Volume M13, Issue No. 16, December 8, 2014

Intercom is published regularly and serves to inform Vanier staff and teachers of notices and special events. It is posted on the Vanier College Website and distributed electronically. Submissions should be sent to intercom@vaniercollege.qc.ca. Submissions should be in WORD, and sent as an attachment. No formatting or bullets. Deadline: 4:00 p.m. on the Wednesday preceding publication.

Vanier Walk 360º Tour & Contest

IT Support Services is proud to unveil the Vanier Walk – a 360º tour of the entire College, from the front sign to N building, from the smallest classroom to the Gym, and from the cafeteria to places you've never seen before. With over 600 images captured in 360º x 180º imagery, showing every room, resource area, corridor, and part of the campus from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. You can now explore the College from

the comfort of your computer or mobile device, check out your classroom before your class, and engage in the most immersive views of Vanier ever captured. Check out the Vanier Walk at walk.vaniercollege.qc.ca To celebrate this monumental launch, we've gone off the Vanier grid to capture 10 areas that the majority of the Vanier community has never set foot in, letting you see hidden or unexpected areas and views of the College. Starting today, we're launching the Vanier Walk Challenge, prompting you to explore the virtual views, and find the 10 hidden scenes, with prizes for the first two students and first employee to find all 10 and submit them online at walk.vaniercollege.qc.ca/challenge Good Luck.

Chris Amos, I.T. Support Services

ONLINE GRADE SUBMISSION FOR FALL 2014 SEMESTER - DAY TEACHERS

Please note that the deadline is MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2014, 12:00 MIDNIGHT. All grades must be submitted online. You will receive a memo summarizing the steps to follow in your OMNIVOX account. If you need assistance using the Omnivox online system, please contact Pierina Primiano at 7109 or Janet Perkins at 7114 during regular office hours. It is very important that all grades be submitted by the deadline as the Registrar’s Office cannot determine those students in poor academic standing nor graduate students until all the marks for the semester have been entered. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Thomas Ingerman, Dean of Academic Systems

Message from the Director General: Strategic Plan 2015-2020

We are now in Phase 3 in the work to prepare Vanier College’s Strategic Plan 2015-2020—a plan that will help the College pursue and fulfill its role as an educational institution of choice. The first phase of the work involved examining Vanier’s context, challenges and mission-vision-values statements as well as drafting major orientations for Strategic Plan 2015-2020. Directors of all services and departments worked with their staff to conduct this analysis for their own departments and for Vanier College as a whole. The analysis also took into account the work that had been done during previous consultations for the Strategic Plan.

2014 Entrance Scholarships

Phase 2 of the work involved presenting the result of Phase 1—Initial Part of Strategic Plan 2015-2020—to different bodies at Vanier, including the Board of Directors, Academic Council, the Management Executive Committee, union executives and the Management Advisory Committee. Student representatives on the VCSA also gave voice to what we do well at Vanier and what we can improve. External partners have also been consulted. Phase 3—Community–wide consultation, is now underway. This phase was officially launched at the Joint Coordinators meeting of Oct. 29, 2014 and through an “All Community Memo” on Nov. 3. Any department, team or service in the College can get involved. The consultation documents are posted on the Strategic Plan web page to encourage and facilitate the participation of all members of the Vanier community: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/strategic-plan . Your input is highly valued and essential for a successful and effective Strategic Plan 2015-2020. DEADLINE: January 16, 2015, in Word format, to strategicplan@vaniercollege.qc.ca. Any questions about the process should be addressed to that email address, or you may call Shirley Pettifer @ Ext. 7784. I will keep you posted on all developments.

Normand W. Bernier, Director General

Sale of Socks from Cotton Made In Africa to support the Symposium on the Holocaust and Genocide

Last week, Vanier College and the Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention Foundation launched a campaign to raise funds for the 23

nd Annual Vanier College

Symposium on the Holocaust and Genocide that will take place at Vanier College April 13-17, 2015. For the past 22 years Vanier College has held this annual event to raise awareness and educate

young people about racism, discrimination and genocide in its many forms as it has existed and indeed continues to exist in many countries around the world. The fundraising campaign will link the Holocaust and Genocide Symposium to issues of concern in Africa. Specifically, Vanier College will sell socks made from Cotton Made in Africa to support the Symposium while also supporting small cotton farmers in Africa. The proceeds from the sale of the socks will go to fund the Symposium, which features Holocaust Survivor Witness Accounts and Testimonials, as well as other guest speakers, presenters and Benedikt Baratsits-Gruber, a university-aged Austrian Gedenkdiener student, who will be coming to Canada to educate

young Quebecers about the atrocities his former countrymen committed during the Holocaust. This double pronged objective fits in perfectly with the theme of this year’s Symposium: Our World, Our Responsibility: Your Action. Buy socks support the Symposium. The socks are being sold in the Bookstore and through different Vanier College Students’ Association clubs at the price of 2 pairs for $5.00. A good cause and an ideal Holiday stocking stuffer.

Marlene Grossman, Psychology Department

Human Resources: New Hirings

The Human Resources Department is pleased to announce the following individual are joining the Vanier Community or moving through its ranks. Please join us in wishing them success in their new role! NEW TEACHERS

Adrian Bradley (Math) RECENT APPOINTMENTS TO NEW POSITIONS

Julia Hall (Pedagogical Counselor – Institutional Development) Heather Eason (Academic Systems - Receptionist & Records Clerk) Sylvie Dumouchel (Senior Payroll Agent – Specific Project) Steve Hemmingway (IT Service Systems Analyst)

Fabiola Jeannot, Human Resources

Capsule linguistique de la semaine

Bonjour à tous et à toutes!

Voici les réponses de la dernière capsule linguistique de la session d’automne 2014 : 1. As-tu besoin de ce livre? Oui, j’EN ai besoin. 2. Vas-tu à la piscine samedi? Non, je n’Y vais pas. 3. Du travail, j’EN ai beaucoup trop en ce moment. 4. Prends-tu encore un peu de salade? Oui, j’EN veux encore un peu. 5. François va à son cours de karaté. Il Y va avec son ami Marc. La gagnante du concours des capsules linguistiques de la session d’automne 2014 est Madame Ivanka Hillel, de la Faculté des sciences sociales, du commerce, et des arts et lettres. Elle recevra une bouteille de vin français pour la féliciter de ses efforts. Au nom de tous les membres du département de français, je lui offre nos sincères félicitations! Merci à tous ceux et celles qui ont participé au concours! Les capsules linguistiques reviendront à la session d’hiver 2015. D’ici là, j’en profite pour vous souhaiter à tous un très joyeux temps des Fêtes!

Isabelle Rivest, Département de français

Honours Social Science and Commerce Recruitment Campaign

Please encourage your strong first semester students (ID number begins with 14) to apply to the Honours Social Science and Commerce program. Over 65% of applicants apply because their teacher suggests they are good candidates. They need to have an 80% average and be presently taking 6-7 classes. Applications can be found in A-286. You can also send me the names and ID numbers and I will contact the students directly. The deadline to apply is Tuesday December 9

th, 2014. If

the teachers or the students have any questions they can contact: Loris Peternelli Honours Coordinator at peternel@vaniercollege.qc.ca.

Loris Peternelli, Psychology Department

German/Danish Exchange 2015

Once again, the Language School will host a group of students from a school in Denmark. Homestay families are needed to host our students. If you have a spare room and would like to get involved with the Language School please contact us. The students will be arriving at the end of March and stay for four weeks. Hosts are compensated $800 for the four weeks and must provide 3 meals per day. Tel.: 514-744-7897, Email: diamantt@vaniercollege.qc.ca Office: B-228

Tommy Diamantakos, Language School

Mathematics & Science Centre

Here is what we have coming up for students at the Math & Science Centre: Math & Science Pre-Final Exam Review Sessions Are your students looking for a last review before their math and science final exams? A few of our final review sessions are still open and accepting sign-ups:

Mechanics with Prof. Adams – December 11th

starting at 10am (moved to N-326) NYB Chemistry with Prof. Di Renzo – December 15

th starting at

10am (D-508) Waves with Prof. Adams – December 16

th starting at 10am (D-

508) Sign up is open with limited spaces: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/msc/event-registration.php Partial Drop-in Tutoring Service (Dec 8

th to 12

th)

Peer tutoring officially ended on Friday, December 5th

for the fall semester. However, in order to continue to help students in preparation for their exams, we will be offering a partial drop-in tutoring service during the week of December 8

th to 12

th. The

times are as follows: Monday – 5pm to 7pm Tuesday – 2pm to 4:30pm Wednesday – 11am to 1pm Thursday – 11am to 1pm Friday – 9am to 11am

Thank you for passing on the information to your students.

Haritos Kavallos, Mathematics & Science Centre

Teaching Tip: Making Changes

The semester is almost done and we’re just finishing up all our classes and grading before we take a nice deserved break for the holidays. We might even have the best of intentions to spend some time in the New Year making changes to our courses and our lesson plans for those activities that just didn’t go the way we wanted. Here are some tips to make sure that those intentions don’t fall to the wayside. Taking Notes Taking notes isn’t just a good habit for our students. When you are trying a new activity for the first time in class try to make sure you jot down a few notes on how things are working. If you find that the allotted time for an activity is either too long, too short, or even just right, make a note so you can remember this for next

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/ Freedigitalphotos.net

time. If students don’t seem to understand the instructions or the questions, take a note of what you had to say to clarify things. When we are busy teaching our class we think to ourselves “oh, I’ll remember that to fix it for the next time.” Unfortunately, we don’t always remember those flashes of brilliance when we finally find the time to review and reflect on the changes we might want to make to that activity. One Step at a Time The idea of reworking your entire course can be very daunting. If you tell yourself that you want to make major changes to large sections of your course, chances are you’ll keep putting it off until you have time to do all that work. Instead, plan to change just a few things and test them out to see how they go. Try rethinking one class activity that really didn’t go as you wanted, or that you’ve had a great idea on how you could teach it in a novel way. Don’t let the vision of a mountain of work let you drag your feet if you can break it into little hills instead. Deadlines! Give yourself a deadline to start making changes, and pick one that is realistic for you. If you are the kind of person that is usually very busy during the holidays, or if you need a couple of weeks of downtime to recuperate from the past semester, don’t plan to start working on changes immediately after you’re done grading. Give yourself some time to relax and then plan to start looking over your courses a week or two before classes start again. If you know that you will have lots of meetings and other things to do in the week before classes start, plan to look over your courses before you get too busy. Reflective practice Getting into the habit of being a reflective practitioner can help you with making changes to your courses. By getting into the habit of reflecting on your classes, both in terms of what went well and what might need some help, you will find it easier to make the time to make the changes you’ve been thinking about. For more information on making changes to your course or classroom activities, please contact us at the PDO! For this and more Teaching Tips, please visit the PDO web page

Jennifer Mitchell, Pedagogical Development Office

VCC Day: January 15 – We expect you: Somewhere! Sometime!

VCC Day: Everyone is invited! Working? Please join us for the Morning Mingle, Lunch, and/or Happy Hour! VCC Day – Vanier Community Connection Day – Thursday, January 15:

8:15 Morning Mingle 9:00 Keynote: Erin Millar (Erin begins speaking at the

7:50 minute mark in the video) 10:30 Team Challenge 12:00 Free Lunch 13:30 Workshops: something for everyone! 16:30 Happy Hour

Team Challenge: Guaranteed Fun! Find the answers to questions about Vanier. Start organizing your teams of 4 to 6 people! To attend any of the VCC Day events, please register. Registration: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/pdo/vcc-day Please see the flyer at the end of this Intercom for more details of the day’s events. Click here to view the workshop descriptions. Wilma Brown, Pedagogical Development Office

Tomorrow night’s Choir concert to feature an Evening of Brahms

The Vanier College Choir will be joined by the choeur du conservatoire de musique de Montréal on Tuesday, December 9

th

at 7:30pm at Église Saint-Laurent to perform a number of works by Johannes Brahms, including the famous Liebeslieder Waltzes Op. 52, as well as eight-part polyphonic motets by J.S. Bach and Felix Mendelssohn. Philippe Bourque will conduct this joint choir of 115 voices with guest artists mezzo-soprano Geneviève Lévesque, pianists Tatiana Dardykina and Anna Peletsis, and Vanier piano professor Julia Gavrilova. The attractive concert poster was again designed by Giovanna Arcuri, a graduate of the Micropublishing and Hypermedia program. Do come and join us for this special concert, which will also includes carols for the Christmas season. (Suggested donation $10).

Nadia Turbide, Music Department

VCC DAY 2015

821 avenue Sainte-Croix Saint-Laurent, QC H4L 3X9

VCC DAY THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2015

VANIER COMMUNITY CONNECTION DAY

Keynote Speaker: Erin Millar Erin Millar will bring listeners into innovative classrooms across Canada and around the world where forward-thinking educators are pioneering new approaches to learning – some digital, others not – designed to engage students with learning relevant to today’s needs. This talk questions conventional wisdom about what young people need to succeed in the 21st century. Erin Millar is a journalist, teacher, researcher, and author fascinated by how our education systems can better prepare every young person to fulfill their potential in today’s increasingly complex world.

9 a.m. in the Auditorium, A-103 See you there!

Schedule of VCC DAY:

8:15 – 8:50 Morning Mingle Student Mall

8:15 – 12:00 I.T. Partners’ Displays Student Mall

9:00 – 10:15 KEYNOTE ADDRESS Auditorium

10:30 – 12:00 Vanier Team Challenge Student Mall Team Challenge Winners! Auditorium

12:00 – 13:15 Free Lunch Main Cafeteria

13:30 – 14:45 Workshops – Set 1

14:45 – 15:00 Break Student Mall

15:00 – 16:15 Workshops – Set 2

16:30 – 17:30 Happy Hour Student Mall

Please register at: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/pdo/vcc-day

VCC DAY 2015

821 avenue Sainte-Croix Saint-Laurent, QC H4L 3X9

VCC DAY THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2015

VANIER COMMUNITY CONNECTION DAY

Workshops – Set 1 Time: 13:30 – 14:45

1. The 21st Century Classroom Keynote Speaker: Erin Millar D-221

2. Talking and Listening: Mary Johnson A-329 The OTHER Literacy Skills

3. Retirement Planning Danielle Villemaire A-340

4. Internationalizing Vanier Panel Discussion: B-221 Renée Karp, Isabelle Rivest, Melodie Hicks, Brandee Diner, Mike Besner

5. College R-Score Demystified Stephen Newbigging A-311

6. Supporting Students with Special Needs Shana Stafiej & Martine Roy A-306

7. Zumba for ALL Marie Gribbon G-202

Workshops – Set 2 Time: 15:00 – 16:15

8. Active Learning Activities Alexandre Enkerli, D-221 Jacky Vallée, Myriam Mansour

9. “Bee” Inspired! Quentin Van Ginhoven, A-340 Richard Dugas

10. Copyright – Using Other Susan Bissonnette E-501 People’s Stuff

11. Introduction to Geogebra Stephen Newbigging & A-548 Mike Besner

12. Peer Tutoring for Your Students Josh Berman, Karl Laroche, A-329 Haritos Kavallos, Kim Muncey, Rhys/Kevin

13. Mindfulness Meditation Estelle Lamothe A-311

Learn! Share! Discuss! Connect! Please register at: http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/pdo/vcc-day