News

Chancellor Mandel

As you are no doubt aware our Chancellor Stephen Mandel has announced his candidacy for the leadership of the Alberta Party. Our Board Executive has discussed this, and Stephen has had discussions with various individuals, including myself. Stephen Mandel continues as CUE’s Chancellor and we will continue to engage with him, making future decisions as circumstances dictate.

Meetings with Minister Schmidt

I have had two recent meetings with Minister Schmidt, in late December and last week. I was accompanied by Stephen Mandel, Mike Wade, and students Ian Lee and Laura Hebert to the December meeting. At this meeting we asked that the Minister include us in the tuition backfill that will be made available to public institutions in the 2018-19 budget year. He listened attentively and after some discussion told us that he would take the request under consideration. My January meeting with Minister Schmidt was with the other Independent Academic Institution presidents, with the exception of Loren Agrey from Burman who was not able to attend. The purpose of this meeting was to update him on some of the various challenges our sector is facing. We discussed funding, tuition, and access to Alberta Capital Finance Authority loans.

Centre for Science, Research and Innovation

The CSRI continues to be on schedule and on budget, despite some cold weather over the break that produced a slight delay on some of the exterior work for a period of time.

Visit to the University of Porto

I am spending the next week in the Office of the Rector at UPorto learning from their processes and promoting CUE. This is an excellent opportunity to visit what is possibly our most important European partner at little cost to CUE, as the Erasmus+ program funds airfare and accommodation costs. The objectives of this trip are:

1) To exchange information with the Reitor of University of Porto (UPorto) in the areas of university administration and management, academic leadership, research leadership, international relations leadership, student services administration, financial leadership, working with the senior administrative team, institutional advancement, and university governance.

2) To observe the structure and functions housed in the office of the Reitor of UPorto in order to inform practice in the President’s Office at CUE.

3) To exchange information with Vice-Reitors on effective practices at UPorto.

4) To visit Faculties at UPorto that align with the five faculties at CUE, including Arts, Science, Management, Education, and Graduate Studies for the purpose of information exchange with the Deans of each of these Faculties.

5) To explore areas of further cooperation between UPorto and CUE.

Northlands

I have contracted Peter Milne to put together a space usage plan for approximately 10 acres of the Northlands site that we will then provide to Edmonton Councillors Cr. Tony Caterina and Cr. Mike Nickel by the end of this month. These Councillors will then champion CUEs interests with City Council based on our submission.

Dual degrees

Just prior to Christmas we signed our very first two agreements to offer dual degrees with foreign partner universities. Concordia students, we hope starting in Fall 2018, can register for a CUE Bachelor of Management that, in four years, will also give them a Bachelor in Management from the prestigious Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) in China. Students do one year at CUE, two years at BFSU, and the fourth year at CUE to receive dual degrees, one from each institution. The second dual degrees agreement is with French partner Universite de Bretagne -Sud (UBS), a historic and unique offer in Alberta and according to our preliminary research, possibly unique in Canada! When the details have been finalized CUE students will register for the CUE BA/French and study for two years at CUE followed by a year at UBS to get our BA and UBS’ Licence en Lettres Modernes, a Bologna Agreement Europe-wide recognized degree equivalent to the BA. Both dual degrees have potential for immense formal and soft competencies and skills, opening doors for jobs in a globalized world.

Fundraising

To date our capital campaign has raised approximately $700,000 towards the Centre for Science, Research, and Innovation through the Accelerate! campaign. We are aiming for an additional $2.5 million this calendar year. Fundraising is a team sport and we all need to take responsibility and play a role. Our consultant Rhonda Newman is working extremely hard and is doing a wonderful job, but she needs your help. Please contact her at Rhonda@newmanconsulting.ca to get involved. Lets raise $2.5 million together this year!