#SenecaProud

#SenecaProud is a podcast dedicated to the multifaceted people that make up Seneca. It is co-produced by Seneca and Professor Pat Perdue. Read more about #SenecaProud Podcast

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#SenecaProud Podcast

Episode 9: Season 5 finale

Host Pat Perdue reflects on the conversations he had during Season 5 with Seneca faculty, staff and alumni, and how all of the stories he heard come back to Seneca’s mission of providing a great education to prepare our students for great careers.

Season 5 finale Interview

Pat Perdue (00:00): 

Hey, I'm Pat Perdue and I'd like to welcome you to season five of the SenecaProud Podcast. So much change , and now we're post pandemic. Are we though kind of maybe <laugh>? What's absolutely true is that the last few years have seen dramatic changes at Seneca College as well. The massive scope of the AuLarge project, which has been underway for a few years now, has been transforming Seneca into a college that embraces the highest standards of equity, diversity, and inclusion, as well as sustainability and flexibility. And this entire initiative is to ensure Seneca College is ready for the demands of the future. And with the popularity of AI and other new technologies, the future is becoming the present really quickly. And Senecans are leading the way in this brave new world, which brings us to season five. In this season, like all of our seasons, we have some amazing guests who are putting their Seneca one skills to work and are making a real splash in their career and in the world. 

 

Pat Perdue (00:00): 

Hey, I'm Pat Perdue, and welcome to the final episode of Season five of the SenecaProud Podcast. I'm so glad you are here with me today. This has been a great season. We've had fantastic guests who shared their experiences at Seneca and how those experiences have impacted their lives and careers. What an honor it's been to get to talk with folks who are well into their careers and have them look back at their time at Seneca and reflect on how that time has helped form who they are today. And in this episode, we're going to take a look at all of our conversations this season, and we're going to try to uncover how it was that our alumni could use Seneca as such a powerful launchpad to their successful careers. So in preparing this episode for you, I listened to all the conversations, made tons of notes, and I have some theories. 

 

(00:55) 

So stick with me as we uncover how Seneca College, now Seneca Polytechnic, has been a launchpad for so many successful careers. Beginning with the end in mind, we'll hear at the end of this episode from President David Agnew about the Seneca Polytechnic mandate. A great education for a great career. So let's unpack that. 

(01:19) 

For a great education to be possible, you need great faculty, and to attract that faculty, the college itself needs to be a great place to work. The first couple of interviews I want to share with you are with people who are part of making Seneca Polytechnic a great place to work. The first is with Shahrzad Farzinpak . Shahrzad is not only chair of one of the largest schools in Seneca human resources and global business. Sharzad is also very influential in Seneca's efforts to be more sustainable. To do that, Shahrzad brings her extensive professional experiences in Iran before coming to Canada around 10 years ago, to inform her efforts in this area for Seneca. One minute in conversation with Shahrzad, and you know, our sustainability initiative is in good hands. Here's Shahrzad Farzinpak. 

 

Shahrzad Farzinpak (02:14): 

Well, when it comes to sustainability, although it's being accused of having a vague definition, it's always close to home. For me. It's always close to my heart. And the reason being that, so as you mentioned, my background is urban development and urban planning, and I have worked in this, uh, area for a while. When I was working as a consultant in infrastructure and construction area, it was really all about, so you're going to have this dam or you're going to create this powerhouse or select a site for this powerhouse. How can you minimize the impact on the, the local community, on the environment around it? Uh, how can you make sure that at the same time that, this is to be a profitable infrastructure. At the same time you are looking ahead and you're looking for the future generations so that you will minimize the impact on them, rather increase the positive impact for them. 

(03:12) 

And then when we were going through the transformation plan in business and business education, I just thought, okay, uh, although it's quite different, but at the same time, very much the same. So sustainability always has three aspects. Environmental, social, or economic, or you call it planet people, profit or planet people prosperity or triple bottom line, or in a more on the investment side, you, you want, you might call it E S G or environmental, social and governance, but they're really all the same thing. They're having the same message. And it's all about what, what we can do, how we can raise the awareness, and what actions we can take so that what we are doing right now, it will benefit us, but it doesn't take from future generations. It doesn't take what we can present to them or actually leave for them, uh, after we are done. So again, pretty much of the same thing. So I, it was a raise of hand and I was really excited to, to hear that you're going towards creating or developing more sustainable or more sustainability aware graduates. So yes, it's more work, but it's an exciting and definitely rewarding 

 

Pat Perdue (04:28): 

Work for sure. And it's so interesting how your time prior to Seneca Dovetailed with this wonderfully impactful work that you're doing at Seneca College today, which is, you know, sometime after you first began your time with Seneca College. I find that so fascinating and it's got to be very gratifying. 

 

Shahrzad Farzinpak (04:49): 

Well, Seneca is a great place. I was here as a student, I was here as a part-time prof. I was here at different roles, and it really feels like home. And I, I always thought that even as a student or any type of position that I got, everything that I'm doing has a purpose, has a meaning, and it's really resonates with me personally. I guess I've been here since 2014, and I hope that I continue being able to be a contributor to what Seneca is trying to achieve and accomplish. 

 

Pat Perdue (05:23): 

What I love about my conversation with Shahrzad is that at Seneca, Shahrzad found a way to bring her extensive knowledge, experience, and passion for sustainability to her role at Seneca. Seneca created the environment, Shahrzad created the opportunity, and we're all far better as a result. And that's why Seneca can attract the top talent that it does. 

(05:49) 

This next interview with Sabine Weber, professor in the Seneca School of Fashion, is another great example of how passionate thought leaders find their home at Seneca. Dr. Sabine Weber is one of Canada's leading authorities on how the garment industry impacts the environment. And prior to joining Seneca, she was a highly successful textile buyer in Germany and Switzerland. Her recent Canadian research study examines the amount of garments that are in Canadian landfills. Here's Sabine with more on that: 

 

Sabine Weber (06:24): 

If you look at the textile waste, and you know, the garments are only being worn seven times, and then they may be end up in the garbage bin, you know, what is the condition of those clothes? And what we found out in the dumpster dive study is that 65% of all those garments in this garbage are good. You could wear them, Pat, you and me, we could wear them, they would be fine. So we are actually throwing so many garments away, which could be, you know, easily reused. And I can't say 30% of those garments, which we found were in perfect condition, even with the price tag 

 

Pat Perdue (07:07): 

If you know, I know this is an, this is an audio podcast, and did you see my jaw drop? Sabine we're doing this on video. Uh, my jaw dropped when you said that. I was shocked, with the price tag still on it. 

 

Sabine Weber (07:21): 

Yes. And you wonder how is this coming? So for example, it sounds really crazy, but for example, we found a lot of underpants in perfect condition. And then you, you start thinking, you know, why do we find so many underpants, which have never been used? But then you have to think about how are we consuming underwear? So very often people buy them without trying, and very often you buy three at the same time because they're in multiple packages being sold. So you buy a pack of three underpants. At home, you try the first one, and you recognize, oh, the fit is not great, and what are you doing? Well, what can you do? Right? You don't feel like, oh, should I really donate my underpants at a secondhand retailers who sell underwear? There are, but you wouldn't even think about it. And then maybe you feel a little bit embarrassed. 

(08:15) 

I cannot bring my underwear, you know? So what are you doing? You put them in the garbage. And then there you have up two brand new from your package of three, which nobody has ever even worn. And they, yeah, they're lying there. And this is, wow, the interesting part. You look at this garbage and you see things and then your brain starts working. What has happened? You know, what was going on? Why do we find this? And of course, the material is manufacturing. We found a wedding dress. I mean, why would you put your wedding dress in the garden? 

 

Pat Perdue (08:48): 

<laugh>, there is a story behind that wedding dress. I am sure of it. 

(08:53) 

Sabine is a great example of a fantastic professor who, like Shahrzad, has been able to go beyond a predefined role and not only discover, but really lean into her passion and kind of create her own job and help make the world a better place. For that even to be possible, employees need to feel safe enough to take risks and to collaborate. 

(09:18) 

In our episode featuring Erin Dolmage, Mary Trant and Jamie Zeppa, all professors at Seneca at York, we talked about the value of collaboration in a safe place. Their award-winning round table discussions and initiative they created and maintain are a safe non-structured place where faculty can connect, learn and support each other without fear of being judged. Here's Erin Dolmage and Mary Trant with more about that. 

 

Erin Dolmage 

And amazingly, they've been incredibly positive, even when we're talking about really hard things. And a lot of us, you know, people do get tired and they want to have a moment to complain, and that's never really happened at the round tables. It doesn't become that space.  

 

Mary Trant (10:04): 

Thank you, Erin, you're, yeah, that's, I think that's really important because we've had a couple of guests. Um, we had someone come in from student conduct this as an example, and we were thinking, okay, we don't want this person to get kind of pounced on. We don't want all the faculty complaining about the student. It wasn't like that at all. It was really a, good conversation about how we can help each other and what we need to do. And they've all been really, really positive. 

 

Erin Dolmage 

And we sometimes use not to record them in order to sort of, maintain that space as a safe area for people. Um, we also put things into place if you are a, a precarious staff member or faculty member, that you don't have to ask the question. So we create lots of back channels so we can ask those questions for you, but then you can still get, you know, the answer from student conduct or whatnot. Um, so we're really cognizant though that asking hard questions is really important and having hard topics is really important, but it's also really important to protect the people in the room and make sure that they feel safe and taken care of, but still getting their answers. 

 

Pat Perdue (11:03): 

What I love about their round tables is that Erin, Mary and Jamie saw a need and just did something about it. And they didn't get permission, they didn't need it. 

(11:14) 

So what do you get when the professors and administrative staff feel safe enough to find ways to lean into their best selves at Seneca? You get students who feel safe enough to accept the challenge to chase dreams that maybe were put on the shelf or even discover a bigger dream than the one they started with. 

(11:35) 

Here's Winston Stewart, Seneca graduate and founder of the multimillion Dollar Security Company, Wincon Security on how his plans to become a police officer changed dramatically when he was challenged to think bigger, a lot bigger while a student at Seneca. Here's Winston Stewart. 

 

Winston Stewart (11:58): 

Everyone knew that, hey, you wanna get into policing, you're going to Seneca College. So I ended up there up at, uh, the lovely King campus along with, you know how many other students from across Canada with aims of, Hey, we're gonna become police officers. So, you know, during that time I've always, I started in security, working part-time security from the time I was actually 16 years old. So I've always been kind of in the security field. I remember when I got into security, I was not even old enough to get a security license, so, you know, I got a temporary security license. I'm not even sure if that was legal <laugh>. 

 

Pat Perdue (12:37): 

Well, at least you didn't fake your id. I was waiting for the story where I had to fake my id. <laugh>. 

 

Winston Stewart (12:42): 

No, no. So, you know, so the company gave me this temporary license. But you know, I ended up at Seneca again, because I wanted to go into policing. And unfortunately at that time, I guess the year prior, prior to that there was a, a freeze on public civil service hiring, right? So no police officers, no nurses, just because we're in a recession. So that's actually how I ended up at Seneca. And you're in that two years, I still had a focus on joining the police force, is just, which one was I gonna go to? And kind of started playing the waiting game for two years. And during that time, I realized with, you know, kind of just speaking to some of the professors there and they started pointing me to, Hey, look at what's happening in the private sector. So a lot of us didn't wanna look at that, you know, cuz everybody was like, Hey, this is what I wanna do. 

(13:33) 

But no one really wanted to look at the private sector. But I think because I was already in the private sector doing security, it made it a little bit easier for me to say, well, I wanna look at it. And we started looking at what was actually happening in Britain. We saw that at that time that the private industry in Britain was, security industry was blowing up. They were already having the challenges of, you know, the police and community police and already started to kind of shrink because it was the budgetary constraint and so on. So the, the private security industry and what that industry required was already starting to kind of blow up. I started really veering off my think and say, well, geez, you know what? I look at where I was working at that time, I, I was looking at the company that we were servicing, and I'm like, I think I really have a good enough relationship with that property manager and and so on to say, Jesus, if I thought about starting my own company, is that something that was feasible? 

(14:33) 

Would they even give me a shot or would they just laugh me out of the office? I mean, for you to, you're gonna get into, into security and you're gonna have contracts. Only big companies do this stuff, right? You know, the gall of this 21 year old kid to even think that you can even, you know, go that route was just, you're just dreaming. But I figured, hey, you know what, <laugh>, I won't know if I a unless I ask somebody's gotta, I gotta ask. Right? You know? So when I kind of figured, okay, let me just, you know, see if I can set up a meeting with that property manager and say, Hey, you know, present it, You know, and it was kind of one of these, Hey, you know what, if I was to get my stuff together, you know, I'm actually at Seneca, which they knew, right? 

(15:16) 

And I said, I'm studying law enforcement and all that stuff. And to be honest with you, I don't think if I didn't have that, if I wasn't in that program, that conversation wouldn't have gone anywhere, right? So as I'm talking to you right now, I'm actually realizing, wait a minute, that actually gave me some credibility because if I was not affiliated with Seneca College and with that program, the answer probably would've been no. But Seneca created a, a pathway, not only just for myself, because there's other students who I know didn't go into policing, but they actually went into other streams of the private industry, maybe not starting a security company, but they went into work for other security corporations. So there was a lot of streams that Seneca helped to open for myself and a lot of my other colleagues. But for me, definitely I can totally see and show how Seneca actually played a key role in me getting the start to where I am 30 years later. 

 

Pat Perdue (16:17): 

It's not uncommon that we have dreams for our future, of course! But life throws us a curve ball and those dreams get put on hold or maybe even cast aside. But in the right environment, those dreams can be picked up again. Here's television producer, writer, content creator, actress Isabel Kanaan telling us about how her dream of being on TV while growing up in the Philippines faded when her parents decided to immigrate to Canada, but then resurfaced while she was at Seneca. Here's Isabel Kanaan with her story. 

 

Isabel Kanaan (16:55): 

Well, in the Philippines we had a, what's that called? An assignment to create. So write and perform a monologue based on one of the books that we were reading at the time. And I loved it. I made people cry and I was like, yeah, buddy <laugh> 

 

Pat Perdue (17:13): 

<laugh>.  

 

Isabel Kanaan (17:15): 

And I wanted to get into the theater scene in the Philippines, but then, surprise, surprise, we moved. 

 

Pat Perdue  (17:21): 

Right? Or your parents moved and you're like, yeah, okay, I'll tag along. 

 

Isabel Kannan (17:24): 

<laugh>. Yes, actually, no, they were more like, you're coming. So <laugh>. So we came to Canada on my last year of high school. I had to apply for college or university. And at that time I was like, well, there goes my dreams because I did not think that I was going to go into acting here. 

 

Pat Perdue (17:45): 

That had to have been crazy like the last year of high school in a totally different country. 

 

Isabel Kanaan (17:53): 

Oh yeah. I was like, I was the new kid. No one was even paying attention to me, the new kid in grade 12. And no, everyone was already in college mode. So I was just like hanging there for one year. I got one year and then I get to make new friends and they <laugh> they will accept me as well. 'Cause I was trying, but at the same time it was like, no, everyone's already outta the game. 

 

Pat Perdue (18:18): 

But you still, even at that point, you knew you wanted to go into performing. And did that, did that dream, did that intention carry over when you came to Canada and you were in like, kind of thrown into grade 12? 

 

Isabel Kanaan (18:29): 

No, it very much stopped.  And, you know, when you're in the Philippines, Canada, or North America, that to me was Hollywood. And I was like, well, I'm not gonna make it in Hollywood. Uh, because, you know, at the time too, there weren't people like me in Hollywood, like Filipinos back in the day weren't really doing that scene, or at least they weren't given the opportunities to mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so I just didn't do it. Ah, it was only after the fact that I think I, I've been in Canada for a couple years, so the culture shock has kind of died down at that point. I've found my footing here in Canada. Right? Only then. And I met someone who, who just graduated the Seneca program for the acting for camera and voice program at Seneca. And he was telling me all about it. And at that time I was at York University for, uh, what was I even doing at the time? Math or, okay. At that point I think I switched already to philosophy. 

 

Pat Perdue (19:38): 

Okay. 

 

Isabel Kanaan (19:39): 

Basically, I was trying to find my love, you know, my passion Only when Seneca opened up with this camera program that I was like, Ooh, let's try my hand there. And that was it. The, that was it. That was it for me. 

 

Pat Perdue (19:58): 

And when you decided, ooh, let me try in my hand, that was the sort of the reconnection or the reaffirmation of this dream that you had kind of put on the shelf for a bunch of years. 

 

Isabel Kanaan (20:09): 

Yeah, it really is. And to be honest also, the industry when I went into Seneca was starting to be more diverse than what it was. Okay. And so I saw an opportunity that, okay, this is starting to open up for people like me and here's this opportunity, Ima take it. 

 

Pat Perdue (20:31): 

That was Seneca graduate. Isabel Kanaan. Not only did she take that opportunity, she ran with it. And what about when you're called to a purpose higher than you even knew existed? Seneca graduate and CEO of Toronto's Daily Bread food Bank came to Seneca to learn his passion for building houses. And little did he know that would lead to his becoming the youngest CEO in the history of Habitat for Humanity. Here's CEO of the Daily Bread, food Bank, and Seneca graduate, Neil Hetherington. 

 

Pat Perdue (21:06): 

There's so much more I would love to talk to you about around Daily bread Food Bank and food insecurity in Toronto. I do want to touch on your story, though. You're a Seneca, which is amazing. Can you share with us a little bit about your time at Seneca College? 

 

Neil Hetherington (21:19): 

Yeah, I'm a very proud Seneca Alumnus. Seneca. I went to Seneca after, the University of Western Ontario. And I had summer jobs and, and the summer job that I had was essentially in construction. I was doing little renovations. It started off with window cleaning, then painting, and then suddenly we're doing, renovations and roofing. And we had no clue what we were doing, but we knew that we enjoyed it. We, we literally would do these summer jobs, or we'd go to the library and rent Bob Vila VHS cassettes and, uh, and watch how to do, how to do a roof. We'd watch the video and then the next day try to, uh to, to do it. And Seneca was where I was able to, uh, take what I was passionate about, which is construction and actually learn how to do it. And, I, we had a wonderful program director. 

(22:11) 

His name was John Owens, or his name is John Owens. And he put up with me in, in class. And over the course of my tenure, at Seneca, was able to get a, um, uh, a certificate in building construction and regulations, which led me to a job at, uh, Tridel Construction, a great condominium builder in, in Toronto. But even better, it was when I was 25, uh, that the ultimate construction job came up. And that was to be the CEO of Habitat for Humanity. And a great man that I missed very much. Nick Volk was the board chair, and he hired me as ceo even though I was 25 and had no idea what I was doing. so that was the trajectory, and it all started from, from a classroom at Seneca. 

 

Pat Perdue (23:00): 

And finally, here's a global news, Queens Park Bureau Chief, Colin D'Mello, one of Canada's top political reporters on his time at Seneca and how it launched his very successful trajectory as a news reporter in Canada. Here's Colin with his story and the important role Seneca played. 

 

Colin D'Mello (23:20): 

So my experience at Seneca College was incredible, right? Uh, I didn't really know coming out of high school exactly what I wanted to do, but I had a feeling that broadcasting or entertainment or something related to the stage or acting or something related to that was going to be something that I was going to pursue. I just didn't know exactly what it was. I found this broadcast journalism program at Seneca College. I enrolled, I got accepted and I was like, okay, great. Like I'm, I'm excited for this. I really was interested in news, but I I, I didn't really know how interested I was. I probably was at Seneca for maybe a month and a half to two months, and I was like, oh my God, this is it. This is exactly what I want to do. This is like, I found everything that I wanted to do. 

(24:07) 

Like I was so enamored with the program and for the first time, really, I was excelling. Like I was excelling. I was coming home and I was proud to show my my, my parents my grades because I was just doing so well. Everything that I did at Seneca, I felt like I excelled at. And what was great was I had amazing teachers who were in broadcasting at the time, so I could turn on the radio and listen to them, turn on the TV and watch them. And, and I knew that I was learning from people who not only had real world experience, but had current world experience that I could actually, you know, tune into. And that was so, such a wonderful thing to experience. And there was so much encouragement. So whenever I did anything related to broadcast, I would perform in a way that was very natural to me. 

(24:57) 

And my professors would come back and say that, wow, that was amazing. That was great. And so a light bulb went off in my head one day and I thought, well, look, TV seems to be fairly easy for me. It seems like no matter what I do, I get good praise. So I thought maybe I wanna work on the most important thing, which is the delivery of the actual words. So I said, okay, maybe the best way to do that wouldn't be to go into tv would be to go into radio. And so I started out my career in New Brunswick, working for a, a set of three radio stations that were all interconnected at the time in Moncton, Halifax, and St. John. And it gave me my, my launching pad, right? But I had to learn so much about how to deliver things in just the right way. 

(25:42) 

So if, if you go back and if I go back and listen to some of that, I don't sound nearly as polished as I do today, because it was important for me back then to just work on what was at that point, the basics. But what was great about Seneca was it was, it was a two year program and it allowed me to graduate at the, at the age of 19. And because it graduated in 19 and got the foundations of what I needed to enter the broadcast world, I am where I am today because I started off when I was the age of 19. And in two years I was able to rise through the ranks of being just a reporter to a reporter and an anchor on the weekends. And then it came time to kind of jump ship and I bought a job without applying at, uh, at, at six 80 News in Toronto. 

(26:30) 

And I did everything from work overnights to work as the weekend reporter and anchor. And eventually I got to be the, the city hall reporter when Mayor Rob Ford was first elected. And it was, you know, all of was possible because I got this jumpstart in my career when I was the age of 19. And when I was at Seneca, I had the wherewithal and the foresight to do two things. One, to focus on radio, focus on my voice first. And two, leave the bubble of broadcasting, which is Toronto, and go to a small market so I could hone my craft and get, you know, bigger opportunities as a result. And so I was able to kind of play Hopscotch to get to CTV news in really not a long period of time, right? So it was a pretty, pretty big leaps for me. And, and the reason I was able to do that was because, you know, I made those two very, you know, crucial decisions at a young age. And a lot of that was, you know, getting that launching pad at Seneca College and having the right set of instructors to kind of shape my mindset to know what was important and what might have not been important at that point in my career so that I could really leap forward. 

 

Pat Perdue (27:37):  

That was Global News Queens Park Bureau Chief, Colin D'Mello. What I love about his story is that while he was at Seneca, he learned focus and he's been focused ever since with amazing results. In all of this, none of it is by accident. The final voice I'll leave you with is Seneca President David Agnew, talking about Seneca of tomorrow, or more specifically Seneca over the next three years, as defined by the Three Year Strategic Plan with focus on the student and employee experience. Here's Seneca Polytechnic president, David Agnew. 

 

David Agnew (28:18): 

So what we've really put as, as kind of our top priority in the new strategic plan is building on all of the work that we've done to make sure that every graduate coming out of Seneca is work ready, job ready, career ready. So we've, you know, we've always been proud of what we've done in the sort of the co-op internship placement, but we've got, we wanna do more. And we wanna make sure that, you know, virtually every student who comes through this place has some kind of exposure to the workplace that they'll be, that they're, you know, that they're aiming for before they leave. And we're, we're not there. And so we, we want to, we want to get there. We want to put a big, and I gave you the example of a service hub. I, we wanna put a big emphasis on, on student experience. And we want to put a big emphasis on employee experience to make sure our employees feel valued that they have development opportunities, that they have, you know, kind of a, a sense of, of growth and development as they come through us. And, and that's, you know, that's, that's partly selfish as an organization 'cause you know, it's a, it's a war out there for talent. Um, and, and it's not just about, you know, recruiting. It's about, uh, you know, retaining and, and, and developing and nurturing and, which all of course relates a lot to respecting <laugh> and listening. So that's very important to us. We think there's huge benefit in kind of engaging our alumni more. I mean, they're this amazing resource out there. They're doing extraordinary things. They can add so much value to our programs, to our, you know, to our classrooms, to our graduates as, you know, as employers. 

(29:52) 

So that's, that's very important to us. And of course, we're, you know, we're, we're not, again, I mean, we, we build this on the foundations. Um, you know, we've gotta, we've invested a lot and we're gonna continue to invest in the quality of our programs. We've got an an amazing digital strategy that helped us through the pandemic in a, in a way that I think put us in the leadership of the system. And we, we, you know, intend to continue that leadership. We've got ambitious capital programs so we can continue to have great spaces for people to come to, yes, great classrooms, labs, equipment, but also just great places to be. So we've got a, you know, a health and wellness center that we've got on the books for Newnham. Uh, we're gonna re, uh, rebuild Garriock Hall up at King, really, you know, putting a, a lot of our resources into, into making sure that the student and the employee experiences is terrific. 

 

Pat Perdue (30:41): 

That was Seneca President David Agnew. As I'm recording this, the news is very newsy. There are forest fires unprecedented in size, raging in many parts of Canada, impacting air quality across North America and even Europe. Very likely the result of climate change. AI in the form of chat GPT and others has burst onto the scene and promises, some might say threatens to impact our lives in profound ways. For Toronto, Canada, and the world to survive and thrive. It will be the result of leaders with vision and commitment of purpose. So, in spite of there being so much news in the news, I feel pretty positive, because institutions like Seneca Polytechnic are here creating opportunities for all of us to discover our best selves. To accept the challenge and make this world better. 

(31:44) 

And that's a wrap for season five of the SenecaProud Podcast. I'd like to thank everyone associated with the show this season. Of course, the fantastic guests who provided their time and their expertise in joining the show and sharing their journeys. I'd like to thank Seneca College for sponsoring this podcast in particular, Corey Long, Ryan Flanagan and Constance Adams for all your help this season. I'd also like to thank Courtney Rheaume for her help in editing many of these episodes. And most of all, thank you for listening. Until next season, I'm Pat Perdue. Stay proud Seneca. 

Past Episodes