Aug. 26, 2021

Seneca has a new chief academic officer, and she brings both freshness and familiarity to the job.

Marianne Marando first joined Seneca in 2002 as a faculty member and co-ordinator in the School of Marketing. She returned to Seneca last month as Vice-President Academic after five years at Durham College, where she rose to the position of Associate Vice-President, Academic.

During her previous stint at Seneca, Ms. Marando worked her way up to chair two different schools and head Seneca’s Marketing & Communications department, where she launched a new brand campaign and the social media team, among other accomplishments.

A Senecan of Distinction, Ms. Marando is the Chair of the board at Blue Door, a York Region-based provider of emergency housing and supports. She holds a bachelor’s degree, a master of business administration from York University, an Adult Education/Staff Training certificate from Seneca and is currently pursuing a doctor of education at Western University.

Ms. Marando sat down with Seneca News this week to talk about her first couple of months at the helm and some new and exciting initiatives from the academic area.

SN: How does it feel to be back at Seneca? What has changed or stayed the same since you were last here?

MM: I am very excited to be at Seneca. When I left, the i3 project to create an integrated enterprise system in support of streamlined business processes and improved services for students and employees was still wrapping up. Now I see how it has impacted people’s work. Seneca’s new intranet platform didn’t exist then, but I can see it has become a useful communication tool for employees and will soon be for our students, too.

While there are many new faces in the virtual “halls,” it has been so wonderful to reconnect with some familiar faces.

What has stayed the same? The “heart” of Seneca is the same.

SN: Can you tell us about some of the Seneca Au Large renewal initiatives that the academic team is working on?

MM: We are working on many initiatives to support Au Large, and I look forward to continuing this work.

Our program areas have started developing strategies to support equity, diversity and inclusion principles, including looking at the curriculum, hiring practices, program advisory committees and training.

Our faculty have started piloting flexible delivery to bring Seneca classrooms to students, and we look forward to learning from those pilots as we continue to expand the flexible options.

Speaking of innovative ways of teaching and learning, we are also piloting the use immersive learning experiences through extended reality applications in several programs.

Lastly, the first Seneca Business Sustainability Speaker Series, which kicked off with environmental activist Erin Brockovich in April, is coming to a close on Tuesday, Aug. 31 with our final speaker Dr. David Suzuki. I hope everyone will join us as we welcome this world-renowned environmentalist, zoologist and science journalist.

SN: With Seneca offering programs and courses in different formats this fall, what are some of the challenges students and faculty might be facing?

MM: Our four program and course delivery options provide students with the flexibility and choices that they are looking for. This puts Seneca at the forefront. As with anything new, I am sure there will be hiccups as we explore new ways to deliver, but I know that we will put our heads together to work through things as they come up.

SN: As Seneca’s Vice-President Academic, what are you looking forward to the most this year?

MM:  I am looking forward to working with students, faculty, staff and administrators to lay out an academic direction for the next 18 months.