Meet the new faculty of arts staff

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Earlier this year, Kwantlen Polytechnic University hired four new people for its faculty of arts. As the largest faculty at KPU, the faculty of arts offers a diverse range of programs that spans over 21 departments in humanities and social sciences. New hires Borna Toroghi, Sumedha Bose, Mary Quinn, and Lidia Bardin-Arnaud share insight into what they do as faculty of arts representatives and their goals for their positions. 

Editor’s Note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity. 

Sumedha Bose

What position do you work in?

I’m the department assistant for three of the departments — anthropology, geography, and music. I was working in administration before and then I was hired at KPU. I joined back in March. I was getting many opportunities from colleges, but I wanted to get into the university so that I could grow and thrive in my career. So, that’s why I joined KPU. It has a good name and it’s a very good university. I think a lot of people and students are coming in, even internationally, to this university. It’s very reputed. 

Why did you want to work for KPU’s arts faculty?

My background is in arts. I’m from India, so I did my master’s in English literature, and when I came to Canada in 2018, I did my master’s in education from Thompson Rivers University. So, I have a background from both the education field and arts field. That’s why my motive was to get into the arts department, because it’s one of the many things I wanted to go into. It has many opportunities, it has many departments and courses that will help me further grow in my career as well because I’m thinking of doing a PhD later in life. Through this role and getting into a university and working with the university, you get to know how it works. By getting this experience, I’ll be able to work on my PhD and go deeper into my career.

What do you hope to achieve in your new position?

We have a direct relation with the chair of the departments, so we are supervised under admin coordinators from the dean’s office and we support our departments. I’m supporting them in every way I can. When they have departmental meetings, I take the minutes. When there is any kind of event or any meetings and they want to book a room or want catering, IT support, I support them. 

We also work on the budget of the department. Anything they want to buy, office supplies or if they are hiring any student assistant, we support and make the chair aware of the budgeting. I also work with any new instructor if they are coming in. So, we are the key people to meet them and support them. If they need keys for any rooms, we book the keys for them, or any supplies they want, we do that. So, we are sitting in a department board. We have our own offices and we work on-campus for around three days, and two days we work from home. We also update the websites. Social networking is one part of our job. We show support in each and every way. 

What are you most looking forward to about your new job?

The most interesting thing is meeting the faculty in-person in the departmental meetings, that interactive session we get, and because we are always working on the computer, we are kind of independently working. When we have any in-person departmental meetings, I like that part of my job the most because I like interacting with new people and getting to know about different courses and subjects. Listening to them and working with them is one of the things I like the most about this job.

Mary Quinn

What position do you work in?

My position is events and communications coordinator for the faculty of arts.

Why did you want to work for KPU’s arts faculty?

When I saw the position, it really interested me because I have a lot of experience in event management and communications. So, I thought my skills really matched the position, but I thought it’d be a really interesting place to work. I’ve never worked in a university or an educational institution. So, I just thought it’d be a neat place to work, and I went to Kwantlen, many moons ago, for a semester only. But my husband went to Kwantlen and I heard good things, so I thought it’d be a good opportunity.

What do you hope to achieve in your new position?

What I’d like to achieve in this position is a strategy for our communications and getting students more engaged with our social channels and communications. And just making sure the departments run great events and know how to run them themselves. A lot of the time, the departments will run the event, we kind of just help them. But Lidia, the other events and communications coordinator, and I will run all the arts events, so kind of having a great process for them to run theirs as well as ours and make our events as great as possible.

What are you most looking forward to about your new job?

I’m looking forward to some of the large events we get to put on. We get to work at convocation and greet all the graduates. There’s also the annual general meeting, and just any new departmental things that are coming up. We’re also doing an Indigenous Studies launch, so that’s pretty exciting and will be a big event we’re going to have in September. I’m also looking forward to growing in my position and learning more about the university. There’s a lot to learn, so I’m just excited to learn and be part of the team.

Borna Toroghi

What position do you work in?

I’m a department assistant for the faculty of arts. The arts faculty is huge, there’s so many programs and departments, so I look after a couple of them. I have sociology and language and cultures, those are the two that I’m focusing on. Since I have two departments that are fairly small to medium size, I take on other projects as well that come up. So I do multiple projects at the same time and manage the departments as well.

Why did you want to work for KPU’s arts faculty?

First of all, I am a KPU alumni. I graduated from KPU in 2019, so that was one selling point, going back to the university that I went to. I got my degree in business, so I know a lot of the business side and I was interested in arts. I never really did any art classes at KPU, so I thought this would be a nice way to kind of introduce myself back into KPU in the arts department. That’s why I decided to come back, because when I graduated, I decided to move to Montreal. I was there for a couple years and then I moved back here, and I thought, ‘you know what? Why go back to KPU?’ I was there for four years getting my degree and I thought, ‘why not?’

What do you hope to achieve in your new position?

I want to continue building strong relationships with the faculty of arts, that includes the leadership teams, my coworkers and staff, as well as faculty. Being able to have a strong relationship with the instructors is really nice and also with other departments in the university. Like I said, I was a student at KPU and I understood the student side of everything, and I’m able to learn more about the other side of things so it’s exciting and new. It gives you a different type of appreciation regarding what really goes into all the steps involved in post-secondary education. What I like about it is that I’m learning a lot of new things, and I’m able to apply that in my day-to-day in order to support the departments that I’m supporting.

What are you most looking forward to about your new job?

Honestly, the biggest thing is learning. I’m all about growth. My education was in entrepreneur leadership, so I really like learning and growing and achieving both my professional and personal goals. I think working as a department assistant in the faculty of arts is a great stepping stone to getting to where I want to be.

Lidia Bardin-Arnaud

What position do you work in?

I work as an events and communications coordinator at KPU, running mostly the entertainment art and Asian studies departments in the faculty.

Why did you want to work for KPU’s arts faculty?

It’s a really fantastic place and it’s really nice to be able to work from home.

What do you hope to achieve in your new position?

They also wanted to have more events happening and then we’d plan and go “Ok, so this is what we can do.” So, it is there that students can be more involved and also increase their attention from students and it can be continued there.

What are you most looking forward to about your new job?

I’m looking forward to helping out the arts in general and also in entertainment arts. We’d also like to bring in more professionals to help out students and get them involved in more professional work.