trent magazine hits the stands
the latest copy of trent magazine has hit the stands and the web.
you can read it online right here.
you can read on for my editorial.
When Trent Becomes a Life-Long Home
“The Patch” has a reputation for hanging on to its university students. Looking back, I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard Trent students being told that they’ll either never leave, or that, leave as they might, they will inevitably return.
I was told that. Repeatedly. I didn’t believe it, of course. Most Trent students don’t.
And yet, here I am, 15 years later, living in East City and writing this for you.
What’s more, I can’t help but notice that the town is chock-a-block with Trent graduates. You can’t swing a degree without hitting a handful of them.
In Durham Region, Trent is more and more becoming a presence, with new alumni having an impact on the Oshawa-area community. Familiar names and faces seem to be cropping up more and more frequently. This has been particularly true since the Thornton Road Campus began its successful programming.
Does Peterborough actually retain Trent grads any more than any other university town keeps its alumni? Does Oshawa? I don’t know that any statistics exist to prove either way, but anecdotally, I’ll say yes.
Hardly a day goes by, in fact, when I don’t bump into, hang out with, work with, collaborate with, or hop into bed with a Trent alum. That last one can be taken for granted, I suppose, since my lovely wife, Krista, has two degrees from Trent.
I see our graduates regularly on CHEX Television – both in Peterborough and from the Durham Newscast. I read about them in the Peterborough Examiner and Oshawa This Week. I see them onstage in local clubs. Their art hangs in our galleries and cafés. They populate many of the committees I sit on.
Heck, working for Peterborough Green-Up for a decade, I lost count of the number of Trent Alumni I had worked with. Or the hundreds of others who would call my office with questions and comments.
They. Are. Everywhere.
They are everywhere in Peterborough, that is. And in Oshawa as well.
Then again, taking a look at some of the many stories that crossed my desk for this edition, I suppose they are everywhere in the world, as well.
I mean, you really can’t get any more isolated than, say, Antarctica. And yet, perched on a glacier, bracing wind and temperatures even colder than that of the Faryon Bridge in February, we found Cody Meyer.
Everywhere indeed.
The impressive thing is the impact that these alumni have, no matter where they are – whether it be here in Peterborough, down the road, in Oshawa, or in the far corners of the world.
I see the work of Cathy Dueck on a daily basis. She has helped make my community a better place to live. Meanwhile, alumni such as Justin Chiu are transforming the world of investing in Hong Kong.
But there remains something magical about being and seeing alumni locally. Here, we remain a concentrated entity. We see each other daily. We interact in work and play. It is, for many of us, like we never left university.
And that’s a pretty sweet feeling.
