Ann Kerby, Claudette Fortier say goodbye

by Barbara Black

Correction

There was an error in the article in our last issue about the retirement of Ann Kerby. Ann was responsible for the following departments: Office for Students with Disabilities, Multi-Faith Chaplaincy, International Students Office, Centre for Native Education Student Advocate Program, Peer Support Program and Legal Information Services. She was not responsible for Counselling & Development (Sup Mei Graub, Director), the Dean of Students Office (Charles Bertrand, Interim Dean) or Health Services (Melanie Drew, Director). The editor sincerely apologizes.

Ann Kerby’s career started in 1966, when she was only 18. She may have worn white gloves to her job interview by a Jesuit priest at Loyola College, as she recalled at her retirement party, but she soon established a strong identity.

Over 37 years, by dint of hard work and initiative, Ann worked her way up to director of the university’s wide-ranging Advocacy and Support Services, which provides an invaluable safety net for students. As such, she was responsible for Health Services, the Centre for Native Education, Counselling and Development, the Dean of Students, Multifaith Chaplaincy, and the Office for Students with Disabilities, an area in which she was a real groundbreaker.

Claudette Fortier will also be greatly missed. She left Concordia this summer to take up the post of director of student affairs at the École Polytechnique, affiliated with the Université de Montréal.

Claudette has made a substantial contribution over the past 14 years to the development of the International Students Office. She was also a strong advocate for foreign students at the municipal, provincial and national levels. Her most recent post was assistant director of Advocacy and Support Services, which she held in addition to her role as co-ordinator of the ISO.

All Concordians will want to join us in thanking these two women for helping to build Concordia’s reputation as an innovative and welcoming place for students, and wishing them all the best in the future.

Frances Weller (IITS) recently retired after a 35-year career at Concordia. Frances started as a part-time typist/receptionist in 1965, and worked her way up to manager of telephone services in 1978. In 1983, she was appointed manager of the Telesis Task Force Project.

She was part of a virtual revolution in telephone technology at Concordia that has recently seen a new telecom infrastructure involving voice-over IP.

"The university has and always will be very dynamic and ever-changing organization," Frances said on her retirement. "I cannot think of a better way to retire from the university, knowing that it is once again striving to be at the forefront of telecom technology."