“I’ve made so many close friends in my time here.”
Debbie Travis
“I feel lucky to come to work at Western everyday because it’s a labour of love.”
“I’m a reflection of our staff.”
These comments, from this year’s Award of Excellence winners, were a triumphant way to begin a Staff and Leaders’ conference week programmed to provide growth, opportunity, learning and development.
“I’m passionate about the students and they are the ones who keep me coming back to work everyday,” says Barbara Haggarty-Hebert, who along with John Brunet, Krys Chelchowski, Wendie Crouch, Lesley Mounteer, Stanislaw Szapiel and Mitch Zimmer, was an Award of Exellence winner. “Truly today, I am purple and proud.”
The four-day conference – offering personal, professional and team development – had more than 1,200 registrants attending up to five keynote sessions and 16 concurrent sessions, as well as five site tours.
“It was a very successful conference,” says conference co-ordinator Anne-Marie Fischer. “We’re happy to see that not only did we have some great speakers, but that people got a lot out of it and are still talking about it.”
Canadian author and financial planner David Chilton shared inspiring and funny tales and reminded everyone not to “worry the small stuff in life” and to keep everything in perspective in your daily life.
“If you’re healthy and living in Canada, I can’t think of a better place to be,” says Chilton.
Best-selling author and interior design guru Debbie Travis shared a similar message of being sure to laugh each day and have passion in everything you do.
“You don’t have to be the best at what you do, but you must be passionate about what you do. If you have passion you will always be a success,” says Travis. “Make the time to connect with your friends because when you do that you connect with yourself.”
Staff and leaders also got ‘behind the curtain’ of several hidden gems on campus, such as the McIntosh Gallery and the Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Pavilion.
John Lutman, The James Alexander and Ellen Rea Benson Special Collections Librarian in the Western Archives, took a handful of lucky registrants into areas of the archives normally out of bounds, such as the 9,300-square-foot archival warehouse.
“We are known for rare books, but arguably have one of the finest collections of any academic library relating to the history of its local region,” he says.
David Chilton