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Former students go on from our programme to do many things
Paul Brannigan, long-time-ago student is now President
of Real World Communications, Inc.
Audra Tounsend is now doing a graduate desgree at the
University of Manchester in England.
Ann del Bianco (nee Novogradec) now works at the
Occupational Cancer Research Centre, putting her multidisciplinary York
University background to good use. She earned a Specialized Honours BAS,
a Masters in Environmental Studies, and a PhD in Environmental Studies
at York. She now works in research in environmental and occupational
cancer, esophageal cancer, environmental and ecosystem health, and
alternative methodological approaches. I knew her first as an
undergraduate in my Consumer Behaviour course and have followed her
career with great interest. Ann married Dan del Bianco several years ago
and recently they had a beautiful little baby boy!
Michael Burzynski has recently been accepted
into the York University Masters of Human Resources programme.
Baijul Shukla is now Membership and Corporate
Development Manager (Senior Management), Ontario Society of Professional
Engineers. He comes regularly to speak to my class in Consumer
Behaviour, and says that the single most important thing in Marketing is
knowing your consumer.
Omor Obarogie has completed his Masters of Science in Administration
at Calfornia State University in Bakersfield.
Anna Kwakye Antwi moved to the U.S., graduated from
University of Maryland School of Nursing and is now a Graduate Student
in Pennsylvania, in the Family Nurse Practitioner programme. Her 26-year-old daughter is in the same programme with her!
Michael Appiah-Boateng, BAS, CGA is now a Senior
Auditor with the Government of Alberta Treasury Board, Corporate
Internat Audit Services.
Michael Burzynski was awarded a scholarship from the
Adam Mickiewicz Foundation of Canada.
Jenelle Ambrose completed law school at Dalhousie
University, passed the Ontario bar, and is now articling for a Toronto
law firm.
Baijul Shukla works for the Canadian Automobile
Association marketing both services and products. He is working on
various DM campaigns for the Auto and Travel Insurance unit, and is
enjoying that fantastic state of life when you wake up each morning
wanting to get to work! He continues to take courses to upgrade his
skills.
One of the saddest notes I have had to write about a
former student. Dr. Sandi Warren, whom I knew at York sixteen years
before she earned the title of Doctor at Trent University in November,
as a student in my Gender Issues and Management course, died on December 27, 2008. She was diagnosed with cancer
around the same time I was diagnosed with breast cancer, fall of 2008,
and we thought we would go through it together, as we went through so
many things together (I served on her doctoral committee, my only
doctoral student. as Business professors in the School of Administrative
Studies are not allowed to
supervise York Business PhDs), but hers turned out not to be breast
cancer but lung cancer, even though she never smoked. She came
and talked with the Gender Issues class one last time, on November 3.
Trent University held a special convocation for her on November 17. See
us together below, between Trent's President on the right and its
Chancellor Roberta Bondar on the left. Sandi left me, in her last
appearance in the class, with the tagline frequently on my email:
Sacred space and
treating one another kindly should be an everyday practice.
Dr. Sandi Warren (1957-2008)
James Tomlinson took three of his undergraduate
courses with me, including coming and sitting in on many of the Women
and Business classes, and is now my lawyer and when I taught
Introductory Marketing "live" used to come to speak to classes about the
value of his undergraduate York degree and the importance of Marketing. If
you need a good lawyer, you can reach him at 416-447-0476. James is now
working on his Masters in Law at Osgoode Law School, York University.
Audra Townsend, who wrote a paper for a conference
with me (along with Monica Ben as part of a Directed Reading course they
took with me) has been working with the Ministry of Health and is now a
Senior Financial Consultant. Most recently she has been on leave working
with the University Health Network at Toronto General Hospital
implementing initiatives under Ontario's Critical Care Strategy.
Steven Pacifico graduated with his Masters in
Environmental Studies and now works as Manager of Sustainability and
Stakeholder Engagement for The Delphi Group in Ottawa. He also
volunteers as a guest blogger with the ARC (Artists' Raising
Consciousness). You can read Steve here:
www.arcinstitute.net/blog
(scroll down to "Investing in Sustainability").
Ann Novogradec graduated from the B.A.S.
programme, completed a Masters degree and is now completing a PhD in
Environmental Studies. Ann has taught the Gender Issues in Management
course when I have been working for YUFA.
Marion Howell is now running her own business in
Executive Coaching. Check out her website at:
The Iris Group. Prior
to this, Marion for years ran the offices of a dotcom
company that made it through the dot com crunch; she joined when
they were so small that she did just about everything; the firm
then grew so large that she had to hire four people to do
the work she used to do on her own (talk to Marion about
stock options!). Marion went
through the B.A.S. programme and developed her career while raising two
little girls as a single mother. She insists she doesn't know how to
balance life but I still have her back to the Gender Issues course each
Fall to talk about what I know is her success story. Marion is another
of my role models as I strive to try to balance my life as I see her
doing it.
| Mark Ashton now runs his own renovations business "from
simple home repairs to large renovations," and says he uses what he
learned in the Administrative Studies business programme every day. He has an adorable
4 year old boy, and in addition to the stair rail that his
company built for me a few years ago (see picture to right),
he built us a laundry room that is worthy of the VanGogh print
of sunflowers that hangs in it! He did this for me as my
"project" to keep my mind off other things when I was going
through breast cancer surgery and recovery. He was a tremendous
source of support as well as a superb contractor. Check out his business at:
Ashton
Renovations. |
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Wangeci Warui, tired of York's huge class sizes, applied and
was accepted with a full scholarship at a very small US school that
specializes in very small classes and a superb liberal arts education
(my own alma mater, Shimer College). She graduated in May of 2004,
went to France to study law, and is now working in health and safety in
the diamond mines of Alberta.
Haris Hassan runs his own Marketing consulting
business, designing and building websites for clients; Haris took
Consumer Behaviour with me one summer in the shortened S1 version and
now regularly comes back to talk to students in that same course.
Omer Ahmed, after graduating from York in 2004,
enrolled in and graduated from the MBA programme with University of
London (Royal Holloway) in England. He is now working as a financial
analyst for an investment firm by the name of Al Bateen Investments
in the United Arab Emeriates.
Danny Hadida, whose case study on New
Product Introduction is included in the Introductory Marketing Unit on
Products, finished his York degree, took an Education degree from U of
T, spent a year teaching in a Toronto High School, taught English in
Japan, taught English in South America for a year, and is now teaching
high school just down the block from me in Scarborough. It is, indeed, a
small world!
Joe Krasman completed his B.A.S., including the Social
Marketing course, went on to complete his M.B.A., and is now completing
his Ph.D. at the Schulich School of Business in Organizational Behaviour
and Human Resources.
Omer Saleem Ahmed was accepted in a Masters programme
in England and recently sent a postcard with a picture of his
centuries-old new school.
Lenny works for Bay Street Document Systems, the
Canadian Agent for Xerox, as an Account Manager, dealing with small and
medium sized businesses
Tina G. has completed her masters degree and is now
working for a large consulting firm in Toronto.
Alex K. passed his UFE examination and finished the
work required for his C.A. designation; he is working for one of the big
four accounting firms. Alex is the student who provided the example of the hidden message in the
FedEx logo, that I use in the Consumer Behaviour course.
Monica S. used the project she and her group did in
Social Marketing to make positive changes for children with disabilities
in her local school.
Diane is an Account Manager Retail for Canadian
Pacific Railway, responsible for transportation and logistic needs of
national accounts for the retail industry. Her account portfolio
includes Sears Canada, Home Hardware, Home Depot, Saan Stores, CRSA, and
Hudd (transloading facilities for import containers).
Michael F. is working for Pepsi and was named top performing rep,
bringing in 5350% of his quota (that's not a typo); it won him a golfing
expedition at Glenn Abbey.
Durdana, after completing her MBA, taking an Executive
Development course at Harvard, and spending some time working in
the field of accounting and finance, is now teaching business at
The Dubai Men's College of the Higher Colleges of Technology
system in the United Arab Emirates. She was recently back to
visit.
Rebeca completed her C.A./M.B.A. and worked for General Electric
in a job that trains future top managers; she's married and
was managing the commuter-marriage thing for 6 months while GE sent her to
California. She and her husband now have a beautiful baby and they have
moved to Florida where they both now work.
Boomie went on to complete her MBA at the prestigious
Simmons MBA for Women programme in Boston.
Lawrence is a Promotions Coordinator for a division of
one of the world's largest publishing and information businesses.
Garth is a marketing manager for a bank.
Ann completed her Masters in Environmental Studies
degree at York's
Faculty of Environmental Studies and is now completing her PhD. She was
married recently.
Joy-Ann Parris is an Investment Officer for
the Bank of Montreal in Barbados. She was recently here on a
business trip and we decided that's the definition of business
travel -- someone who has to leave Barbados to come to Toronto
in February!
Marco is Account Manager with
the Business Development team for Oracle Software.
Beverley earned a Masters in Political Science
from Queens
University; I took the train down to Kingston and surprised her
at her graduation. Beverly frequently serves as an invigilator at York
exams and you may see her there one day. She is now looking into
doctoral programmes.
Sarah is a doctoral student at the University of
Michigan.
Kevin is the Product Manager for Stirling, a company with facilities in
Canada and Taiwan, that manufactures connectors for the Cable TV
market.
Paul finished his his Masters degree in Political
Science at York and went on to the PhD. A favourite story he tells is of hearing my talk about sexism in
advertising in Introductory Marketing and using it to motivate his
automotive parts salesmen to think about how women feel
when they come into their stores (he started by asking them how
they felt when they went into a lingerie shop).
Stephen figures out logistics for a trucking firm.
Michael is a Usability Manager for Bell
Canada, looking after the web team.
David completed law school at the same school James
went to (David talked to James when he was applying), worked for a while
for the federal government, and is now in private practice.
James L was accepted into one of the most
prestigious computer design programmes on the continent, at a New York
university, with a scholarship. He survived 9/11 fortunately.
Ken is a financial analyst for Merrill Lynch,
a job he loves, but he says he misses all the good times he had
in the Marketing classes.
Lizeth completed the Masters programme in York's
Faculty of Environmental Studies after completing her BAS in Marketing,
and is now working with villages in Guatemala on developing sustainable
living patterns.
Alex, who just barely got the B he needed in Intro Marketing
after a difficult time working two jobs and supporting a family while
going to school, went on to finish his B.A.S. Honours and to be accepted
at the top five law schools in
the U.S.
Jana S. is now a Marketing Analyst for Owl,
Chicadee, and Chirp, wonderful children's
magazines, all of which we subscribed to when our son was
little.
Michelle studied French in
Paris through an internship programme where she worked in a Paris
retail shop, topping off her BAS Marketing Honours degree with second language proficiency.
Monica and Audra, B.A. S. students, had their
first paper accepted for an
academic Marketing conference, after doing so much good work as Research Assistants
that they qualified as co-authors.
John is a Brand Manager for
Coca-Cola.
Darlene published a pamphlet, Triple Discrimination:
Lesbians of Colour - Work Issues, which she wrote for the
"Women and Business" class and which I have subsequently used
in the course. I have lost touch with Darlene so Darlene, if
you're reading this, email me at
lripley@yorku.ca.
Paul and Chris were accepted into the Schulich School of
Business; a number of our graduates have gone on to this prestigious
management programme.
Aroon graduated from Schulich some years ago, worked
for a while consulting to the auto industry, combining his love of cars
with his academic qualifications, and is now the Manager of Market
Analysis and Program Development for Hilton Hotels.
John R is a Merchandising Analyst with the No
Frills division of Loblaw Companies.
Ingrid finished her MBA, worked for Ogilvy and Mather as
an Account Supervisor designing web and
internet based advertising and promotion, and now works in Marketing at
CIBC. I still use her
overheads on racism in advertising which she prepared for a paper, in my
own lectures (crediting her of course). Ingrid has recently added a
baby girl to her busy life.
Martin went on to complete the Schulich MBA, started his
own consulting firm, specializing in marketing for restaurants, and has come back several times to speak to Marketing
classes.
These are just a few of the more than 15,000 students I have been
privileged to know in classes I teach. Many thousands more have gone on to
satisfying and happy lives, and I love hearing from you about what you've
done with your life. Former students also find partners, have children, buy
houses, adopt pets, acquire cars, and settle into their lives and I enjoy
hearing about all of it. Even when you're unhappy, you can still come by and
talk to me; I've been there too.
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