{"id":58988,"date":"2019-08-29T09:27:43","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T13:27:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=58988"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:37:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:37:03","slug":"president-hosts-community-breakfasts-and-highlights-carletons-momentum","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/president-hosts-community-breakfasts-and-highlights-carletons-momentum\/","title":{"rendered":"President Hosts Community Breakfasts and Highlights Carleton\u2019s Momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n President Hosts Community Breakfasts and Highlights Carleton\u2019s Momentum\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

At the invitation of President Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Carleton University faculty and staff got together to celebrate last year\u2019s accomplishments and look ahead to the 2019-\u201820 academic year at a pair of community breakfasts on Aug. 28 and 29, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gatherings in the University Centre food court featured remarks from Bacon, who noted that 12 months have passed since he joined Carleton and first presided over a welcome-back breakfast last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really means a lot that you are all here this morning,\u201d Bacon said at this year\u2019s first breakfast. \u201cCarleton has a reputation as a warm and welcoming community, and I\u2019ve really felt that every day since I\u2019ve joined \u2014 every day \u2014 and I feel it this morning. It feels great to be here and to serve this great community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bacon welcomed new members of the community and said he couldn\u2019t wait to welcome more than 31,000 students to campus, pointing out that the youngest of the new group were born in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also cited other impressive figures: about 5,000 graduates received their degrees at Convocation last spring, research funding increased from about $55 million to more than $70 million last year (Carleton\u2019s biggest annual increase ever), and the Collaborate fundraising campaign came to a successful conclusion<\/a> last year, surpassing its $300-million goal with more than 29,000 donors contributing gifts that have helped the university establish more than 400 new scholarships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThese numbers,\u201d said Bacon, \u201care a proxy for impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting to the year ahead, Bacon highlighted Carleton\u2019s array of support services for students, including the university\u2019s unique Therapy Dogs program<\/a>, which is expanding in size this September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love this program,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are real Carleton people with their own dogs. I think that says something powerful about our sense of community. And this year we are doubling the number of dogs, and of their humans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also talked about other efforts to make the community more inclusive, including the work of the Carleton University Indigenous Strategic Initiatives Committee<\/a>, and the continued development of campus infrastructure, such as the new Smart Environments Building \u2014 which hosted a preview event<\/a> on Aug. 27, 2019 \u2014 and the rapidly rising Nicol Building<\/a>, a new home for the Sprott School of Business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have momentum \u2014 we do \u2014 and we need to use it,\u201d said Bacon. \u201cIf we do things right, Carleton is exactly the type of school that\u2019s really going to thrive over the next few decades thanks to our size, our location and our values. We\u2019re more flexible, we\u2019re better connected and we\u2019re willing to try things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In closing, he talked about the importance of the process that will lead to the development of the university\u2019s next Strategic Integrated Plan<\/a> (SIP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe vision and objectives laid out in our last SIP, which took us from 2013 to 2018, have by and large been realized,\u201d said Bacon. \u201cNow we need to write the next chapter. We will consult in a broad and inclusive way, so it becomes our<\/em> plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are a unique institution with a rich history, strong values and unique strengths. To get this next chapter right, we need to anchor this plan in our past, but also recognize that the world is changing and embrace that change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the invitation of President Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Carleton University faculty and staff got together to celebrate last year\u2019s accomplishments and look ahead to the 2019-\u201820 academic year at a pair of community breakfasts on Aug. 28 and 29, 2019. The gatherings in the University Centre food court featured remarks from Bacon, who noted that 12 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":59001,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-58988","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97963,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/58988\/revisions\/97963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=58988"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=58988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}