Challenge Accepted: the 2020-21 Annual Report

Message from the Board Chair and President

On March 12, 2020, we informed Seneca employees that classes were being cancelled for one week to allow faculty to prepare to teach online for two weeks. Five days later, the premier declared a state of emergency, and those two weeks of going remote turned into an entire year.

These extraordinary circumstances set the tone for the 2020-21 fiscal year. The efforts of the entire Seneca team focused on what needed to be done to navigate the pandemic safely while continuing to provide our students a great polytechnic education, whether they were in Toronto, Halifax or Seoul.

As a community, we mourned those lost to COVID-19. We witnessed hurt, both emotional and economic, among students and employees, family and friends, as the restrictions stretched on for months, disrupting everyday life.

Seneca stepped up to help. We always do. Students and graduates were on the front lines supporting the most vulnerable in society. We donated medical supplies, partnered with North York General Hospital to host a vaccination clinic at the Newnham Campus gym and opened up our arena to North York Harvest Food Bank as a food depot.

Students and employees alike leaned in to the challenges of the pandemic with incredible results. We tapped into a deep vein of creativity and innovation as teaching, learning and working remotely went from an option to mandatory.

We also continued to build our international partnerships, academic pathways and applied research capacity — highlighted by the launch of the Centre for Innovation in Life Sciences.

The pandemic also presented an opportunity for us to examine as an institution what we do, and how we do it. Our goal was nothing less than to emerge from the pandemic an even stronger and vibrant Seneca. The results of this community-wide exploration have set our course for the future, focusing on equity, sustainability and being more virtual. 

Through it all, we never lost sight of our critical mission of supporting our students, making sure they continued to progress towards graduation. And thousands did graduate.

While the pandemic continues, Seneca’s great progress during this past year owes everything to the unwavering dedication, creativity and resilience of our community. The pandemic presented one of the greatest collective challenges of our lifetime, and together we accepted those challenges.

We are pleased to share the results of our collective efforts in the 2020-21 Annual Report.