#SenecaProud

Season 3 

#SenecaProud Podcast

Episode 10: Season 3 finale

Host Pat Perdue revisits each of this season’s nine episodes, featuring a total of 11 guests. Listen to conversation highlights about Au Large, returning to campus safely and the impact of the pandemic on how we live, work and learn at Seneca.

Season Three Finale Interview

Pat Perdue  00:00

Hi, I'm Pat Perdue, and I'd like to welcome you to Season Three of the Seneca Proud podcast. This is a co-production between my company Ycastr and Seneca College in Toronto. These days because of the global pandemic, yep, that's still a thing. So much of Seneca is remote; from working to teaching to studying. But hey, Seneca College has always been more than a place or a bunch of buildings. Seneca College is an idea. It's a vision for a better future. And it's a challenge to do what it takes to transform that vision into reality. And that is exactly what Season Three is all about. Seneca College is transforming, there are really exciting changes in the works. And this season, we get to take a close look at some of those changes, as well as the people who are helping make those changes happen.  

So, if you haven't already, subscribe, and download and join me as we discover the changes and meet the people who are transforming vision into reality because the next episode of Seneca Proud starts now.

Welcome to the final episode of Season Three of the Seneca Proud podcast. I'm Pat Perdue, and I'm glad you're here. In this episode, like we've done in previous seasons, we're revisiting the conversations we've had this season and taking a look at some common themes. 

And one of those themes is how do we do what's necessary to keep things going in spite of the extraordinary circumstances of a global pandemic? We'll hear from Professor Kirsti Clarida, co-ordinator of the Veterinary Technician Program at Seneca College, on the incredible work she and her team did to keep her programs moving forward. Some of her students needed to come to campus to complete lab work, and she talks about how she made it safe for them in spite of the pandemic. We'll also hear from Jeff McCarthy, Dean of Continuing Education on how the pandemic has impacted the over 1,000 courses offered through Seneca College Continuing Education. 

Another theme of course, was the Au Large project. This is a huge undertaking by Seneca College to look at everything we do through the lenses of equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as environmental sustainability and advanced forward-thinking technology, both for when we return to Seneca and for the Seneca College of tomorrow. We'll hear from Seneca President David Agnew on that and then we will hear from Professor Andrew Wickham who talks about what sustainability really means. Mark Solomon, the chair of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee walks us through the role of diversity, equity and inclusion within the Au Large project. And we'll also hear from Radha Krishnan, Seneca College's Chief Information Officer about what Seneca’s technological future will look like.

Another theme in our conversations this season has been Seneca’s role in the wider community, both as a matter of course and specifically during the pandemic. How does Seneca’s research benefit the community around us? For that we hear from Chad Lever, Director of Applied Research at Seneca Innovation. And we'll also hear about some important research by Dr. Frank Mirante, and professors Maureen Bornbaum, Jo Gomes, and Carolyn Grammer. 

Finally, and here's the big one, each and every one of these conversations is about someone's commitment to make things better. Each conversation is basically about someone's choice, not only to ask a tough question, but then ask with the resources that I have; “What's the biggest difference that I can make?”  Mark Solomon mentioned that his work stands on the shoulders of people who have come before us. I love that idea because it not only honors the people who have done the work that we're building on and benefiting from, but it also implies that when we've left the scene, others will come along to take up the challenge. And they'll be standing on our shoulders. So how can we give them the biggest boost? How can we stand as tall as possible? In these conversations, you will hear 11 People tackling big issues very much in the act of standing tall for the benefit of those who will follow. 

We'll kick off our episode with President David Agnew talking about how, in spite of COVID lock downs, some students definitely needed to return to finish their programs. And then we'll hear from Kirsti Clarida, co-ordinator of the Veterinary Technician program on what it took to make that possible for her programs. Here's David.

 

President David Agnew  04:42

So now we're, I use the analogy of a tap, we’re sort of gently opening the tap. And, of course, the first, the first people back on campus, were the students who couldn't graduate last April. And because they had some practical computer lab-based components.  Now, labs are lots of things, studios, airplanes, so on, but let's just use the word lab. So they needed to come back. And we started that in the summer.  It's just literally a handful of students given how big we are. And that was when that went well. And we, we then opened the door to students who weren't necessarily going to graduate, but they also got interrupted, so they have courses. So they came back. And now in the fall, we have about 2000 students, about maybe 200, faculty and staff associated with those labs coming. And they're not all coming every day, but they're coming on campus just for their labs

 

Pat Perdue  05:31

Here's Kirsti Clarida, co-ordinator of the Veterinary Technician Program at Seneca College, to shed some light on to the complexity of having people return safely during a global pandemic.

 

Kirsti Clarida  05:45

It was at the beginning. You know when you zoom out and look at it even with myself. I was like, Oh my gosh, what am I going to do with all this stuff? That's, that's a lot of moving parts. But I again, Excel was my best friend. I was able to bring all of the information into one workbook. And then I could flip back and forth between the sheets to plug it in. And so I mapped it out. That's that was what needed to happen. I needed to map out what would happen for each student in a group of eight on each day they were coming, what room are they going to be in? How long were they going to be there? Where would they go to have a bathroom break? Where would they go to eat? When would they arrive because I didn't want to have multiple students coming in at the same time because now the cohort breaks apart if I have 24 or 32 students show up at the front door. So then I had to stagger arrival time, stagger departure time. And then we had a map of the buildings. So I wrote out little routes, so students could enter the building without having too much crossover in the common areas. And then I worked with the faculty to make sure that we all understood the same pathways and these rooms, and what were the expectations. And the only other thing we had to address, once the plan was in place, was if students couldn't make the dates we had determined for them. When I decided how to cohort them. It wasn't based on alphabet it was based on skills needed. So some skills are, we would call them invasive, but they're more disruptive to the animal maybe a little bit more painful, a little bit more stressful, like an injection. So if a student needed an injection, I was keeping those injection groups of students together. And I would know that when do I bring back cats and dogs on site, because at the time I only had farm animals living there permanently, and how many animals will we want to bring back, how many students need to do something like that. And so that was how their cohorts were built. And if a student couldn't make it because of life, which, absolutely, you know, maybe they weren't ready health wise, or they couldn't come because they were working, we were able to, I preserved a couple of slots. And we were just, I think it was a fishes and loaves scenario where it just worked, they that even the students that couldn't make it, we had exactly enough spots leftover, and all of the buffer, and everybody was able to come through. So that whole return to campus piece to finish winter 2020 took four weeks with the students coming four days a week in groups of eight, to finish their skill set. And then using that template, I kind of got started for fall, which was a totally different scenario, because now I had 110 coming in again. And our lab divisions already were bigger than eight. I had to come up with something a little bit different.

 

Pat Perdue  08:34

Jeff McCarthy, Dean of Continuing Education, and how the pandemic impacted the faculty of continuing ed, and how they've had to change just about everything within the span of just a week or two.

 

Jeff McCarthy  08:46

The pandemic's had a big impact, obviously, on the institution and education in general. But specifically for our department, some of the things that we've seen is a dramatic increase in the level of interest that our students have, and prospective students have in continuing education. So just to just to give you an example, if we looked at the March to June period in 2019, versus the March to June period in 2020, during the pandemic lockdown, the increase in website traffic to our continuing education website, rose over 200%. We went from just under 5 million visits in 2019, to 14 and a half million visits in a three-month period in 2020. So, the increase in interest was substantial. And what resulted in that was a very high enrollment summer semester for us. And again, a very high enrollment semester for us this current fall semester. And what we've had to do like other institutions and like Seneca full time, is we've had to deliver anything remotely on a moment's notice. In both the summer semester and the fall, we're offering over 1,000 courses to students. And the main course delivery format is a virtual format where students are coming in and getting about an hour and a half to two hours of live synchronous learning every week. During the remainder of the course, self-directed online, and the increase, and the enrollment in that format, has been very substantial.

 

Pat Perdue  10:15

It's amazing. And for someone who's lived through such an increase in activity and demand, you strike me as very calm. I think I'd be flipping out.

 

Jeff McCarthy  10:26

Well, thank you. I mean, it's maybe I'm putting on a good poker face. I mean, there's no question that myself, my team, our faculty, have been under, you know, really demanding circumstances in order to flip the switch, essentially, back in the spring, and take all of that in-class delivery, and now deliver it in a remote format. But they've responded amazingly well. I mean, the dedication and commitment of both our faculty that teach for us, and the team that works with me, is tremendous. I mean, they are the reasons for our success. And they are the reasons that we've had the success and to move the department forward.

 

Pat Perdue  11:00

Amazing. And that's the beauty of building great teams, right, is when the surprise happens, everybody just steps up and does what they need to do.

 

Jeff McCarthy  11:10

Yeah, it's been great. It's been great experience, but it hasn't been easy. 

 

Pat Perdue  11:14

And here's David Agnew, on how the pandemic was a call to action of sorts, challenging Seneca to take a close look at pretty much everything, and answer the simple but crucial question; how can we make things better?

 

President David Agnew  11:27

It kind of brought to the fore simultaneously four challenges, you know, and so you could almost say the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I mean, a health challenge, a huge economic challenge, of course, in the midst of that a huge kind of reawakening on a justice challenge. And it even highlighted our climate challenges our sustainability challenges, because of course, we noticed as we shut down suddenly the air got clear and, you know, the, waters seem to get more transparent. So in the Au Large project, and it didn't set out to do this, but we're actually addressing all of those challenges as we look to the future and look to a renewed Seneca. I mean, we decided early on, in the pandemic, whatever the new normal is going to be, it's not going to be the old normal. So let's start thinking now about how we emerge from this as a as a thriving institution, one that's really focused on the challenges of the future, not of the past. And so just to sort of take those four challenges, obviously, it all starts with a safe return to campus and we've been, we've been hugely engaged with that, trying to make sure that we can, you know, meet our core mission of education while not risking the safety and health of our students and our employees. In the economic sphere, of course, we're talking about a pretty significant retooling of the institution to become more virtual, more flexible, more convenient for students, better able, and more bar adaptable to meet the needs of that of that recovering economy. Our commitment to equity is, is all around action, not just more words, and we've engaged the community to do that. And finally, on the on the climate front, we've really embraced the sustainability agenda. And I'm very excited about that, not just in our programs, which, you know, to some extent, always been there and, but also throughout the organization. So it really is, as we say, a renewed Seneca. And it's very, very exciting.

 

Pat Perdue  13:38

Professor Andrew Wickham, the Green Citizen project manager, on what sustainability actually means.

 

Andrew Wickham  13:45

I think it really comes down to just caring about our people, and caring about the planet. Ultimately, that's where it comes down, caring about that, and caring about the longevity, and the health of all that encompasses that within and that's almost everything, that's a huge umbrella. And one way at least I like to focus in with people is looking at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There are 17 of them, and all 17 of them are linked together in 1,000 different ways as well. But it starts to cue people in a little bit more, you know, on education and equity and climate change and partnerships and how business has come into play with poverty and hunger. You know, all these things are huge topics on their own, but how they all intermingle in this, and this umbrella term we call sustainability, which is why it's so challenging. You know, if we want to tackle sustainability at Seneca, you're literally trying to tackle everything.

 

Pat Perdue  14:51

And it sounds like the project Au Large is kind of tackling everything. It feels like that's not an inappropriate way to describe it and the whole sustainability aspect of it. Mark Solomon on the Equity Diversity and Inclusion committee aspect of Au Large.

 

Mark Solomon  15:10

The Equity Diversity Inclusion committee is based upon three recommendations that came from our community. The Au Large report was a survey of our community and what did we learn from COVID. But Equity Diversity Committee was seen as something we all need to happen. There are three key tenants I've been calling the pillars of the work of the committee in its first initial years. The first one is awareness. That's everything from training, to curriculum development to events. The second one is a census. So, understanding who makes up our community, both students and employees, obviously voluntary self-identification, per se. And then finally, the last one is policy and process mapping, making sure that we're taking an equitable diversity and inclusion lens through everything that we do. But first focus on our HR and our student practices.

 

Pat Perdue  16:08

And this sounds like it's a long project. It's not something that you're going to accomplish in the next couple of months.

 

Mark Solomon  16:15

No, and it should always be ongoing. I think we always learn more about equity, diversity and inclusion every step of the way. I think we were always striving to be better definitely at Seneca that is always our mandate, but we want to be as best as we can for our community and building great citizenry.

 

Pat Perdue  16:35

For sure. And do you have it? It sounds so, huge? How do you even start? Is it, you mentioned, the census? Is that the beginning point, or, you know, you wake up and you say, okay, how do we do this?

 

Mark Solomon  16:48

Yeah, that's a great question, Pat, I think one of the interesting parts is we've already been doing a lot of this work. But we're not really telling the story. Student Services is doing a bunch of events, there's a lot of amazing faculty doing events, there's been a lot of things happening in HR. So, it's kind of getting it together, making sure that we can package it, and making sure that people who want to be a part of it are a part of it, So, if you're a member of our facilities team, and you haven't had a chance to go to an event, because your work takes you wherever driving truck or doing whatever. Now you have the ability to kind of get together, participate, have your voice heard. So, really kind of getting it together. That's the first part. So, again, we stand on the shoulders of others who've been doing this work for a really long time. The second one is and I think to your point is we don't know what we don't know, we don't know who makes up our community colleges and universities. Canada has been notoriously bad for keeping race based diverse information. In the States, interestingly enough, they can tell you down to the nth decimal what percentage are Latino and first generation and all sorts of other kinds of divisions within there, we have never kept that. So, we will be looking at others that have been doing that. And then finally, I think we're probably going to have to look at getting some consultants to help us understand what it means to have diverse lenses through HR processes, and all that stuff. But we got really great people like, Pat, you've just seen the people who applied for this. This committee, we had just under 100 people from literally one side of the college to the other side, people who I've met people who I've never met, I consider myself pretty well known at the college, the amount of people that came out to volunteer on this committee, just phenomenal. And the stories are heart wrenching stories. People are really dedicated to both telling their own story and learning from each other. It's gonna be awesome.

 

Pat Perdue  18:48

And now here's Radha Krishan, Chief Information Officer at Seneca College on some very specific and exciting technological developments that will help when we return to campus and for the future.

 

Radha Krishnan  18:59

A few things we are doing, you may have heard about this initiative called virtual comments that we launched about three weeks ago, in that when the COVID-19 situation started, all those preparatory activities that were done, helped us help all the employees to be able to work from their homes and all the students to be able to learn remotely. But a few months later, the situation changed the expectation of the students, the expectation of the employees changed in a way that what you did three months ago helped me to get started. But I would like to have a better service. I would like to have a better this better that. So, we started thinking about how can we get to the next level to support them? Virtual Commons is one of the initiatives from that. What it does is that we've got this huge competing Commons with about 400 computers in the Newnham campus alone, that's not being used. How can we make sure that we put a system whereby students can connect to it remotely and then take advantage of the powerful computer that is sitting there? That's Virtual Commons. 

So, in the same manner, we're trying to identify what other initiatives are there. We were the first college to provide a VPN service to the students who are studying from mainland China that cuts across the government firewall. That has been set up so that they don't have a slowness in the way they do online learning. Like we gave access to the specialized labs. All this didn't exist when the COVID-19 situation started. 

There are all kind of improvements and evolutions that we are continuing to do when people return back to the campus. Things are going to be different. A lot more virtualized Seneca a lot more flexible Seneca virtualized in the sense that you got a virtual OneCard now you which we can use for all services within the campus. You got a flexible Seneca in the sense that this is part of the larger initiative, that there's going to be a flexibility in the way people work. What is that flexibility? You will decide. But what we have done so far, and what we are continuing to do is going to enable that flexibility. There's going to be a full video conferencing capability in every meeting room so it doesn't matter whether you are on campus or you're working from home, you can still have that virtualized environment with people who are on campus. Most of us are going to be moving into that intelligent new CITE building fourth and fifth floors. That is one of the best built facilities, it's fully wireless, there is no wire there, it uses the Wi-Fi six. We are all going to be in open offices. With the flexibility and what's being done in the CITE building it is going to enable a whole new way of working that will enable a lot more possibilities. And hopefully we'll fast track most of the large initiatives. That's our intention.

 

Pat Perdue  21:55

And these were only glimpses of the overall scope of the large project. For a closer look, listen back to some of the episodes of season three. And moving from Au Large, how does Seneca College continue to contribute to our communities? Well, often the answer to that begins with research. Here's Seneca’s Chad Lever, Director of Applied Research in Seneca Innovation. 

 

Chad Lever  22:23

Seneca Innovation supports applied research, innovation and entrepreneurship activities at Seneca. We do so through three tiers of our department, which is applied research, HELIX entrepreneurship, or HELIX Ventures, and Seneca Innovates, which is a program internal to Seneca, really capitalizing on the great ideas of you know, cytokines and how to make Seneca better. I think we're focusing our talk today, largely on applied research. But of course, I invite your listeners to visit Seneca Innovations’ website. So, when it comes to applied research, our role is to collaborate with industry in and around the GTA, Ontario and even across Canada to address their business and technical challenges, through access to unique expertise that exists at Seneca across all of our faculties, the infrastructure within Seneca as it relates to specific labs that we have and other assets. As well, as the funding opportunities that are available to Seneca via federal, provincial and other granting agencies. Maybe as a bit of a background, just in the last year, Seneca had 57 applied research projects. We currently have 35 active research projects already this year. Last year, there were 46 faculty investigators supporting projects, and all of our projects, hire and engage students, research assistants, who are usually in their upper years at Seneca in their various programs. And last year, we had 190 Seneca students support our research projects.

What ends up happening is, an innovator, a start-up, who is established has come to Seneca and needs support, whether it be from engineering or life sciences, to advance a specific innovation. And, our role is to refine for them what expertise, they specifically need, how that aligns to specific faculty and expertise and the infrastructure that we have at Seneca and then work on the funding opportunity with the federal or provincial agency to support that. Which essentially supports the cost of the research to support and mentor the research assistants who are Seneca students. And, you know, hire those students and execute those projects, which can run in some instances from, three to six months, and in others where we're doing really big social innovation projects, they can last up to three years,

 

Pat Perdue  24:11

Dr. Frank Mirate, the principal scientist for the Seneca Center for Innovation in Life Sciences, and Professor and Co-ordinator at Seneca School of Applied Sciences and Applied Chemistry, on some of the incredible work they're doing in coordination with Innovation Seneca.

 

Frank Mirante  24:27

Some of the projects, three out of the four are actually COVID directed. And some of the companies include VivaVax  Corporation, where we're looking to, again, this is a collaborative project with another very talented faculty member, where we're looking to actually coat the exterior of vials with a particular emphasis on vaccine vials. So that way, it protects the content from heat transmission. You can imagine in the current workflow for typical vaccination, and vaccines are getting a lot of press coverage. Currently, somebody needs to go to a refrigerator or cold storage facility retrieve the vial, and there's going to be multiple doses of vaccine being administered. Typically, if you look at the Pfizer vaccine, upwards of six, and so some of those components within the vial can be very heat labile. So, the coating that we're aiming to optimize and augment will actually buffer temperature fluctuations from within the vial so it preserves the content of that material. And the company VivaVax  actually has a forward reaching vision because it's not only vaccines, we see a dramatic increase in the utilization of biologics and monoclonal antibodies. And these are all components that may have a heat sensitivity component. And that exterior coating or insulation is actually the aerogel type of a composite, a nanostructured aerogel it enables that vaccine to sit at room temperature for a much longer period of time without losing efficacy.

 

Pat Perdue  26:17

Some great impactful research also comes through Research Seneca. Here's Maureen Bornbaum, pronouns she/her, former Seneca student and now faculty on a groundbreaking research study she participated in as a student research assistant studying LGBTTGNCQ+ homeless youth in York Region, Here's Maureen.

 

Maureen Bornbaum  26:39

The research was published in 2018, it actually began in 2016. And what it looked at was the unique experiences of LGBTTGNCQ+ homeless youth in York Region. And it actually expanded as we went to go look at services accessing youth. So, youth who are experiencing homelessness, precarious housing, accessing the shelter system, and really just accessing services. And the research explored their unique needs, as well as assessed how current services were meeting those needs, or were not meeting those needs.

 

Pat Perdue  27:14

And now Professor Jo Gomes, pronouns she/her/hers, from Seneca College in the Social Service Worker program. Jo was the lead faculty researcher on the report. Professor Gomes also sits on Seneca’s Academic Council and is part of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion curriculum committee. Here's Jo.

 

Jo Gomes  27:35

What really happened was that we wanted to create an opportunity for Queer homeless youth to actually be able to speak about their experiences, to talk about what they wanted services to look like, and how they felt about their, you know, lived experiences. We really wanted to capture that knowledge. And in doing that, we wanted to also hopefully, you know, create recommendations as a result of that research..

I believe our research, creates the opportunity for promising work to happen, for sure, right?  And one of the things that recently, we heard about is Blue Doors creating a program called Inclusion House. It's a transitional support housing, which is fantastic. And again, Michael Braithwaite, you have heard his name mentioned many times in this podcast. And it's just because him and I just kept continuing the conversation. And, I think I kept challenging him a lot. But it didn't take a lot of work.  He was really committed from the beginning of this research. And transitional support housing is, you know, going to be a place where it's longer term.  It's for one year, and it's going to help for 2SLGBT youth. And with that, they're going to actually be able to, you know, have population specific services for them, right?  And it's going to be really enhanced in terms of advocating, finding them longer term housing, maybe getting them back into the workforce, looking at life skills, looking at maybe re-entering some education programs. So, it's, it's going to be such an amazing opportunity and such a great thing to have in our community.

 

Pat Perdue  29:07

Professor Carolyn Grammer also from Seneca’s, Social Service Worker program on the impact she and her team had on a citywide study on the availability of technology in underserved groups, but particularly important during COVID,

 

Caroline Grammer  29:22

The City of Toronto as a result of COVID and the isolation protocols and legislation, the City of Toronto recognizes that there were neighborhoods in the city where there were people who were underserved by the digital network, they had no access to the network, the internet. And a big study was started with all of the higher education institutions. Ryerson is involved, U of T’s involved, York University is involved, and Seneca is now involved. Humber is helping us. They've been amazing in terms of connecting us with the west side and Seneca. Our piece is in the SWG department Gero technology it's about digital access. That's my wheelhouse. And I also, knew that our students couldn't go into placement and our field is the front line of COVID. We're in the long-term care homes, in the retirement homes, in the hospitals in the community, and we're one to one or in small groups with older adults. So, they had to be remote. And we felt that they could be remote. And that seniors needed that remote virtual access; those who had it. So, I realized I could take on a number of students from my research, who could learn how to do research as research assistants, I knew it would be tough, I've done it before. I know it's hard on them because the learning curve is high and the time is short. But these students were amazing, really hard working all of them. Three quarters of them work the front line in their personal lives, they're in the front line, they're in the thick of it. So, their experiences, and their insights were critical, a critical component to building the methodology in this project. And they've worked so, hard, and they're still working, recruiting and interviewing and training seniors. 

So, our part is every age cohort was being covered in some twice over. And yet again, nobody was covering older adults. I looked at the study and said nobody's covering them off. And these are the people that are the most isolated, with the least number of resources, and the least ability to use digital access because they don't have the training. So, I stepped in and said we, myself and my team, will identify all of the seniors, as many as we can in the six boroughs of Toronto, as to who has and who is without digital access. And we will report that to you and what we're going to do about it. 

Well, that turned into a study where it's not just about internet access, we very quickly found out internet access has to be high speed, 50 Mbps or more, that they have to have a device to access the internet, which was often a critical issue. They have to know how to use that device, they have to know how to navigate the Internet. So, that required digital fluency and training. And many of our older adults and long-term care needed one to one facilitation, as we've seen on the news, they had to have somebody there to operate the device for them because they can't do it themselves. There's a sensory or cognitive impairment or functional impairment. And they couldn't connect with their families themselves. They had to have staff there. So, we expanded the concept of what digital access means to include all those variables. And this project is trying to identify the seniors. So, we're actively recruiting still, we're also, interviewing not only senior’s experiences who are without internet, but we're interviewing families' experiences. I'm trying to connect the student with older adults without internet. And the students are also, reaching out to health care workers on the front line. And what's their experience of having the pressure of having to be there to facilitate the process of the internet connection between families and the older adults. 

And we're also, running the online survey for the frontline workers to basically say, how much work are you doing here? How many of your seniors don't have internet access? Or don't know how to use it? And how much difference would it make to you working with them to have that access? So, it's a big project, huge, and we just presented our deputation in front of the executive committee at Toronto City Council. And they're really interested and in fact, have started. They funded all the TCHC buildings, and in particular locations, they are all now free Wi Fi access, but there's still the older adults; there's the tablet issues and you know, the device issues, but we're getting there. So, change actually happened.

 

Pat Perdue  32:23

And that was a snapshot or perhaps a tapestry of what goes on between the classes at Seneca College and the College’s wider impact on the community at large. As I mentioned at the start of the episode, what absolutely struck me was the passion and commitment in every conversation. While the context varied, each of our guests were all asking the same questions; What about this needs to change and what is within my power to make change happen? Then they go out and do it. And the people who follow will have taller shoulders to stand on and themselves will be able to reach higher. It's been an absolute honor to have the opportunity to speak with each of this season's guests and it's been an honor to share these conversations with you.  I'd also like to thank editors Mohit, rata, and Nathan stemmen deatils for their help in editing this episode. 

Until next season, I'm Pat Perdue. Stay proud Seneca.