The crisis is real on campus

Dr. Craig Stephenson, president of Centennial College since August 2019.

The president contacted me this week. No, not that president. He’s an administrator of a large Toronto-area college. He addressed me by my first name, which caught my attention. Then, he offered some reflections on the pandemic, its impact on teaching, on learning and most assuredly on budgets. I sensed it was a pitch letter. But he wasn’t pitching me about hisbudget. He spoke about students’ budgets, or lack of them.

“It’s the beginning of a new order,” Craig Stephenson, president of Centennial College, said in a note, “full of uncertainty for our students…” (more…)

Surviving the night

NIGHTTIME_HIGHWAYAt about 3 or 3:30 in the morning, one hardly expects anything very important to happen. After all, most civilized people are asleep in their beds at that hour. But last Tuesday night, I didn’t have any choice. I had to drive a long distance – between Winnipeg and Saskatoon – to arrive in time for a media appointment the next morning.

As I drove my car rental late that night, I suddenly became aware that the sky was growing brighter in the wrong place. Not behind me to the East where the sun would be rising in a couple of hours, but to the North. I dimmed the lights on the console of the car and peered off to my right.

“The Northern Lights,” I said to myself in a hushed tone, as if speaking the words aloud would scare them off. “Aurora borealis,” I added. (more…)