Below are a few notes from our final Alumni Council meeting of the year.

The Alumni Association will be hosting a Volunteer Summit in May. It’ll be a free event, open to the public, and will take place at the Alumni House on campus. Brief description:

Be a part of the U of A Alumni Association’s amazing 99-year history of volunteerism by participating in the first Alumni Volunteer Summit. The Volunteer Summit provides an opportunity to connect, enrich and educate the great U of A Alumni volunteers. Each session will feature an inspirational U of A alumnus to discuss community engagement, motivation and the ever changing role of social media.

Date and Time: Saturday, May 10, 2014 (8:30a.m. – 2 p.m)

Location: Alumni House (11515 Saskatchewan Dr.)

Cost: Free

Speakers include Fiona Cavanagh of the Centre for Public Involvement, Chris Tse of Blitz Conditioning and Joyce Yu from the U of A’s  Office of Advancement. More details, including the full program, can be found at the Alumni Association website.

Should also note that U of A Alumni met and surpassed the volunteer challenge. Pretty remarkable feat and another great example of the commitment Alumni have to their communities. Great stuff.

Didn’t come across this in February, but the U of A CAPS program hosts a job shadowing week for students to connect with Alumni. Our very own Mary Pat Barry was able to share her knowledge and experience with a current student [U of A – CAPS].

Our guest this morning was Steve MacDonald, Deputy Minister for Alberta Innovation and Advanced Education. Steve talked about the Government’s commitment to higher education (i.e., more money in the 2014 budget) and the Campus Alberta initiative. Steve mentioned that the Government recently reviewed its goals regarding higher education and should soon be publishing a report that provides recommendations. I’ll post it here once it’s available.

UPDATE: The Government of Alberta released a report entitled Sustainable Prosperity Through Innovation. There are a few recommendations on how Campus Alberta can improve. The majority of the paper is on how industry can capitalize on some of the research being done by the University and colleges. The official news release is at Alberta.ca.

To see all my posts pertaining to the Alumni Council including meeting notes and other news, you can click here.