Honouring their commitment to Concordia
When Hussein Merhi arrived in Montreal in 1979 as a university student enrolled at Concordia, the first thing he noticed and appreciated was the city’s quietude. Not surprising, as his native country of Lebanon was being torn apart by a brutal civil war.
The second thing Merhi noticed and appreciated was the warm welcome he received from Concordia’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology. “I felt at home,” he recalled during the Long Service Luncheon held recently to honour Concordia’s long-serving staff and faculty.
“Especially as a foreign student, to have that feeling that everybody is taking care of you, it felt really good. I had that attachment, so once I got a chance to teach, I took it.”
Merhi, a senior lecturer, is celebrating his 25th year of service to the university. Last year he received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
Sheila Anderson, interim department administrator in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, has also worked at Concordia for 25 years. One of the highlights she recalled was helping then-engineering-dean Nabil Esmail launch the fledgling Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering in 2002. “I applied for it, because how often in academia do you get an opportunity to start a new department?” she said.
Having a positive experience as an employee is about the attitude you bring to the job, Anderson said. “I think that if you get up every day and you want to put forth your best foot, and you want to make a difference, you can do so. There’s an environment that gives that flexibility, and I really appreciate that, because I’ve always strived to give my best.”
Mathematics Professor Richard Hall began teaching at Sir George Williams University in 1972, two years before it merged with Loyola College to become Concordia University. A native of London, England, Hall gave up a job at the University of London and came to Canada for family reasons. After a brief stint at Queen’s University, he arrived in Montreal. “It’s been wonderful,” he said. “I’ve had a very fruitful life because of this job, so I appreciate it very much.”
The main highlight of his career, Hall said, is having the chance to work closely with his former students, including Nasser Saad, an associate professor at the University of Prince Edward Island. “I go every year to Prince Edward Island,” he said. “I have an excuse, because we have ongoing work. It’s a beautiful place.”
When retiring Professor Emeritus Jaroslav Opatrny began working at Concordia in 1977 as a computer science professor, his department was growing rapidly. “At the time it was kind of a new field,” he recalls. “We felt we were building a good department, a good program … so I was very happy here, too.”
With more than 50 faculty members in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Opatrny says it’s a bit more of a challenge to get to know everyone than it was in the early days. “But still I’ve maintained a very good relationship with my colleagues, and that makes it very nice,” he says. “I still go to work with pleasure every morning.”
During his address as representative of the honorees, George Kanaan, associate dean of Academic and Student Affairs at the John Molson School of Business, said the collective efforts of Concordia’s faculty and staff are what give it its reputation as a welcoming and humane institution. “Each one of us has played an important role in developing and nurturing this collective attitude,” said the business professor, who has worked at Concordia for 25 years.
The event honours faculty and staff who have served more than 20 years in increments of five years. Nearly 200 employees were honoured for long service, including 11 who have served 45 years and one who has served 50 impressive years. The event also served to honour 65 recent retirees.
Associate Vice-President of Human Resources Caroline Willshire; Graham Carr, Concordia’s vice-president of Research and Graduate Studies, and President Alan Shepard also addressed the long-serving staff members, and thanked them for their commitment to Concordia.
“It is an extraordinary contribution that people make to an institution over decades of their working lives,” Shepard said. “It’s a bit tricky if you’ve been here only four months to be thanking people for giving years and decades of their lives, but I quite sincerely want to say the university deeply appreciates your work, it appreciates your contributions and your commitment to the place.”
Related links:
• “Dedicated Concordians honoured” — NOW, November 5, 2012
• “Leo Bissonnette retiring after 35 years” — NOW, November 13, 2012