In-depth consultation, interviews and candidate searches have resulted in three new senior academic leaders joining Lethbridge College.
Samantha Lenci will join the college as Vice President Academic after most recently serving as the associate vice president of Academic Services at SAIT. The college is also pleased to welcome two new Deans - Dr. Tim Heath comes to Lethbridge from Red Deer College and will guide the Centre for Applied Arts and Sciences; Dr. Kenny Corscadden comes from Dalhousie University and will oversee the Centre for Technology, Environment and Design.
“Samantha, Tim and Kenny each bring years of post-secondary experience, passion for student success and fresh ideas that will push us forward in our pursuit of leading and transforming education in Alberta,” says Dr. Paula Burns, Lethbridge College President and CEO. “They distinguished themselves as outstanding candidates during the extremely thorough search process, and I look forward to their contributions in time for the 2017-18 academic year.”
Lenci is completing a Doctor of Education degree at the University of Calgary, where she has specialized in higher education leadership. She has spent more than 20 years leading a variety of programs in education that provided leadership, community development, strategic planning, project management and program development during stints at Mount Royal University, Bow Valley College and SAIT. She will bring with her expertise in the design, development, implementation and measurement of complex strategies about teaching and learning.
“I am honoured to become Lethbridge College’s next Vice President Academic,” says Lenci. “I look forward to supporting and building upon the college’s teaching and learning strengths and working closely with all members of our community to realize our strategic goals. I am also eager to work with students and colleagues to continually set high standards for their experiences and to engage with the community to make sure we are always evaluating our service and impact.”
Heath is an experienced instructor and administrator who comes to the college after working as an associate Dean at Red Deer College. He has thrived at managing, supporting and advancing complex institutional partnerships, policies, relationships and procedures. His portfolio will include overseeing the School of Liberal Arts, including General Studies and Exercise Science programming; and the English Language Centre, including English as a Second Language training.
Corscadden previously served as associate Dean of research and graduate studies in the Faculty of Agriculture at Dalhousie University, and he had earlier worked as head of the Department of Engineering and as an industry research chair in the same faculty, as well as an engineering instructor at Acadia University. His portfolio will include programming within the schools of Agriculture, Environmental Sciences, Engineering Technologies and Media and Design.
Heath will begin at the college on July 4, Lenci will start on Aug. 1 and Corscadden will begin on Aug. 8.
In-depth biographies of Lenci, Heath and Corscadden are available below.
Samantha Lenci - Vice President Academic
Lenci’s educational experience started at what was then called Mount Royal College (now University), where she earned a diploma in Early Childhood Education in 1991. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Community Rehabilitation from the University of Calgary in 1995, and returned there for her Masters of Education degree, where she specialized in adult education and workplace learning. She is currently completing the requirements for her Doctor of Education degree at the U of C, where she has specialized in higher education leadership.
Lenci’s early career included stints as a program director for students with development disabilities at the University of Calgary from 1995-98 and at the Boeing Family Centre in Seattle from 1998-99, where she oversaw a staff of 66 who worked with 204 children. She returned to Calgary to work as a project planner at Calgary Immigrant Aid Society from 1999-2001 and then moved into post-secondary, where she was the work experience coordinator for 60 students in the applied child studies degree at Mount Royal University and then as a faculty member in that same program.
Lenci moved into curriculum design at Bow Valley College in 2002 where, for four years, she designed and instructed multiple blended/distance learning courses in a variety of subject areas. She went on to work there as the coordinator of the Park Link Centre Project at Bow Valley, where she led a provincial-wide advisory team and designed a needs assessment for Alberta Children and Youth Services until 2009, when she moved to SAIT to serve as academic chair of Communication Studies. Some of her duties in that role included supervising 31 instructors teaching more than 200 sections of 28 different courses to more than 2,000 full-time students per semester.
From 2013-15, Samantha worked as the director of the Centre for Instructional Technology and Development. In that role, she led her team on the collaborative creation of more than 500 new projects each year. Most recently, she served as the associate vice president of Academic Services at SAIT, where she oversaw a staff of more than 250 working in six different areas, including English Learning Foundations, Distance Education, IT and more.
Dr. Tim Heath - Dean, Centre for Applied Arts and Sciences
Heath, who previously worked as an associate dean at Red Deer College, comes to the position with a well-established record of excellence working as an instructor and administrator. His leadership experience extends to private industry as well, where he has worked as vice-president and publisher at JuneWarren Publishing, which serves the petroleum and construction industries.
Early in his career, Heath worked as an associate professor and chair of English at Ambrose University in Calgary, where he also created and taught a highly successful study abroad course at a variety of sites in the United Kingdom. That course has since been formalized into what are now known as the Wordsworth Trust Short Courses. He also co-founded with colleagues at the universities of Ambrose, Calgary and St. Mary’s, a program called Humanities 101, which makes university-level courses in the humanities available for free to people who are poor, marginalized or disadvantaged.
Under Heath’s direction and through the management group he developed at JuneWarren publishing, the company more than tripled its revenue, achieved double-digit profits and became Canada’s largest privately held firm in its sector—all within four years. Although he had no formal training as a publisher or business leader when he began, he relied on the skills of critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, communication, leadership and teamwork to succeed, and he looks forward to using these same skills to uphold and advance the culture at the college.
In his most recent roles of program chair, interim dean and associate dean at Red Deer College, Tim has thrived at managing, supporting and advancing complex institutional partnerships, policies, relationships and procedures.
Dr. Kenny Corscadden - Dean, Centre for Technology, Environment and Design
Corscadden comes to the college after a successful career in academia and industry. He currently serves as associate dean of research and graduate studies in the Faculty of Agriculture at Dalhousie University, and he had earlier worked as head of the Department of Engineering and as an industry research chair in the same faculty, as well as an engineering instructor at Acadia University.
After starting his career with an apprenticeship training as a ground radar technician in the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom, Corscadden went on to work in other technical and entrepreneurial roles while attending college part-time. He went on to earn a BEng, MSc, MBA and PhD and worked as a director of research and manufacturing and in other roles for a variety of businesses that specialized in manufacturing, research, commercialization, engineering and product development before moving to teach and lead in the post-secondary world.
Corscadden brings with him proven abilities as an independent researcher, having secured more than $1.5 million in funding from a wider range of sources, including NSERC. He has supervised and trained over 30 post-doctoral fellows, grad students, research assistants, co-op undergraduate students and interns, and published more than 40 articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has taught a wide range of subjects at the diploma, undergraduate and graduate levels.
Corscadden looks forward to advocating for applied teaching and research, to the development of innovative pathways for learners and for finding opportunities to enhance the student experience at Lethbridge College.