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12 / Principal Search / Upper Canada College 10 reasons UCC made news last year From students and faculty, to parents and alumni, UCC news always makes a big splash with our extraordinary student achievements, committed parents and award-winning faculty. Take a look: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT 1. Our Model UN team is going places. Our Model UN team remained undefeated at some of the best conferences in North America, taking the “best large delegation” title at McGill University, and then at Columbia University, for the second year. 2. Our sports teams win championships. Our coaches know how to inspire a team and get the best from their players. Many are former professional athletes themselves and all go above and beyond to teach both skill and character development. We won 15 championship titles in 2014–15 within the Conference of Independent Schools of Ontario Athletic Association. Those placings included varsity football for the second year. We were the only undefeated team in regular season play. 3. Our students are award-winning. Continuing our grand tradition of developing poised, practiced and dangerously good speakers, our Year 2 students Adam Rothman and David Niddam-Dent captured the Canadian Student Debate Federation’s Junior National Debating title. Also, our Prep musicians know how to make an audience listen. Competing against several senior high school bands, the Prep jazz band, concert band and wind ensemble all earned gold at the Toronto Festival of Music. And our budding Prep scientists are no slouches. They earned three gold and four silver medals at the Toronto Science Fair. 4. Our community service programs make a difference. Community service is a huge value and programmatic component at the College. Operating through our Community Action and Service program, students launched a street outreach program to help the homeless, working with Jay Barton (the first son of former UCC principal Eric Barton). UCC worked to set up a drop-in experience at Sanctuary Ministries of Toronto for UCC administration and faculty. It involved collecting sleeping bags and sharing lunch with homeless people. Five Grade 12 students kicked off the program by visiting as part of their International Baccalaureate Creativity, Action, Service project. The boys purchased sleeping bags that they took with them and shared lunch with individuals suffering from addiction and mental illness. “We purposely did not go to serve the homeless by preparing a meal or dishing one out for them,” said faculty character integrator Craig Parkinson. “We wanted to reverse the usual power dynamic by sitting down and sharing a meal with them.” Our Horizons program continues to provide opportunities for our students to work and bond with inner-city students at their schools, introducing them to music, sports and helping with academic tutoring, while nuturing and encouraging the satisfaction that comes from giving back. 5. Our students invited Edward Snowden— and he accepted. Thanks to some deft international negotiation with Edward Snowden, the world’s most famed
13 / Principal Search / Upper Canada College fugitive, privacy advocate and folk hero to many of our students, our World Affairs Conference organizers had a sensational, once-in-a-lifetime, national press event on hand. He appeared by live feed to 900 students in Laidlaw Hall, with a complete cross-section of Canada’s national broadcast and print media on hand. Said valedictorian James Lutz in his address, “Snowden contended that the quality of our queries was better than those he’d fielded from members of Parliament and Congress.” Amazing. FACULTY ACHIEVEMENT 6. Our staff and faculty are award-winning. Our Upper School math teachers earned the prestigious Secondary School Mathematics Department Award from the Ontario Association for Mathematics Education. (It’s the first time an independent school has ever won and the only math department award in Ontario.) And Courtney Turner received a Teacher Recognition Award from the Brain Bee, an international neuroscience organization, for acting as faculty advisor for the neuroscience club. Last but not least, our communications and marketing team earned a Bronze award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education in the “best single ad” category. The ad appeared in the Globe and Mail, celebrating our youngest campaign donor, Taylor Harris ’09, and his $250,000 gift to the College. 7. Our faculty get wonderful opportunities to become (even more) inspired and worldly. What better way to prepare students to thrive in a global culture? Our new Global Leadership Initiative is a landmark professional development program for faculty. By immersing themselves in cultures of emerging nations they come back with first-hand experience on how to teach about global complexity and making a positive difference in the world. So far a group has been to India, and this past summer, Brazil. That trip was a study in contrasts. Within 24 hours, the group met with students and teachers in the favellas (slums), spent hours with homeless families and then were swept up to the penthouse of one of the former corporate and political leaders in the country to discuss leadership, international mindedness and empathy. Says teacher David Brown: “This trip recharged our ‘teaching batteries.’ I’ll do my best to bring the stories, anecdotes and sense of humanity I experienced in São Paulo into my classes.” 8. … and World Ball Hockey medal-winning teachers lead innovative, life-defining trips for students History teacher (and recent Masters World Ball Hockey bronze-medal winner) Fiona Marshall helms the newly launched Military History Immersion Program. It brings alive the stories of more than 400 Old Boys killed in the First and Second World Wars. It culminates in an eight-day tour of European battlefields including Ypres, Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge, Dieppe and Juno Beach. There’s also a research component to the program, taking advantage of UCC’s many archival resources relating to the First and Second World Wars and the conflicts’ impact on the College community. 9. Our faculty members comprise a diverse community of men and women from all over the world—including our new Middle Division head, Naheed Bardai. This fall we welcome Naheed Bardai, our new Middle Division head. Born and raised in Toronto, he spent the past nine years at The Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa, where he was principal of the Senior School (Grade 6–12) and diploma co-ordinator. PARENTS’ PARTICIPATION 10. Our parents support our students. From our Parents’ Organizations to our Arts Booster Club and Sports Booster Club, our parents are an integral part of daily life at UCC. Annual highlights include parent-organized events such as Festive Marketplace in December and Nuit Bleue, a spring night which transforms the school into a cabaret, art gallery and concert hall all at once. Parents also co-ordinate one-off fundraisers, for example a Mother’s Day Drive to collect travel-sized toiletries for moms in shelters. Sportsminded parents work with our “Blue Army” student generals to plan and co-ordinate spirit-raising activities for parents and students at all major athletic events, especially sports extravaganzas like Association Day, May Day and Winterfest. One of many highlights this year, the ABC welcomed our first-ever mother-son dinner theatre, to a sold-out crowd of 176 boys and their guests. Renowned director Ravi Jain ’99 brought a special performance of his acclaimed, two-person play A Brimful of Asha, starring just Jain and his real-life mom. Guests were also treated to a full Indian buffet dinner. Definitely an event worthy of a repeat performance next year.
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