Appointments

Maria Paradiso

Maria Paradiso has been
appointed Executive Director, Communications, effective April 1.

She has been mandated to complete an integrated University Communications Plan, supported by the Marketing Communications, Public Relations and Translation Departments, as well as Information Services.

She has been with the University since 1986. From 1992 to 1997, she was Executive Assistant to the Vice-Rector, Institutional Relations (which until June 1996 included the Finance portfolio). Most recently, she was Interim Director of Human Resources; before that, she coordinated the activities of the Office of Government and External Relations.

From 1986 to 1991, she was Coordinator of the Institute for Cooperative Education. Since 1993, she has also been Secretary to the Investment Committee of the Concordia University Foundation.

A graduate of McGill University, she holds a BSc in Mathematics (1975), a Diploma in Management (1983) and an MBA (1985). She also has a teacher's certificate from McGill and was a high school teacher for 10 years on the South Shore.

Gilles Bourgeois

Gilles Bourgeois has been appointed to the post of Director, Employee Relations, effective March 23, until December 31, 2001. His main priority will be to establish an integrated employee/labour relations unit within the University, reporting to the Executive Director, Human Resources and Employee Relations.

He has negotiated more than 100 collective agreements for both labour and management in a variety of industries and corporations.

He comes to Concordia with 20 years of experience in the field, most recently as a private consultant in Kingston, but also including a period as director of human resources at the Kingston-area Frontenac County Board of Education (1991-1996), as manager and then director of labour relations at Canada Post (1986-1991), and as negotiator with the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (1979-1986) and the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union (1977-1979).

He has a BA in Industrial Relations from McGill University (1974) and and an MSc in public policy from the École d'administration publique Université du Québec (1978).

Joy Bennett

Joy Bennett has been appointed Director, Academic Institutional Relations, for a three-year term ending March 1, 2001.

Reporting to the Office of the Vice-Rector, Institutional Relations and Secretary-General, she will be responsible for the collective bargaining processes of the University's academic unions, specifically the Concordia University Faculty Association (CUFA), the Concordia University Part-time Faculty Association (CUPFA) and the Concordia University Continuing Education Part-time Faculty Union (CUCEPTFU). She will also assist the Employee Relations unit by leading the negotiations with the University's non-union employees (ACUMAE) and continuing in negotiations with the professional union (CUPEU).

Bennett came to Concordia in 1973 and has served on numerous search and Board of Governors committees, labour-management and negotiation teams, CREPUQ sub-committees and academic and administrative planning groups, as well as serving on the 1987 Capital Campaign Steering Committee.

She holds a BA and MA from Sir George Williams University, studied French language and literature at the Alliance Française and Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. She earned an M.L.S. from McGill University in 1976 and has published bibliographies of Simone de Beauvoir and Mary McCarthy.

She began her career at Concordia by creating, arranging and maintaining the Irving Layton Collection, and has published two catalogues of his work and co-edited a collection of essays honouring the poet. From 1981 to 1992, she served as Head Librarian, Interlibrary Loans Unit, and Administrative Services Librarian and was a Fellow of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.