News

This month’s report is brief, having already provided considerable information to our community at events marking the beginning of our academic year.

Okanagan Charter signed

As a leader in evidence-informed research, Concordia University of Edmonton (CUE) is committed to providing a healthy environment to live, learn, work, and play. CUE is proud to have adopted the Okanagan Charter: An International Charter for Health Promoting Universities and Colleges. I signed the statement of adoption on August 20, 2018, following a year long review of the initiative. Visit concordia.ab.ca/healthycue for more information.

Smoke free campus

On September 1 our entire campus became a smoke-free environment. This makes sense given that we are a health-promoting campus and that tobacco use is very high amongst university aged adults in Canada. We join Kings University, NAIT, and Norquest in Edmonton in becoming smoke-free. The purpose of this movement is to improve health and well-being by educating and highlighting the impact of smoking products to the health of the user, of those around them, as well as to the environment.

Phones

Some people have noticed that we are also not automatically placing landlines in faculty offices in the CSRI, although there are phones for general use available in the various centers and labs in that building. We are slowly, likely over the course of years, migrating our campus to a software-based phone system as handsets wear out (we are not removing existing functional handsets from offices). This is a highly flexible system that works through computers or as an app on your cell phone. You can also have voicemail emailed to you. You retain your CUE landline number and improved functions, but without the presence of a physical handset. Why? Landlines are expensive to provide and maintain, and like fax machines are increasingly not being used. Each one represents an expense that might not be necessary. That said, some people are frequent users of landline phones. If you are in this category and can demonstrate that you absolutely need one to do your job we are not opposed to continuing to provide you with a landline phone. Our hope is, however, that this will become an increasingly rare event.

The Centre for Science, Research, and Innovation.

We now have possession of this building and welcome all members of our community into it. Student spaces are located throughout the building, most significantly in the Design Thinking space and the Indigenous Knowledge and Research Centre. As things progress, we will see ever increasing use of this space. It promises to enhance our work in significant ways.