#SenecaProud

 

Pat Perdue 

Hey, I'm Pat Perdue, and I'd like to welcome you to season four of the SenecaProud Podcast. Okay, so COVID isn't quite a thing of the past, but it's gonna be. And that's great news, because we've got our sights set on an amazing future. And I hope you do too. Students will be returning to classes, little by little classes will be offered in a more inclusive way, using leading edge technologies. And we're getting set for an incredibly bright, inclusive, equitable future. And the future is what Seneca proud Season Four is all about. Everything from the near term future of life at Seneca College, in a post pandemic world, it's going to be pretty great to what life after Seneca means. And hey, if you're a student, I get that life after Seneca is something that's on your mind. What are you going to do? Are you going to measure up to the competition? And what can you do today to really set yourself up to succeed? To help with those questions. This season includes graduated Seneca students who have been out there doing their thing for at least a few years. We'll hear their ups and their downs, and what you can do to help set yourself up for success. So if you haven't already, subscribe, and download and join me as we consider the future and meet the people who are transforming dreams into reality. Because the next episode of Seneca proud starts now. 

Welcome to another episode of the Seneca proud Podcast. I'm Pat Perdue, and I appreciate that you decided to spend some time with me today. And guess what? It's spring. If you're listening to this podcast in Ontario, we are blessed with all four seasons and this time of year. Sometimes we can experience all four seasons in a single day. And on Sunday, the northern hemisphere of our home Earth experienced spring equinox, Sunday, March 20, at 11:33 Eastern Time to be specific. The Spring Equinox is when the sun passes over the equator and shines more light on the northern hemisphere. Interesting fact, on the equinox spring or fall, the length of day and night is equal in all parts of the world hence the word Equinox, which is Latin for equal night. Cool, right?

I mentioned this because what happens with the Earth has a huge impact, even on the smallest aspects of each of our lives, from the clothes we wear to the food we eat, to the way we choose to spend each day, what the earth is doing, or what is like outside can mean the difference between eating hot stew after a day of skiing, or grabbing a beer after a day at the beach. And that brings us to the topic of today's show climate. More specifically, what choices can we make every day, even in the seemingly smallest of moments that will contribute to the sustainability of our planet, like grocery shopping, you bring money or your bank card, because you know you're going to need it and you bring a bag because you know you're going to need that to small moments, important choices for a sustainable planet.

Seneca College also recognizes the importance of making sustainable choices in everything it does, from food services to construction projects, to how Seneca keeps its sidewalks safe for walking during the winter, and even to curriculum design. And what happens in the classroom. Seneca College through the new Office of Sustainability is moving toward a future where every decision is considered through the lens of sustainability. That isn't to say that this hasn't been happening in the past, because it 100% has been. But now there's an office dedicated to connecting the dots of standalone initiatives. And that brings us to our guests for today's show, who, along with their colleagues at the Office of Sustainability, are tasked with guiding Seneca along the sustainability journey. As you'll hear from our conversation, it's a huge job. And for our guests. It's not just a job. It's an expression of their mission in life. Okay, so let me tell you about our guests.

Courtney Hayes is the sustainability specialist in the operations department of the new Office of Sustainability. And on the day this podcast is published. She will have been in her role an entire month. Courtney has a BA in environmental and urban sustainability and her master's degree in sustainable management from the University of Toronto. Courtney also has experience in environmental consulting for clients in the IC and AI, industrial, commercial and institutional sectors to achieve environmental certifications, perform audits and reports and carry out engagement projects like internal trainings, webinars and events. Fun fact, Courtney is also a worm mom. She has a vermi compost bin. (That's a box of worms) in her front closet.

And we are also joined by Wai Chu Cheng. Wai Chu is the Sustainability Specialist in the curriculum department of the Office of Sustainability and has been in that role for a very short time, just a few days when we recorded this podcast, but brings with her a wealth of experience in this space. Wai Chu has been named by Canadian living as one of its 10 Amazing Canadians making the world a cleaner, greener place, and is the co founder of one of Canada's longest running repair cafes called the repair cafe with over 800 volunteers. The repair Cafe diverted nearly 3000 household items from landfills in 2019. Wai Chu was also Sustainability Co-ordinator at Sheridan College from 2013 to 2022. YG was nominated for the 2020 shared and people award purple ribbon category for purposeful creativity, and was also nominated as a Mission Zero hero last year, as well. A project Wai Chu led involving transforming to sites filled with popcorn into pollinator friendly gardens, was a national finalist for nature inspiration awards 2021 by Canadian Museum of Nature, Wai Chu has a master's degree in environmental studies, and a second master's degree in education.  In Wai Chu’s own words, “My passion comes from my love for the natural world, and the local and global community. I am part of.”

I'm so excited to share this conversation with Courtney Hayes and Wai Chu Cheng from the Seneca College Office of Sustainability. We begin our conversation with Courtney sharing what the Office of Sustainability is all about, and talking about what sustainability actually means. And then we move into Courtney's and Wai Chu’s specific roles. Okay, here’s Courtney.

 

Courtney 

To begin talking about the office is to provide a little bit of context, you know, beginning with defining sustainability a little bit for Seneca. So we're just making sure we think sustainability really is a practice that ensures you know, all your actions and decisions aligned with, you know, the three classic pillars of sustainability, you know, environmental integrity, economic resilience, and social justice, you know, in the form of equity and cultural diversity. So, that's what sustainability really is. And, you know, I know that the Office of Sustainability is new, and we just developed this robust sustainability plan. But I really want to point out that sustainability is not new at Seneca sustainability has been a huge part of Senecas culture, and there's been amazing projects that have been happening, you know, really brought forward by a lot of the staff and students and there's a lot of great partnerships, you know, shout out Aramark, you know, they've been doing a lot of good stuff in sustainability. So a lot of the partnerships that we already had, have had sustainability as part of that, but the Office of Sustainability is new. And to really show like that sustainability is a firm formal priority at Seneca now, right, so it's really showing that the leadership up to the top, really value sustainability. Now it's a core part of Seneca strategy. So now we have a new Office of Sustainability. And you know, even me coming in, seeing that they've built this new Office of Sustainability really just shows, you know that they care a lot. And it's really great to see you're putting your your money where your mouth is, or just seeing that that new office and how close it is to just folk the core of Seneca is really great. But we have the new Office of Sustainability at the which is building off of the sustainability plan. And the way that our office is set up is it is structured, kind of like our sustainability plan. So we have the four areas of action in sustainability, which is leadership, academics, community and operations. And the way that our office is set up is that we have Dawn forester who's our director, who is, you know, the captain leading this ship, who's really taking ownership of the leadership aspect of that. And then we have Paula, who is not a new face, she's a known face around Seneca campus, and she's working in the community area of things. And then we have myself and white Chu, who are doing myself as operations and why choose doing the academics portion of it. And our role really is to one, you know, implement these projects that we had laid out in our sustainability plan each of those areas. So really taking on those projects, but also working in a consultation and support role, to real formalize sustainability into all of our decision makings across all the different departments across Seneca campus and being a support role for different projects and stuff along the way, just to make sure you know, everything is sustainable. We're making sure sustainability is a part of everything that we're doing. So we're really kind of going to be touching on every aspect of of Seneca College.

 

Pat Perdue 

Amazing, no small task,

 

Courtney 

no small task sustainability is is huge. You gotta wear a lot of hats, but luckily, Senecas every team, you know, we've only been here for a short time, but every room that I've been in so far has been an amazing room to be in, and everyone is great to work with. So, you know, it's we're not alone. We have lots of great people to work with.

 

Pat Perdue 

Got it. Got it. Thank you for that. Amazing overview. Actually, it was so good and so concise. And Wai Chu, your role is sustainability specialist for academic programs. What does that mean?

 

Wai Chu 

Yes. And before I start, can I add a couple of comments about Darwin and pollen? Oh, yes. Yes.  On my first day, on Monday, I got to meet with Don and we had a chat about get to know him a little bit. And we talk about sustainability. And we talk about how we want embedding, we want to embed sustainability in across the campus in everything that we do in the classroom and outside the classroom. And Don talked about how sustainability is part of his life.  And he talk ed about that he grew up in a farm and he has to be, sustainability is just part of it. And it is just essential in his way of life. And it's just representing likelihoods and and I was quite impressed because I think to me, he's like a steward of the earth. And Paula also, I met her on my first day is Monday. And she was the one who remind me that, hey, do you know Starbuck's, you can bring your mug to the Starbuck to get a coffee. And so we no longer need to use single use cups anymore. So it's just really amazing that for me to be able to work with people like Don and Paula. So just just give you a sense of who they are and who our team is

 

Pat Perdue 

Amazing. And it sounds like knowing from your backgrounds and your bios, it sounds a lot like everybody in the Office of Sustainability is evangelistic about this.  This is really not just lip service. It's not just like a job that you do you show up in the morning, you do the thing, and then you leave during the day. It's the air that you breathe, no pun intended. And it's the food that you eat.  Like this is, you eat live and breathe this.   Would that be a correct statement? Wai Chu?

 

Wai Chu 

I think so. I think just who we are. And, and I, I think it's going to be really great to be able to work with and learn from all of you guys, Courtney, Don, and Paula.  And going back to Pat's question about my role. So I will be working with academic departments, faculty office to incorporate sustainability into the curriculum. And I will also be advising on creating immersive experiences for students. And a bit of my work involves developing a sustainability curriculum, micro teaching tools, and other classroom teaching and learning materials. And I will also be doing some kind of delivering faculty workshops, incorporating sustainability in the new or existing concept. And I will also be developing and co-ordinating communities of practices and potentially I'll be guest speaking in classes. Yeah, so a bit of different things, and, of course, developing research, apply research process projects for students. I'm excited about these kinds of responsibilities.

 

Pat Perdue 

I gotta say, it kind of sounds like a lot.

 

Wai Chu 

I am very interested in doing all these kinds of things, all these works.

 

Pat Perdue 

And, Courtney, you mentioned that your role and the roles, the titles are similar, except the end part is a little bit different. You're the Sustainability Specialist for Operations at Seneca. Can you describe what that is?

 

Courtney 

Yes, so my role as the Sustainability Specialist, and operations, you know, operations is basically the foundation of you know, what we do on campus, right? And so my role is to make sure that we do integrate sustainability into all the operations on campus, which is, you know, like you mentioned, a pretty large scope. So I'm not going to go into, you know, each function of that. But, you know, it's really the backbone that enables us to have better environmental performance and sustainable actions, you know, from building standards and building retrofits, campus gardens, improving the waste program, making sure what we purchase aligns with sustainability. So sustainability really informs all aspects of Seneca operations. So I will be collaborating and making relationships with students and employees as well as our community members, industry reps, and also like our service providers, so our waste haulers or food service workers, and you know, will support best practices and encourage innovation with, you know, everyone that we work with. So what my role really is, is helping formalize decision making to have sustainability be part of that. So whether it be you know, working on the projects that I have outlined in the plan, things like the energy and emissions management plan, the waste minimization reduction plan, sustainable transit and things like that, um, but also working on scope of works and RFPs, and different purchasing policies and agreements, really working with food services to have more locally and sustainably sourced food. So really everything to do with operations and trying to embed sustainability into like the formalized processes and policies and procedures so that even if I didn't exist, they would be able to have sustainability in their decision making. Even without me,

 

Pat Perdue 

As you describe that, I have to remind myself that you are one person, right? Because you just you almost described a job description for five or six people. It sounds like a really big job, because you have been in the role for a month when you cast your mind into it, does the scope of what you've just described. Is that intimidating for you? Or you're like, Whoa, man, what have I got myself into?

 

Courtney 

Yeah, to be transparent. It is a big scope and there was a lot and it was a little bit intimidating coming into the role, but then ss soon as I got into the role, and I had these meetings with all of the different departments, one, there was already so many amazing things to build off of, you know, it wasn't like it was a complete blank slate, and I was having to build an energy plan by myself and build a sustainability, procurement policy by myself, right, there was amazing people to work with. And it's really a support and consultation role, too. So being able to be in these team meetings for things that are already existing, and just integrating sustainability into that through collaborating with them. So it is a big a big task. But it's also, you know, you're working with great people. And a lot of my mentality going into it is looking at things in you know, big pictures of what is sustainability? What are the areas of environmental impact? What are our principles, the going inside? What do we need to measure and then just sticking that into every scope of work, every RFP every policy that we have, I'm just trying to slowly integrate it into that as well as doing these bigger projects, but really just kind of get sustainability, the hands on and all these different projects.

 

Pat Perdue 

And it's a process, right, it's not something that's going to happen overnight.

 

Courtney 

Exactly.

 

Wai Chu 

Me as well. I know that there's some great professors, they are really doing great work in integrating sustainability into their classes. And I'm going to also work with Center for Teaching and Learning to collaborate. And I know that they have a lot of expertise on curriculum design and integration. So I'm looking forward to meeting all the great people working together. And our work has started already. But it's going to be days and months, and years ahead.

 

Pat Perdue 

And Wai Chu, you come to this role, with a lot of experience in sustainability. You know, we talked at the top of our conversation about how for everybody in the department, it's it's not just a job, it's your life? What from your experience do you anticipate drawing from to inform what you do at Seneca?

 

Wai Chu 

That's a great question. Um, I have over 12 years teaching experience in the past, and in my teaching job early on, that was early on in my career, I also play the role in supporting staff development and teaching teacher training. So I have kind of, I kind of understand what it is like being inside the classroom, what the teachers or professors, thinking, you know, when they design a class, and I love doing that kind of imagination, because I just love creating great learning experience for students. And I completed two post graduate programs, one in Master of Education, in curriculum design, and the other one environmental studies, both of them has given me a lot of knowledge in thinking about how how to create student centered learning experience for students, and also understanding sustainability, sustainable development, as well. But what is something critical that happened in my time at in the, in Toronto, when I started live in Toronto, I started the Repair Cafe Toronto, co founded Repair Cafe, a few friends in 2013. That gave me a lot of insight into what a green community means, what it's like in education, when you come to a repair cafe, new see fixers, and volunteers working together with visitors to take things apart, to try to figure out how to repair broken house hold items. And so you see people bring along with them creative minds, trying to solve problems collaboratively, what they do is really representing how much they care about our stuff. Instead of one thing's getting out working, instead of just throwing it away and sending it to landfill. They try to repair it, they tried to bring it back to life and extend the lifespan of the of the items and made it work again. And so it's actually remind me how we can make it work in the classroom as well. It should be an invigorating environment, it should be something that is empowering it representing, you know, empowering students to become creative, and problem solving, and working together with each other and tenacity. And so that more I will be bringing to my job here. And I'm looking forward to, you know, meeting other fixers.

 

Pat Perdue 

And it's also I think what you're talking about, particularly with your Repair Cafe is a change of mindset.  Our go to is it's not working, throw it away, get another one. And it's a change of thinking. So, Courtney, I'm glancing at you right now. You know, you've got so many departments and operations, and there's so many small decisions that take place when you can't be present. So a bit of your role is also going to be or perhaps and I'm guessing, tell me if I'm incorrect, but it feels like a bit of your role might be impacting thinking, Is that a correct statement?

 

Courtney 

Yep. It is definitely a correct statement. This may be a controversial opinion. But I do think that everyone actually cares about sustainability as much as the people who are in this virtual room right now. There may just be different barriers to being sustainable or perceived barriers, or different priorities. We all have our different constraints, you know, our own time constraints, even, we have all we have a lot of other work that we have to do especially like if your role isn't just a sustainability role. So I feel like, especially with operations, a huge part of my role is to deliver that business case for sustainability. So not just adding on to their scope of work and not just telling them to, to get a biodegradable kind of food packaging, right? It's, why does this actually help you? And we may have different interests to kind of short term interests, but our values are the same.  And how can we make a plan that satisfies all of our of our interests? And if we can't do something right now, how can we create a plan to make it happen in the future, right? So it is a lot of mindset. And it is just being able to communicate and you know, read a room, know your audience, and speaking their language and be able to meet them where they're at, and work with what we have. Right? So, again, the teams that we're been working with so far, have shared that sentiment, too, and had been really open and transparent and human, to be honest, with really human conversations. We all especially now, understand the importance of it. Even from a business perspective, you know, having, you know, being sustainable is now a competitive advantage for companies. Right. So everyone kind of gets the gist of it and knows that it's the social licence to operate, you got to be sustainable, and is how do we get there is really where I come in, let's, let's make project plans. Let's know what to measure. And let's know what tools to use and go forward from there. Mm hmm.

 

Pat Perdue 

And do you have a sense of, you know, you only have so many energy units during the day? Like, let's say you have 100 energy units? So prioritization sounds like the way the way forward? Do you have a sense of what your priorities might be over the next, let's say, three to six months,

 

Courtney 

Priorities in terms of, you know, areas of sustainability? Or

 

Pat Perdue 

Sure, however, you want to answer that question

 

Courtney 

On the role of operations, we do have an action plan in the sustainability plan. So we have laid out, we want to create the energy and emissions reduction plan or management plan, by the end of 2023. We have these laid out targets in the plan, which can be found on the senator website. So those are the priorities in terms of big projects. Right. But I think that my priorities now are to create partnerships with the different departments, we now have subcommittees within the sustainable committee at Seneca for operations, academics, leadership and communities. So creating those working groups, creating those partnerships, and you know, just getting the lay of the land of what's happening right now. And auditing what's currently being done in terms of environmental impact, collecting all the information, so then we can move forward. So I think the day to day role parties for me right now is relationship building, and then, you know, baseline setting of where, where we're really at so we can create better targets. Mm hmm.

 

Pat Perdue 

That sounds like it makes sense. And Wai Chu, I'm glancing over at you and wondering about the same question as a faculty member myself, I know that sometimes my experience is, you know, I walk in to my class or I, you know, or if it's virtual, we log in, we do our class, and then we're, we're finished, you know, and then of course, the communication happens throughout the week, but the larger impact on the larger conversations with other faculty members is not that frequent, to be honest with you. So what is your sense of impacting so many curriculums and day to day conversations within so many classrooms at Seneca?

 

Wai Chu 

Yeah, that's a great question. And to me, my number one thing is really to start with creating my vision.  After I have a vision for what my work and sharing it with a faculty member, and bring them on board working together, and really building support for each other. And so my vision for Seneca is that every student when they graduate, they feel that they can leverage the skills and power to apply a sustainable lens in their job. And so they know that everything that they do in their job, they know that it will be an impact on the economy on the social side and two on the environment side, and they have to think about it in a way that is holistic. And so when they make decisions when they make any decisions or when they approach a problem, they will be able to come up with a solution. that will be better solution than just barely really thinking about just cost. So with that kind of vision, I'll see that when I share it with our faculty, I'll also talk about how we can do it together without adding workload to them. I know faculty is a very busy, very busy people, and they have a lot on their plate. And so my job is to make curriculum integration work. And I will start with, you know, providing some tools for them and develop some curriculum, and I will help them to deal with stress and bring in resources to support them from guest speaker providing guest speakers from designing, co designing a research project with them, bringing community and industry partners, for them. So they will find it really doable, and feasible for them to integrate incrementally change that they they feel comfortable with. And so connecting them with other professionals who are already doing this. And so they don't have to start everything from scratch. So I think is really exciting to be able to bring people together to, you know, learn from each other.

 

Pat Perdue 

It sounds really interesting. So as for the faculty listening, what might they expect? Would they expect a message from their chair? Or how will your messaging filter down to the faculty level?

 

Wai Chu 

Well, this is a good question. Our department has already been invited to the Academic Council for next week. And I know that we are going to have more conversations going. And we will be working closely with all faculty leadership to get their input. We also welcome all the ideas from faculty members, and we will definitely announce ways and we'll we'll invite inputs moving forward. But for now, we we are working closely with the CIP committee, as Courtney mentioned, and there will be subcommittee members that will be working towards putting together proposals and structure around it. But we know that we will be putting together I will be responsible for putting together workshops in collaboration with Center for Teaching and Learning and providing communities of practice opportunities for people to participate. And I also think that it is not a one off kind of learning or training, it will be a continuous journey, meaning that we will be providing technology, we'll be making use of technology to provide online platforms where we can share our experience and share resources with each other.

 

Pat Perdue 

I can't wait. And Courtney, a little bit of the same question to you, with so many people with so many individuals involved in so many decisions that impact sustainability, how can they expect or how do you envision they're encountering your messaging,

 

Courtney 

I think that you know, right when I started, they've already encountered me many times, you know, setting up the preliminary meetings and introducing the idea of sustainability to them new office, and what to expect, you know, really getting them to understand my role and getting you know, comfortable with each other. And in terms of you know, project work and things like that. With the Sustainability Committee, and the subcommittee's, we do have those working groups on specific projects. When I have a project, for example, we're making sure we have consultations with every department that's potentially involving all the stakeholders involved. And that may even include working with Wai Chu on an academic side of things for potential applied research opportunities. And there's lots of cross pollination happening. We are working with the different departments to either co-develop a project, be on projects, teams with them, um, if there are existing projects that they're doing, let's say landscape design and maintenance. So being a part of that project team to make sure sustainability is a part of that. And yeah, I think that's how we will be collaborating together. Making sure that we're part of each other's you know, project teams and keeping that line of communication always open. And when there's something new starting a new procurement policy being a part of that conversation.

 

Wai Chu 

Just wanted to say that Courtney, you will be hearing from me soon regarding guest speaking in some classes.   May be talking to student about the Green Buildings at Seneca, maybe we have some renewable energy project solar panels on campus, so students would like to maybe they want to have a tour. And maybe you can give them a tour around the campus to look at the green features on campus. So it will be you'll hear from me about this

 

Courtney 

Amazing! Yeah. And you'll also be hearing from me we have a lot of new campus gardens coming up and there's obviously potential for Applied Research for students who are working with faculty and having that be an opportunity to invite sustainability into curriculum is having like a, you know, getting your hands dirty and it like literally getting your hands dirty, you know, opportunities. So we do have our departments, but everything is really collaborative. And I know the word collaborative and interdisciplinary gets thrown around a lot, especially in this field, but it really is, you know, I'm going to be working with, you know, Paula, on communications, you on academics, and working with facilities and procurement allon probably the same project, right. So really just having that line of communication open, and everyone being a part of that discussion,

 

Pat Perdue 

And Wai Chu one comment that you made that I'd like to expand upon a little bit, is the notion of bringing students around Seneca to, to see and get involved with and to touch and feel the sustainable activities that are taking place, even making Seneca part of their education classroom around sustainability. So the training doesn't have to be within the classroom. It's all around them.

 

Wai Chu 

Absolutely. We call it the campus, Living Lab. And students come up with solutions, sustainable solutions to help us solve problems on campus, how to reduce waste, you know, for example, measuring monitoring the grove of trees, new trees, plants on campus, how to reduce invasive species on campus, plant species on campus, and how to promote waste reduction through creating an animation, film, educating people how to stop waste on campus.  There's tons of work that can be done, for example, also building a business case on replacing paper towels versus hand dryers, you know, for washrooms, which way is better, a lot of good projects that can be created for campus

 

Pat Perdue 

Sounds super fun, actually. I'm looking forward to it on behalf of the students, I'm looking forward to their experience as they're in a marketing class or as they're in some other seemingly class that's disconnected from sustainability. And there's an interesting sustainability aspect into the curriculum planning. sounds really cool. We're winding down our conversation at this point. But I'm going to ask the same question to each of you. And Courtney, maybe I'll start with you, when you cast your mind forward, let's say a year from now, or maybe two years from now, because one year might be too soon. How will you know that you've had an impact?

 

Courtney 

I think that I will know that I've made an impact one by the progress against our action plan that we have in the sustainability plan. That's a very obvious thing that I that I know that I'm doing my job. Another thing would be partnerships with the different departments and integration of sustainability into their different processes. So how many scopes of work? Have we been able to refurbish and make sustainable? How many new projects you know, in food service? Have we been able to go forward? Because to me, I think that that's a great measure of, again, relationship building. So if we have a successful project in food service or in facilities, then that means that sustainability has been appreciated, acknowledge and it's actually been actioned on. Right? So that's, that really shows me that I am doing my job properly, as well. As you know, the the sustainability policy is a huge component of sustainable operations and just sustainability in general at Seneca because it outlines you know, what sustainability is? What are our principles within each of those areas. So the areas would be water waste air principles could be, you know, under waste, be circular economies or waste minimization reduction. And then within each area or action area around campus, each department, what what does that mean for them really outlining that, so then they can make decisions going forward that align with sustainability. So having that done, and seeing it in fruition, and seeing that result in scopes of work within the next year would be amazing, because then I know, you know, if I wasn't here, hopefully I'm I'm here forever. But if I wasn't here, then that means that sustainability would be embedded into operations. And each little step closer to that each little RFP, each little line is showing me that I think that I'm doing a good job.

 

Pat Perdue 

Awesome and baked into the word sustainability is gonna sound really redundant, is sustainable. So your impact needs to be I guess, sustainable, even when you're not there to have those conversations.

 

Courtney 

Yeah, that's my my big priority is always thinking big picture thinking frameworks, thinking decision making, how do we formalize each thing right? So because you know, you've been in government if we have an amazing sustainability policy, and then the next four years someone new comes in, it can be all changed. So how do we formalize things in a way that it is cemented into what we do in operations every day in every decision? Making and the way that we built that sustainability policy is keeping it high level. So defining sustainability and those principles, but not getting too in the weeds of it. So that, you know, one we couldn't list every single thing to consider in every decision and every area of Seneca because one would be too long, and we've missed something. And then, you know, it wouldn't, it wouldn't cover every option. But it gives them an idea of what to follow for every action, right? And so,

 

Pat Perdue 

And WaiChu when you cast your mind, one or two years from now, you know, we have a before picture perhaps, what do you see as the after picture of life at Seneca in the curriculums and with students and in the classrooms. As a result of your impact on your conversations?

 

Wai Chu 

I see that in a couple of years, I like to see that faculty's progress professors are inspiring in more and more people wanted to come to their workshops and communities of practice to talk about learned about incorporating sustainability into the curriculum into their classes. And I see that there are lots of resources available supporting faculty who want you to do this together. And I see that a lot of great positive feedback from professors and students about their experience in the classroom, when once they incorporate sustainability into their teaching and learning. And I see that lots of students happy, happy and satisfied about their educational experiences Seneca. And I really like what Courtney said, creating a policy that all faculty, once they start working at Seneca, they are ready, they are prepared to do this, because this is really part of the job just like before the COVID we were feeling the online learning is not really the thing that we want to do now, look, everybody's doing it, it's just, it takes a little bit of effort at beginning kind of make it work. But now once we are doing it, it's so easy and so flexible. And it's so it is really the norm now everybody can do it easily. And the same thing happened with curriculum integration with sustainability. Everybody, professors will start feeling that oh, this is just the way it is. And I see that other colleges and post secondary institution come to us to ask how did you do it? You know, we want to do like what you do what you are doing. So we will be the leader for the post secondary education. And I see that it's going down to secondary level to elementary level.

 

Pat Perdue 

That sounds really exciting. Yeah, for both of you so thank you very much. Each of you, Courtney and Wai Chu for sharing your time and your considerable expertise on the Seneca proud podcast today. I've been looking forward to this conversation for literally four months. And it's been a delight meeting you and and sharing in your vision. So thank you,

 

Courtney 

Thank you. It's very life affirming having conversations like these being in you know, everyday I have them now because so many great rooms of people but moments like these are very, you know, people care about sustainability. And it's it really is important. It's a human conversation. Right. So it's been very lovely.

 

Pat Perdue 

Thank you. Thank you

 

Wai Chu 

Pat, thank you so much for this Conversation. It is such a great conversation that we have. I look forward to more conversations like this.

 

Pat Perdue 

I look forward to that. I look forward to that. Thank you again to both of you for joining us today. It's been a great conversation. Thank you. Bye. I