Hi everybody, and Happy New Year!
I hope you had wonderful holidays and that you are rested, ready and excited for 2019.
I’ll always remember 2018 as the year I was welcomed into our wonderful Carleton community. It’s been amazing to get to know Carleton and to meet so many of you. Thank you!
It’s been a rich year for Carleton on so many fronts.
With more than 30,000 students attending Carleton, we are larger than ever and we continue to invest in the student experience and student success in so many ways, including: experiential learning, mental health and sexual violence services, Indigenous initiatives, accessibility and employability.
Our beautiful campus continues to expand with the Health Sciences and ARISE buildings reaching their final phases of development, and work starting on the Nicol Building for our Sprott School of Business. We also acquired the historic Dominion-Chalmers United Church with the view of establishing a Carleton presence downtown and developing a Performing Arts Centre.
Our research has made waves nationally and internationally on so many fronts! I’m thinking in particular of the outstanding successes of Manuella Vincter, Lenore Fahrig, Chris Burn, and David Sinclair, as well as the visibility of our projects in energy conservation, the global refugee crisis, autonomous vehicles, and many more.
Carleton’s athletic talent and skill was on display on the national stage. The women’s basketball team demonstrated resilience and purpose on the court by winning its first U Sports national championship. Thank you to all our student-athletes for making us proud!
It was also a thrill to announce, just before the holidays, the nomination of our new Chancellor Yaprak Baltacioğlu. An alumna of Carleton, she embodies the aspirations of our students and the Carleton values of resilience, purpose and diversity. She will be a tremendous ambassador for our institution.
Looking forward in 2019, our first order of business will be to continue to heal from recent labour strife, then complete and to celebrate our successes in two major undertakings, our 2013-2018 Strategic Integrated Plan and our $300-million “Collaborate” fundraising campaign. We can then use that energy and momentum to start planning our next five to 10 years in the fall. We are Here for Good!
Thanks everyone for all you do for Carleton, and all the best for 2019!
Benoit
Benoit-Antoine Bacon
President and Vice-Chancellor
To know more, have a look at the president’s reports for the Board of Governors in September and November, read the P15 blog and follow the @CU_President Twitter account.