credited courses in Education and Arts from July 13 to August 24. Our Centre for Chinese Studies is now preparing a “Chinese Stories” art exhibition in the library to run from Oct 1 to 31.

The Centre for Science, Research, and Innovation.

This project still remains on budget, but it has fallen badly off schedule. We have expressed our strong displeasure to both Cyrcorp, our project managers, and Delnor, the construction company, for this delay. We are being vigilant in holding both companies accountable and are using all levers available to us in order to accomplish substantial completion. I will not now provide a projected completion date as these companies have failed to meet multiple deadlines over the past number of months. We plan to move in on August 22 regardless.