EDUCATION
> BY CHARLIE SMITH
Are you in the mood to give your career a jolt? It’s a great time to head back to school after the December holidays because that’s when many institutions are accepting new groups of students.
Are you in the mood to give your career a jolt? In January, many postsecondary institutions and training schools are welcoming new groups of students into their programs. Some have even launched new courses for those in the mood to upgrade their skills to keep pace with the rapid pace of change. Below, check out a sample of what is being offered.
CENTRE FOR DIGITAL MEDIA
At the Vancouver-based Centre 2
for Digital Media, reality takes many forms. Students can create things in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), to name just three examples.
According to the school’s director, Richard Smith, students in the master of digital media program are also discovering how to create an appealing ambiance in which these various realities can be presented. This is to ensure that it’s not a jarring experience when people cover their eyes completely with a Vive or Oculus headset and enter a parallel universe.
“It’s kind of like the early days of cinema, where people were just trying new things,” Smith explained to the Georgia Straight by phone. “They weren’t quite sure where it was going to go and what was going to be really popular—and what would be a flop.”
In movie theatres, patrons are prepared for the experience by walking into dimly lit auditoriums. They get comfy in stadium-style seating and then see large curtains open up, exposing the screens. In a similar vein, students at the Centre for Digital Media are experimenting with ways to get users in the mood for VR or AR.
VR involves creating an entirely new 3-D immersive world; AR, on the other hand, superimposes computer-generated images on the existing world to provide new insights, as with Pokémon Go. A third R, mixed reality, involves inserting computergenerated enhancements or sensory inputs, such as smells or sounds, into an existing environment.
“Mixed reality is where you contrive to change not only what people see but also the things around them,” Smith said.
Examples are the sudden appearance of tables or chairs on a stage in the midst of a play, which the audience could see by wearing headsets.
The implications of this technology are monumental in everything from education to entertainment and from security to technology. Apple CEO Tim Cook has predicted that people will “have AR experiences every day, almost like eating three meals a day”. If true, this will create phenomenal opportunities for entrepreneurs who learn how to harness this technology.
Smith cited one example: surgical education. “Think about medical students dealing with cadavers,” he said. “There are only so many cadavers in the world. If you can do some of that in a virtual world…that could save money, that could save time, and actually—i was just reading a study on this—it can save on the ‘ick’ factor.”
Unlike many graduate programs, the Centre for Digital Media does not choose students with a specific area of expertise. Rather, it accepts people with a broad range of talents so that when they come together, they can learn from one another to create digitally oriented things in groups.
“We have technical people, artistic people, social and cultural people, and business and science people, and so on,” Smith said. “Being effective on a team, managing people, and being managed are all part of our curriculum. They get lots of opportunities to practise that in their course work and in their big projects.”
The school emphasizes “active listening”, Smith said, so students can really understand the problems that they may be encountering and trying to solve after they graduate. Education takes place from Monday to Friday during the day on a full-time basis.
“We pack what’s basically a two-year degree into 16 months,” Smith said.
LIGHTHOUSE LABS
In today’s wired world, marketers, 2 managers, designers, and other professionals sometimes feel they’re at the mercy of IT departments. With that in mind, Lighthouse Labs will launch a new part-time course to help people in the workforce learn how websites and web pages work. The Gastown tech-training school’s cofounder and head of education, Khurram Virani, told the Straight by phone that the six-week evening front-end fundamentals course will be offered twice a week in January, starting at 6 p.m., in three-hour classes.
“The technology that they’ll be learning is HTML and CSS,” Virani explained. “They’ll learn coding with languages like Javascript to make their web pages more interactive. As well, they’ll be using libraries like jquery to make the web page even richer.”
Students will also learn how to make the most of a Wordpress website after discovering how web pages are rendered.
Lighthouse Labs has attracted nationwide attention for its daylong HTML500 events, which are Canada’s largest free learn-to-code sessions. It already offers full-time web-development and ios-development boot camps to kick-start careers as web developers. There’s also a part-time intro to web development course in the evenings.
The head of marketing and sales at Lighthouse Labs, Tiffany Chester, told the Straight by phone that front-end fundamentals is ideal for those who need to understand the languages and processes of the Internet so they can communicate better with developers, colleagues, customers, and contractors. It can also help them make better use of tools like Wordpress or Shopify.
“We help people skill up for the new reality,” Chester said. “Courses like this new front-end fundamentals have a broad appeal to a whole variety of different professionals.”
She noted that much marketing takes place nowadays in the digital arena through platforms such as Google Analytics, Hubspot, and Hootsuite. “Unless you know a little bit about it, you’re in no real position to make intelligent decisions that actually might have a big impact on how you operate in a couple of years’ time,” Chester emphasized. “Learning the very basics of code, marketers will be better able to work with analytics, with their agencies, with their tech teams.”
According to Virani, the front-end fundamentals course zeroes in on how users experience websites. The intro to web development, on the other hand, provides a high-level view by also focusing on what happens on the back end of websites.
LASALLE COLLEGE VANCOUVER CULINARY ARTS
B.C.’S dining industry is a behemoth. 2 According to Restaurants Canada, it posted sales of $13 billion last year and employs 174,200 people.
“With the labour shortage right now, there’s a huge demand for cooks in the industry,” Benjamin Faber, director of the International Culinary School at Lasalle College Vancouver, told the Georgia Straight by phone. “It’s a really good time to be in hospitality overall. There’s a lot of work available.”
But if someone aspires to become an executive chef or restaurant manager, they’re going to need a deep understanding of various factors that can make or break an establishment. And that’s where Lasalle College Vancouver enters the picture.
Faber said his school offers sixmonth certificate and one-year diploma programs to full-time students in culinary arts and in baking and pastry arts. There are also one-year diploma programs in event management and in hospitality and restaurantbusiness management. An advanced diploma in culinary-arts ownership takes a year and a half to complete.
“About 35 percent of our program is theory-based, where we are in a classroom with the instructor,” Faber said.
In these classes, students learn such things as designing, building, balancing out, and costing menus. In advanced programs, they explore human resources, organizational leadership, and catering. And in the management programs, they also develop their own business plan.
“If they wanted to open up their own business, they could go and take that document to investors,” Faber noted.
Because it’s a culinary school, Lasalle students spend plenty of time in the college’s two instructional kitchens. Students also operate their own restaurant on campus called the Second Floor Bistro, which is open for lunch on Thursdays and Fridays. It offers them a chance to see how the industry operates from a multitude of perspectives.
“They focus on the marketing for the restaurant,” Faber said. “They do the menus. They do the costing. They all work front of the house and they all work back of the house.”
This work is supervised by a diningroom manager and a chef instructor.
Faber said that employers in the restaurant industry are seeking people who are versatile, which is why culinary students learn the basics of baking and pastry-making. And baking and pastry-arts students learn the fundamentals of classical cooking techniques before they move on to their specialization.
In their advanced classes, baking and pastry-arts students are taught
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about such things as artisan breads, chocolate work, and wedding and display cakes.
“You have got to have the foundation in order to build up,” he stated. “We help them to understand that you have to make a really good chicken stock in order to make a really good chicken soup. They get a lot of that training. Then it’s just having an understanding and a realistic expectation of what they’re about to step out into in the industry so that, hopefully, when they do graduate and they do get jobs that they’re not in over their heads.”
CAPILANO U BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL STUDIES
Having an appreciation and 2
understanding of other cultures is a precious commodity these days in the business world. A Harvard Business Review article in August cited a Mckinsey Global Institute report noting there will be 3.5 billion people employed by 2030. And that is expected to result in far more skilled workers crossing national boundaries.
The importance of studying and living in other countries is also recognized by Halia Vallardes, dean of Capilano University’s faculty of business and professional studies. An expert in international logistics and trade, Vallardes told the Straight by phone that she once read a study showing that 53 percent of people who studied and lived abroad cited this experience as having helped them secure a job offer.
It’s one of many reasons why she’s such a fervent advocate for Capilano University’s international management graduate diploma. This unique one-year educational opportunity combines one semester of international business education at the North Vancouver campus with a semester at the University of Hertfordshire in southern England.
In addition to the graduate diploma, those who complete the program also receive a master of science in international business degree from the British university. “Just by being in this program and living in two countries within a year, you are developing your cross-cultural management skills,” Vallardes emphasized.
She was born and raised in Mexico and obtained her master’s degree in international business at Texas A&M, where most of the other graduate students in her program had also come from other countries. She maintained that it’s “extremely important” to be exposed to people from abroad to truly understand their cultures.
“My former classmates right now are CEOS or VPS of international companies worldwide,” she said. “Those connections nobody can take away from you. That can land you a better job.”
She also said that an education in international business can help someone launch a consulting career, become an entrepreneur, or gain employment in the import-export business.
Capilano University is accepting applications for the fall of 2018 for the graduate-diploma/graduate-degree program. Anyone with a bachelor’s degree is eligible if they demonstrate English-language proficiency.
Because it’s a master of program, Vallardes said some course work is more quantitative than traditional business education. In addition, students learn how culture impacts operations, motivation, performance, planning, and execution.
“Instead of taking just human resources, you take international human resources,” Vallardes said. “Instead of taking a course in management, you take a course in international management.”
Students also gain insights into all trade treaties that Canada has signed, as well as how companies can take advantage of economic integration between countries. The capstone is writing either an international business report or an international business plan.
The program offers opportunities to secure co-op work, which can enable students to stay longer in the U.K. and generate an income there. The same is true for international students who come to Canada.
VCC CONTINUING STUDIES
Vancouver chefs such as Tuscany-born 2 Umberto Menghi and Calabria-born Pino Posteraro have set science the bar high for Italian cuisine in our town. But residents will have a chance to learn from Italian masters in the kitchens at Vancouver Community College’s downtown campus.
Near the end of January, VCC will accept another batch of students for Cucina Italiana—italian Master Class Series, which is offered through VCC continuing studies. The dean, Gordon Mcivor, told the Straight by phone that students are not only going to learn new culinary skills, they’ll also get the full-meal deal when it comes to Italian culture, all courtesy of charismatic head chef Giovanni Trigona.
“These courses are really designed more for the entertainment value as opposed to training people to become chefs,” Mcivor acknowledged.
VCC has partnered with the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canada West to offer five three-hour evening classes over a five-week period. They focus on the culture of Italian cuisine from a specific region. Each evening is devoted to a region’s pasta, pizza, and breads, the pairings of Italian wine and food, and even gourmet gelato. There’s a 20-percent discount for those who enroll in all five courses, though they can also be taken individually.
VCC’S senior program coordinator of continuing studies, Claire Sauvé, told the Straight by phone that what sets the Italian Master Class Series apart is how it weaves together traditions, customs, regional history, and Italian food.
“There are certain classifications of ingredients from Italy, depending on their regional authenticity,” Sauvé explained. “An even higher measure of authenticity is if the ingredients come from a particular region and have been 100 percent prepared in that region. So they are really focused on regional delicacies.”
Mcivor attended a session this fall and recalled how much joy there was in the room. “It’s almost like a party,” he recalled. “If people are looking for an active evening, I think it’s something they would enjoy.”
The Italian Master Class Series reflects how staff in VCC continuing studies sometimes seek partnerships before embarking on new programs. Along the same lines, VCC continuing studies will offer an accessibilitycertification course in the spring in partnership with the Rick Hansen Foundation.
“The training is to become an accessibility assessor—to go into buildings and assess how accessible the buildings are,” Sauvé said.
This can involve measuring the width of stairways or doorways and making recommendations to engineers about any retrofitting that needs to be done. But it also incorporates accessibility for people who are visually or hearing impaired, those who have companion dogs, and even people with strollers. “It’s a holistic view of accessibility,” Sauvé noted.
CAPILANO U BACHELOR OF TOURISM MANAGEMENT
Imagine enrolling at a local 2
regional university to study tourism and finding out that it includes a six-month work term at Walt Disney World. Or signing up and discovering that it involves travelling to Vietnam to learn about a communitybased tourism project. Those are just two possibilities for students seeking a bachelor of tourism management at Capilano University.
“Our mission is to inspire and educate every day,” program cochair Stephanie Wells told the Straight.
She said the co-op work term is accredited by the Canadian Association for Co-operative Education, describing it as a “cornerstone” of the degree. Students accumulate 500 hours of work experience after selecting where they want to learn from a long list of high-profile employers that have a relationship with Capilano University.
“Once students secure their co-op work term, they create learning work outcomes,” Wells explained.
There are two streams within the four-year bachelor of tourism management program: a hotel and resort concentration and an adventure
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concentration. The hotel and resort specialization has eight courses designed for that industry, including sales and marketing, revenue management, and hotel financial management. The latter concentration emphasizes sustainable and environmental perspectives, as well as an understanding of risk management. The next intake of students will take place in January, and high-school grads must have a C+ in English and have sufficient math skills.
Tourism’s gross domestic product in B.C. grew every year from 2007 to 2015, according to the latest data from B.C. Stats, rising 31 percent over that period to reach $8.3 billion. Total employment in this sector reached 127,700 in B.C., which means there is no shortage of opportunities.
“We have a grad who’s an owner of a sightseeing tour company, so there are certainly some of those more traditional avenues,” she said. “We have graduates who are front-desk managers in hotels, who work in sales within hotels. They’re working in meetings and events and selling Vancouver as a destination.”
She also said that professional sports teams such as the Vancouver Canucks and Vancouver Whitecaps attract tourism, creating opportunities in this area.
Wells pointed out that a bachelor of tourism management degree gives a graduate a full sense of the interrelationships within the tourism sector. “We think of tourism as being very front-facing—the face of the city when people come to Vancouver—when a lot of the work is done behind the scenes, whether it’s sales or night audit or product development.”
The rising popularity of social media has added a new wrinkle to the degree program. Next year, Capilano University will offer an upperlevel course called applied digital strategies in tourism.
In the meantime, Wells said, there’s no shortage of school spirit among tourism students. There are two groups in the department, the Tourism and Outdoor Recreation Student Association (TRESCA) and the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), which are involved in various community activities.
YORK UNIVERSITY THEATRE
Sustainability is often associated 2 with healthy ecosystems and ethical consumerism. But at York University in Toronto, this concept is also being applied to theatre production in ways that might surprise the most ardent environmentalist.
There’s even an associate professor of ecological design for performance, Ian Garrett. His professional credits include designing the set and energycapture system for vox:lumen, a groundbreaking dance show performed at night in the Harbourfront Theatre in the late winter of 2015. It was powered entirely by off-grid renewable energy.
“Even though we were in a perfectly good theatre, we opted out of using its electrical system and instead we designed a solar-capture system that was outside the theatre to charge batteries—essentially, marine batteries and inverters inside the theatre—and designed all of our systems around only using energy we could capture,” Garrett told the Straight by phone.
York is the lead educational partner in Climate Change Theatre Action, which has been launched to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Confederation. Garrett said this project commissioned 50 playwrights to write five-minute plays on a wide range of environmental topics, which are being read over a six-week period at 200 sites around the world.
“It’s bringing the arts into the centre of conversation as a way to help people—for lack of a better way—to cope with one of the largest issues of our time,” he explained.
These are just some of the ways in which York’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design is challenging conventional wisdom about what theatre can be in the 21st century. “The type of student we’re interested in is a hungry theatre animal—somebody interested in finding different ways of exploring,” Garrett said. “We’ve been recently evolving a lot of graduate programs with that same sort of core ethic.”
York’s theatre graduates include Thea Fitz-james, who conceived Naked Ladies. Other theatre alumni from York include Vancouver lighting designer Brad Trenaman and socially conscious clown artists Morro and Jasp.
Garrett said that York has a solid foothold across various artistic disciplines and first-year theatre students share a common touchstone—collaborative practice—that informs their approach. And he emphasized that research serves as the “spine of all of the programs”.
There’s another advantage that comes with studying theatre at York: Toronto has a thriving theatre scene.
“It’s the third-largest Englishspeaking theatre community in the world, behind London, England, and New York,” Garrett noted. “There is everything from traditional mountings of Shakespeare to new devised theatre modalities, crossover with dance movement, and improv. Any sort of different genre or practical type of approach is represented somewhere within Toronto.”
CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY
Postsecondary administrators 2
around the world pay attention to the QS ratings (an annual private international ranking of universities). And this year, officials at Concordia University were thrilled when their city, Montreal, topped the list of best student cities in the world.
“One of the things we continuously hear from students in Montreal is it’s an affordable city,” Concordia’s director of student recruitment, Matthew Stiegemeyer, told the Straight by phone. “There’s good housing. There’s good opportunity to live right downtown and engage with a variety of festivals and cultural experiences. We’ve got the Mount Royal Park in the middle of the city.”
In recent years, Concordia has also been making a big push into trying to tackle social issues, integrating technology to assist underserved areas. A large university such as Concordia, with its 46,000 students, can have a significant impact.
“It’s been kind of an exciting time to see that trickle down to the undergraduate experience,” Stiegemeyer said.
This is manifesting itself in a multitude of ways, including through Concordia’s District 3 Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It brings together resources from government, the corporate sector, research, and academics to help student innovators and entrepreneurs launch new concepts with confidence.
According to Stiegemeyer, it is “helping students realize their business plans and develop how to put their ideas into the marketplace”.
“We don’t get trapped into traditional silo thinking,” he said. “We’re working across disciplines.”
Concordia offers undergraduate degrees in a wide variety of disciplines, including urban studies and urban planning, journalism, contemporary dance, and businesstechnology management. It’s also known for its progressive student body, which pressed in 2014 to become the first university in Canada to begin divesting from fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, Concordia’s entrance requirements are not as onerous as those at UBC and SFU. For example, Stiegemeyer said, it’s possible to gain admission to some bachelor of arts programs with a high-school average of 70 to 75 percent. Business and engineering programs require higher averages, in the 80-to-85-percent zone, he added. Those who can’t make the cut in areas with more demanding admission standards can upgrade their grade-point average on campus and transfer into their desired program.
“We’ve maintained that as an easy route for people who basically come in and prove they’ve got what it takes to get into the John Molson School of Business or one of our engineering programs or actuarial math,” Stiegemeyer said.
Even though Concordia has two campuses, four faculties, a school of graduate studies, and many centres and institutes, there are still opportunities to enjoy a smaller-university feel. Stiegemeyer cited a program on religion and culture as one example: it has a small cohort of students who remain together for three or four years.
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vox:lumen,
to behavioural changes, even subtle ones such as gradual withdrawal or a decline in personal grooming.
While the focus is on mental-health literacy regarding students in the secondary years, there’s a stronger emphasis on social and emotional learning for teacher candidates who plan on working at the elementary level.
“We’re not training psychiatrists or health professionals,” Carr emphasized. “We’re trying to develop some understandings of a basic nature, with the sense that there is so much more to know and so much more to learn. And hence the need to reach out to professionals who are fully trained in this area.”
She noted that one of the biggest barriers to seeking help is the stigma associated with mental illness, which this learning resource tackles head-on. There’s no shame in someone with diabetes taking regular medication, she stated, so why should it be any different for someone suffering from depression? And while there is a great deal of attention placed on the impact of sleep and nutrition on mental health, Carr said that research “quite conclusively shows that exercise and music have a far greater effect”.
KPU CANNABIS COURSES
As the federal government 2
plans on legalizing recreational cannabis next year, one B.C. regional university is ramping up its workforce training in this area. In late 2015, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) launched its Cannabis Professional Series to provide education for people working in this sector. Offered through continuing and professional studies, there are three courses: plant production and facility management; marketing, sales, and drug development; and financing a cannabis enterprise in Canada.
These courses are delivered online over 12-week periods. This makes them accessible for people who want to upgrade their skills and understanding while remaining employed. “Our instructors are all currently employed within the cannabis industry in Canada,” KPU’S director of emerging business, David Purcell, told the Straight by phone. “Discussion topics are posted at the front of the week and the learners go log in to the portal. With the discussion topic, there are recommended readings as well as recommended research portals.”
Students respond to questions on the portal, which can be seen by the instructor and other learners.
With the prospect of cannabis legalization, KPU is preparing to launch two new courses next year. The first is for would-be cannabiscultivation technicians, and will teach students how to grow the plant to reach its full potential.
“They really start with seed selection and cloning and go all the way through the cultivation, propagation, harvest, trimming, and transport of the plants themselves—all within the regulations,” Purcell said.
It’s divided into two sections. Theory will be delivered online, similar to the existing courses. The second part will be presented face to face at the Langley campus.
“We will have space where students will actually be able to interact with the plants, get their hands in the dirt, and learn how it actually happens by doing it,” he stated.
The second new offering next year is a retail-cannabis-consultant course. Purcell pointed out that cannabis consultants will benefit from having a deep understanding of the difference between cannabis extracts such as THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol), along with the impact of different potencies of sativa and indica strains. “We’re certainly not suggesting that anyone gives anyone medical advice,” he emphasized. “It’s really about ‘How do we best sell this product in the most responsible manner that we possibly can?’ ”
The three existing continuingstudies and professional-training
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courses offer graduates certificates of completion, but they’re not accredited. Graduates of the cannabiscultivation-technician and retailcannabis-consultant courses, on the other hand, will receive accredited certificates. That could have career implications if there’s ever a cannabis regulatory framework requiring accredited people to work in certain occupations within the industry.
“Our ultimate goal is to offer degree programming in cannabis,” Purcell said. “Obviously, that’s a very long process.”
Meanwhile, the existing plantproduction and facility management course focuses on the federal Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations. It also offers insights into the production of cannabis plants, covering such areas as root health, pest and fungal problems, and the types of nutrients that help the plants thrive. The facilitymanagement component addresses environmental considerations such as lighting, humidity, and temperatures in greenhouses and outdoors.
“It’s been very, very successful,” Purcell noted. “We have a number of graduates who have come out of it.”
ASHTON COLLEGE IMMIGRATION PROGRAMS
Two decades ago, anyone could 2
open an office and call themselves an immigration consultant. The director of immigration-practitioner programs at Ashton College, Ron Mckay, remembers those days: he had returned from Japan, where he processed immigration applicants for the Canadian government. He later became the first president of the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants and, more recently, has served as chair of the profession’s regulatory body.
And over the years, he’s seen the educational requirements sharply increase for anyone hoping to become a regulated Canadian immigration consultant (RCIC). Mckay told the Straight by phone that initially an applicant needed 140 hours of training. Then it was boosted to 320 hours, and recently it went up to 500 hours.
“I believe the next step is probably a one-year full-time program,” he stated.
The regulatory body requires RCICS to complete 16 hours of continuing professional development each year. Ashton College helps them meet this obligation through seminars and courses.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Ashton College and the 10th anniversary of its immigration-consultant training program. According to Mckay, a wide variety of people are choosing to enter the profession.
Many are immigrants with an interest in the subject or they want to learn how to do the paperwork to bring family members to Canada. Others were professionals in their home countries. Then there are human-resource professionals who recognize that an understanding of the immigration system enables them to help foreign nationals work in Canada. Parliamentary assistants have also gone through the program at Ashton College. “I’ve been told that at a lot of the MPS’ constituency offices, 70 percent of their work can be dealing with immigrants to Canada,” Mckay said.
Early next year, Ashton College plans to launch a 240-hour program to train immigration-processing assistants. According to Mckay, graduates would assist RCICS and lawyers by completing applicants’ forms.
They could use this training as a ladder to become an immigration consultant in the future because course credits could be applied to the 500 hours of training that’s required to be an RCIC.
A full-time option includes four hours of classes, five days a week, from Monday to Friday. Students do their assignments later in the day.
Part-time students might attend two evenings a week and perhaps even a Saturday morning. This takes longer to complete but it won’t interfere with a student’s day-to-day employment. There’s also an option to study online.
CITYU IN CANADA
Arden Henley, principal of 2
Canadian programs at Cityu in Canada, enjoys pondering provocative questions affecting humankind. Ethics and ecology both factor in a big way into the master’s degrees in counselling and education and bachelor of arts in management offered at the downtown Vancouver campus.
In a phone interview with the Straight, Henley points out that ethics is integral to the work of counsellors, educators, and managers. “It’s fundamental,” he says. “It has to do with how you construct relationships with others in the world.”
But it’s sometimes hard to maintain relationships, which are at the core of ethical interactions, when people are scurrying around like hamsters on a treadmill. Henley himself finds that he’s incredibly busy in his job, sometimes having up to eight or 10 tasks to perform in a single day. They could incude coaching a dissertation student, attending a leadership-team meeting, dealing with a property manager, and even speaking to the media. And that can take a toll.
“It’s a tremendously condensed and challenging schedule sometimes,” he admits.
When Henley looks at the natural world, he sees a different story unfolding at this time of year. The days are growing shorter and plants are falling back into the earth. But as less energy is being expended in the environment, human beings in metropolitan areas never seem to slow down. He suggests that people’s engagement in work and work-related activities may be at an all-time high as they try to cope with increasing complexity and a demonstrably higher rate of change.
“From a certain point of view, the ethical issue is: are we harming ourselves by this sort of unequivocal obsession with productivity even though the rhythm of the [natural] world, if we were to look at it and experience it, would tell us otherwise?”
The mania for efficiency could
November 9 to 15, 2017
Could you use more help from the stars? Saturn, Uranus, Venus, Jupiter, and Neptune are conspiring on your behalf. Good timing supports action-taking, creative endeavour, new adventures, and lifestyle transitions. The stars are now moving along an easy-rolling, easy-access track.
On Saturday, Saturn trines Uranus for the last of three exact meet-ups. This transit has spanned the entirety of 2017. While Saturn and Uranus are coming to the end of their association in the element of fire, they are by no means finished with their create-it, accelerate-it agenda. Not by a long shot. Rather, they are now completing an experiential learning curve and information-gathering first phase. No doubt you are likely to feel you have done plenty of living and growing.
Saturn in Sagittarius and Uranus in Aries have been busting up the concrete on the past while also reinventing the course of the future. Although that’s a big deal, when you stop to think about it, you are likely to recognize you have been able to acclimatize and adjust with greater ease despite the challenges. See it as a measure of your inner progress.
Setting creativity, passion, opportunity, drive, or necessity onto a Jupiter freshly into its one-year tour of Scorpio assists you/us to make a fuller commitment to your soul’s desire to build it better.
Saturday’s Saturn/uranus optimizes on the synchronicity of right time, right place. Venus in Scorpio conjuncts Jupiter on Monday and trines Neptune on Thursday. It’s about the feel, the sexy. A fluid, lucrative, and reward-generating week lies ahead for exploring options, money dealings, and affairs of the heart.
ARIES
March 20–April 20
It’s shaping up for you now, and you can expect it to keep going. Hitting peak on Saturday, Saturn/uranus place you at the gateway of so much more to come. Saturn gives you something more tangible to go on. Uranus serves as a rekindle and heat-up influence. Enhancing creativity, intimate relationships, and moneymaking potentials, the week ahead keeps you on a total immersion program.
TAURUS April 20–May 21
For the past two-plus years, Saturn in Sagittarius has likely pushed you through a tough move-along. While substantial loss has been in the mix, what’s most important is what you’ve gained in the process. Saturn/uranus helps you to move from hanging on to holding steady while you continue to build and grow. Sunday/monday, Venus/ Jupiter sets money and relationship matters into fuller swing.
GEMINI
May 21–June 21
Now through the weekend, the stars set up a productive, lucrative, or social backdrop. Take your pick or combine all three. Saturday, conversation and good ideas are on the ready dial-up; inroads are easily made. Venus/jupiter extends good timing and easy going for the entire week ahead. Watch for plans and goals to take on a natural life of their own.
CANCER June 21–July 22
It’s going to be a smoothgoing weekend for working it out, solution-finding, or getting the job done. Improvement projects, enrichment efforts, and necessary upgrades are well timed. Over this next week, you can gain favour with a lover or one in charge. You’ll also see progress regarding a health issue, job hunt, legal matter, or approval process. Venus pumps up creativity, romance, lust, and desire.
LEO
July 22–August 23
You can coast and enjoy the ride or take charge, apply yourself, and gain even more. Saturn/uranus keeps progress, profit, and opportunity on a steady flow. A new interest, plan, investment, or initiative is likely to prove a natural fit. Travel, a move, a renovation project, or a new moneymaker is well timed. Venus/jupiter starts the new week with a bonus or an extra.
VIRGO
August 23–September 23
There’s no need to sweat it or to force what isn’t coming naturally. Go by feel, by heart. If you aren’t certain on which choice is best, take a pause and watch for time to reveal your right play. For the most part, the stars set onto a smooth and productive sail through the week ahead. Saturn/uranus enhances relationships, problem-solving, and communication tracks.
LIBRA
September 23–October 23
Business and pleasure are a great combination through the weekend. A trade show, weekend workshop, open house, sports event, or social get-together delivers the goods. Spontaneity can too. Sunday/monday keeps you totally immersed. Venus/jupiter pumps up everything to do with feelings, trust, relationships, renovation projects, and money (investment, earning, spending). The week ahead is great for creative projects, sales, and marketing ventures.
SCORPIO
October 23–November 22
Saturn/uranus, at peak on Saturday, keeps the work and the working it out on a natural rollout. Things can fall into place quite readily. It doesn’t take much to get a good idea or plan up and running. Looking good, feeling good; the Midas touch. Venus teams with Jupiter at the start of the week and Neptune near the end.
SAGITTARIUS November 22–December 21
Thursday can be a turning point regarding a relationship, a future plan, or a budding prospect. A piece of news or something you run across can put a smile on your face or a glow in your heart. Saturn/ Uranus, Venus/jupiter, and Venus/ Neptune keep you making the most of it through the week ahead. Monday, pump up on vitamins. Mercury/ Neptune can make you vulnerable.
CAPRICORN December 21–January 20
When it comes to anything new, you often need to spend time with it before you establish your comfort zone. In the works for this past year, Saturn/uranus at peak now speed up your process. They produce a right-time, right-place feel. They also assist you to entertain, explore, or segue with natural ease.
AQUARIUS
January 20–February 18
Uranus continues in retrograde motion until January, but rather than hold you up, it stokes a good fire. At peak with Saturn, now is an optimum time to get it/yourself up and rolling, to restructure or reprioritize as is warranted. Even the tough stuff comes easy. This next week is optimized for career, marketing, money matters, and relationships.
PISCES
February 18–March 20
This past year of Saturn/ Uranus has kept personal reinvention at the forefront. New priorities, interests, and prospects have cropped up along the way. What’s next? At peak on Saturday, Saturn/uranus has you in good position and timing it right. The week ahead enriches the heart or the wallet. Venus enhances inspiration, luck, and reward.