News

New Vice President Finance and Operations appointed.

Congratulations to Mr. Rizwan Kanji who was the successful candidate for the position of Vice President Finance and Operations following an extensive national search aided by professional search firm Boyden. He comes to us with an excellent background as a Chartered Accountant with varied experience, a community volunteer committed to service, a sportsman, and someone who puts students first. We look forward to working with Riz for many years to come.

President’s mission to Europe.

I recently returned from a successful trip to Europe. Using my PD money I attended a research retreat of the Consortium of Inclusive Teacher Education and Development group at the Monash University campus in Prato, Italy. Given my proximity to some of our partners I took the opportunity to get on the train and visit the Institute de Lorenzo Medici in Florence, the University of Pisa, The Bern University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland, and Sciences Po at the University of Strasbourg in France. In each instance we discussed ways of breaking down barriers for Concordia’s students to study at their institutions.

Round Dance success.

Our third round dance, held this past Saturday, was our most successful yet. Although it became impossible to track numbers, our gym was full throughout the evening. Danielle Powder and Dr. Barb van Ingen and their team did a wonderful job organizing the event, and were it not for a large number of dedicated and hard-working volunteers the event would not have been possible. Our Elders also played their part in making the evening a success. Thanks also to our Faculty of Education who were particularly prominent at the event, with a large number of faculty and almost 100 Education students in attendance, both undergraduate and graduate.

Campus Master Plan.

With the very large influx of students to Concordia in recent years, space has become a challenge. In order to approach this issue in an organized manner our architect Janusz Najfeldt has revised our campus master plan, presenting a draft of his work for feedback at a town hall event this past Tuesday. Extensive building is required over the next 10 years, at a cost of approximately $64 million in today’s dollars. Although we do not currently qualify for Alberta Capital Finance Authority loans or government capital grants, we will get there somehow. Those who attended and who wish to provide feedback on the campus master plan may do so at president@concordia.ab.ca    

State of the University Address.

Last week I delivered our third annual State of the University Address. I included a lot of information, and even so this was a mere taste of what is happening at CUE. For next year I’ll be looking at how I can modify the address and perhaps change the format, while still providing this important information to our community.

International update.
CUE hosted our second annual Africa Day last week in Tegler, which was a great success. In further efforts to support our international students the international Office has hosted a mandatory check-in for exchange students along with a few sessions for all international students related to careers, acculturation, writing skills and library services.

We have signed new Erasmus agreements with Athens and Salamanca, and there is also a new call for UPorto. Study Abroad applications have closed for Winter 2020. We received 6 applications and the students are looking forward to heading out to visit our partners.

A representative from Mittweida University of Applied Sciences (partner university in Germany) will be on campus on Monday for a friendly visit regarding our partnership.

Our VPEI, Dr. Manfred Zeuch, is back from an intensive 3-week trip in Europe (Germany, Poland and Finland) with meetings and visits to existing, new, and possible future partners.

Extension and Culture:

A painting class and Moon Festival celebration were conducted by the OEC on

September 13 for CUE’s International students. About 40 of CUE’s our international students participated, and each one drew a beautiful moon of their hometown.

Concordia Concert Choir’s 2020 China Tour Fundraising kicked off on September 27. The Choir is going to visit CUE’s five partners in China from April 24 to May 13, 2020. Stay tuned for more ways to help make this dream come true for each of our students.