Student leaders from Seneca’s Public Safety programs participated in two online workshops (September 2020 and March 2021) on the “Power of Mentorship and Next Steps” offered by ASIS Toronto and their industry members. In late March 2021, we also hosted an online workshop for more than 60 students, community partners, professionals and faculty on “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Crime Prevention: The Future of Community Safety” through a partnership with CPTED Ontario.

February 2023: 25 student leaders from across the Public Safety programs took part in a Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) certification course at King Campus.  Preparing students and graduates with the MHFA certificate and promoting awareness in this key area helps our future professionals to make a difference in the community. 

October 2022: Congratulations to Natasha Esmail who presented a poster presentation at the national conference of the Canadian Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (CATAP).   Thank you to the CATAP for providing this opportunity for students from across Canada to present their work to professionals, peers, and academic experts.

October 2022: Students and faculty from across the Public Safety programs attended the Blue Line Expo at the Vaughan Eventspace.  This conference offered an opportunity to hear from expert speakers and network with industry professionals from across police services and law enforcement organizations.  Seneca students and faculty have been regular attendees at the event over the last three years for both virtual and in-person events.

Seneca volunteers helped several training exercises with York Regional Police in October 2021 and April 2022, where over 25 students from Seneca attended training scenario delivered by York Regional Police (YRP) at the Community Safety Village.

In winter and spring 2022, students from the Public Safety programs participated in professional networking and leadership events. This included professional development workshops held by the Toronto Chapter of ASIS in an online environment and attendance at several dinner events (York Regional Police and the Chief of Police’s Crimestoppers dinner in May 2022).

Appreciation and thanks to our friends at OPC in Aylmer for hosting a visit from first-semester students in Police Foundations on Nov. 7, 2019. Thank you to the Seneca Alumni Student Experience Fund for your generous support of this experiential learning opportunity and to the OPC staff for hosting our students and for spending time with them to discuss careers in policing. We are #senecaproud to offer students this opportunity over the last two years through the kind support of OPC and Seneca Alumni.

On Oct. 23, 2019, the Honours Bachelor of Crime & Intelligence Analysis degree offered a professional development day to students, faculty and community partners. Brent Bergeron (Ret. OPP Detective Sergeant) of Soteria Consulting provided a training workshop on how to detect and counter the latest operational tactics used by terrorists. The seminar also covered active measures to mitigate the impact of active shooters. Seneca welcomed visitors to the campus including York Regional Police, OPP, Rogers, Xpera, along with several members of the Program Advisory Committee.

Students from Seneca's Honours Bachelor of Crime & Intelligence Analysis program attended the ESRI Canada conference in Toronto in October 2019. The conference allowed students to learn more about the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to assist criminal investigations and community safety. This development opportunity was facilitated by the Seneca Alumni Student Affinity Fund and our partners at ESRI.

On Sept. 4, 2019, the School of Public Safety held its largest program orientation and welcome event for students in our Police Foundations and Honours Bachelor of Crime & Intelligence Analysis programs. Employers from the following organizations were present: York Regional Police, Toronto Police, RCMP Uniform Recruiting, Correctional Services Ontario, G4S Canada, TTC Enforcement, MLSE, Cadillac Fairview and St John Ambulance Ontario.

Canadian Security magazine recently celebrated the achievements of Seneca grad Sean Sportun who received the Community Leader Award for 2019. Sean is a graduate of Seneca’s law enforcement programs who has built a career in the security industry, while also volunteering his time and expertise to worthwhile causes and industry associations. Sean is the Chair of the Toronto Crime Stoppers volunteer Board of Directors and first Vice-President of the Ontario Association of Crime Stoppers. 

During summer 2019, students in the 911 & Emergency Services Communications program acquired a qualification in Mental Health First Aid through their studies in Health and Stress Management (ECP210). This is the first cohort from the program to benefit from completing this certification. Thank you to Prof. Rodney Sine for facilitating the training and for sharing his experience and insights into emergency situations with our students.

Shannon Toomey, a graduate of the AIE and Police Foundations program was nominated by Canadian Security magazine as one of the “Top Ten Under 40” security professionals for 2019 in May 2019. https://www.canadiansecuritymag.com/the-future-of-security-canadian-securitys-top-10-under-40-winners/

Students and faculty from Seneca's School of Public Safety attended the York Regional Police Appreciation Night on Thursday, May 10 2019. The event was held to help raise money for police programs and equipment and was hosted by radio and TV personality and Seneca Alumni, Mr. Kevin Frankish.

Students in the Advanced Investigations & Enforcement program were treated to a visit from Ryan Weir, OPP Officer Constable, during their surveillance technology course. During his visit, he introduced students to remote piloted aircraft systems and discussed how they can enhance public safety. The course is taught by Prof. Kemp Weir, Ryan's father.

Over 50 Seneca students from the School of Public Safety volunteered to help York Regional Police (YRP) with their crowd management training in early May 2019. Students participated in a large-scale public order exercise over two days in Port Hope. Thank you to our friends at YRP for involving Seneca students in this great training opportunity.

On 30 April 2019, Seneca celebrated the 50th anniversary of Law Enforcement studies. Over 100 alumni, faculty, staff, students and community partners attended an evening reception in Magna Hall where President David Agnew presented the ‘Senecan of Distinction’ Award to Thomas Carrique (Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police - OPP) and Constable Monica Rutledge, Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit, Toronto Police.

Seneca's School of Public Safety welcomed officers from the OPP, York Regional Police and YRP auxiliaries to its first Coffee with the Cops event on Friday, March 22 2019 at King Campus. More than 40 students had the opportunity to discuss careers in policing through an information chat with officers and recruiters.

On Thursday, March 21 (2019) the School of Public Safety held a student appreciation night in partnership with ASIS Toronto and Condor Security. More than 120 students and faculty from seven colleges across Ontario, along with security and public safety professionals attended the networking event to learn about future technologies and the use of drones in the security industry.

Students from Seneca’s Police Foundations students took part in the Peel Regional Police “Pin Test” College Challenge in February 2023 in Mississauga.  Eight colleges participated in the challenge and the event provided an opportunity for our students to meet serving officers and learn more about careers in policing. Curtis Thomas from Seneca’s team placed first in the male competitor category.

In March 2019, the School of Public Safety welcomed guest speakers Jeff R. Weyers and Odhinn Kohout who shared their expertise and experience with the attendees at our first professional seminar for the Crime and Intelligence Analysis degree. The seminar on Geo-locational techniques was attended by practitioners from Rogers, OPP, YRP, TTC, Xpera, and other public safety organizations along with students and faculty from Seneca’s programs.

November 2018, a team of six students from the first year of Police Foundations program participated in the annual PARE Physical Fitness Challenge at Mohawk College. For the challenge, students from various GTA colleges competed against each other in a timed challenge to complete the RCMP’s Physical Abilities Requirement Evaluation (PARE), an occupational test used to assess the capability to perform the physical demands of police work. This was the first time that a Seneca team participated in the challenge and students also had the opportunity to meet police recruiters from Halton Region, RCMP and Hamilton Police.

November 2018, students from the Advanced Investigations and Enforcement (AIE) program visited Axis Communications in Mississauga for a dedicated orientation session at their interactive training centre to learn about the latest surveillance and video camera technologies.

Nigel McCoy (left), professor and Manny Prempeh (right), technical trainer at Axis led this visit.

October 2018, Police Foundations students attended Serving With Pride -  Out of the Blue gala. The event promoted diversity, integrity awareness and non-discrimination of the LGBTQ2 personnel and equity of all persons within policing and criminal justice professions. Blue Line magazine featured our students in their online article talking about the event. 

March 2018, Seneca’s School of Public Safety welcomed 140 guests to the Newnham campus for the annual ‘ASIS Student Appreciation’ night.

Through the kind support of Seneca Alumni and the Toronto Chapter of ASIS International (the global association for security professionals), students and faculty from eight Ontario colleges (Centennial, Durham, George Brown, Fleming, Humber, Mohawk, Seneca & Sheridan) networked with security professionals from across the GTA and had the opportunity to learn about cyber-crime prevention from Detective Constable Kenrick Bagnall of Toronto Police’s Cyber-Crime Unit.  More information and pictures of Security Professional Event.

#senecaproud of the students and faculty from our Emergency Services Communications program who took part in a field trip to the Toronto Emergency Medical Services (EMS) headquarters. Superintendent John Klich gave a sneak peek to our students on how his team handle emergency calls. 

November 2022: Ten student leaders from the Honours Bachelor in Behavioural Psychology and Behavioural Sciences diploma had the opportunity to attend the Geneva Centre for Autism International Virtual Symposium.  The symposium is an international conference on autism, which brings together professionals, educators, parents and researchers from around the world to discuss the latest research and clinical practices.  Thank you to the Seneca Alumni Affinity Fund for funding the participation of our students at the conference.

April 2022: the Behavioural Exploration Club for the degree and diploma programs in Behavioural Psychology held an end of the year virtual gala event.  This student-led event celebrated achievements in applied research, Work-Integrated learning, and academic studies as well as a magic show and quiz night.  Over the last two years the club has expanded through the hard work of its student leaders and Executive to a current membership of 130 students and a gala event has been held virtually or online for the last four years.

Laura Cavanagh, Co-ordinator and Professor, Behavioural Sciences, provided expert contributions across national radio and TV over 2020-2021 to assess the behavioural aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the psychological impacts of the pandemic ( CBC News; CTV).  #senecaproud

In early November 2019, second-year students from the Behavioural Sciences program shared knowledge from their placements with first-year students through a Placement Poster Fair held in the Alumni Atrium at Magna Hall. This event was followed by a placement employer panel where our community partners discussed placement success and professional practices with the students. 

Laura Cavanagh, Professor and Coordinator of the Behavioural Sciences diploma program, was interviewed on CBC’s The National in early June about the impact of the Toronto Raptors success on fan psychology.  Cavanagh also did an interview on CTV News Channel earlier in June on the same topic.  Professor Cavanagh is one of the co-authors of the Canadian edition of the textbook “Essentials of Understanding Psychology”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBCaEeuReGE#action=share 

Through the kind generosity of the Seneca Alumni Experience Fund, students from the Honours Bachelor of Behavioural Psychology and the Behavioural Sciences diploma programs attended the annual conference of the Ontario Association for Behaviour Analysis (ONTABA) at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Nov. 14 and 15, 2019. Thank you to faculty members Kelly Alves and Evangelo Boutsis for leading the program team at this important national conference and to the Alumni Fund for supporting student attendance.

On 22 May 2019, the Behavioural Sciences program welcomed over 60 placement partners, faculty, students, alumni and program advisory members to Magna Hall for an appreciation event for our placement and community partners. The event involved networking activities, a student-led panel discussion on placement success, and a key note presentation.

Students and faculty from Seneca’s Behavioural Studies programs presented research into augmentative and alternative communications systems at the Discovery event (May 2019) hosted by the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE).   Garnering over 3,600 attendees and more than 550 exhibitors, Discovery is Canada's leading innovation-to-commercialization conference.  Discovery brings together key players from industry, academia, government, the investment community as well as entrepreneurs and students to collaborate.  The team from Behavioural Studies won 2^nd place at a Seneca ARIE research event in April 2019 and were asked to attend the OCE event.  Thank you to Professor Ling Ly Tan for leading the team.

From 30 April – 02 May, six students and faculty from Seneca College's Behavioural Sciences program attended the Acceptance and Commitment Certification Training (ACT) Workshop. Student involvement at this event was made possible by the kind support of Seneca Alumni.

In early April, the first cohort of graduating students from the new Bachelors (Honours) in Behavioural Psychology presented their final semester research posters and presentations in the Alumni Atrium, Magna Hall. These graduating students were alumni of Behavioural Sciences (BHS) who entered the accelerated entry pathway into semester 5 of the degree via a summer bridge to complete their degree studies within 2 years.

On 27 March 2019 the Behavioural Studies Club held an awards gala to celebrate the work and achievements of our students from Behavioural Sciences (BHS) & the Behavioural Psychology (BBP) Bachelors (Honours) degree. These awards celebrated student success, dedication and perseverance. Special awards were also made for excellence in work-integrated learning (WIL) and for student research.

Eight student ambassadors from the Behavioural Psychology (BBP) degree program attended the annual conference of the Ontario Association for Behaviour Analysis (ONTABA) in Toronto. BBP student Jennifer General received the ONTABA student award, a single award presented to a student in an ABA-based program who has furthered the field through a variety of activities. BBP students Ahmed Mirza and Jennifer General presented findings from a Seneca Applied Research (ARF) project to the conference delegates.

Honours Bachelor of Behavioural Psychology students, Jennifer General (left) and Ahmed Mirza (right) recently presented research at ABAJAM, a conference for applied behaviour analysis held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Their research identified innovative assessment and intervention procedures for working with people on the autism spectrum.