Candace Jacobs, BSc 02, MA 07, is director of internal communications at Concordia. She joined the university staff as a student in 2000 and worked her way up to recruitment officer, then into managerial and director roles, assuming her current position in 2022. A second-generation Concordian, Jacobs interviewed her father, Leon Jacobs, BA 70, who studied at Concordia during the Computer Centre Protest. She interviewed him in 2023 to discuss his experience as a Black student in the 1960s.
Black History Month: Spotlight on Concordia’s Caribbean community
Watch our video series featuring 5 former members of the Caribbean Students’ Union
To mark Black History Month 2024, five former members of the Concordia Caribbean Students’ Union (CCSU) share their experiences of studying at Concordia and the importance of community through a series of short video messages, to be released throughout the month of February on Concordia Alumni social media platforms.
One of the university’s oldest student clubs, the CCSU dates back to 1953, when the West Indian Society was founded at Sir George Williams University, one of Concordia's founding institutions. It was renamed the Caribbean Students Union in 1969, the year of the Computer Centre Protest, the largest student demonstration in Canadian history. Flourishing through the years, the CCSU inspires a vibrant Caribbean spirit at the university.
Concordia will celebrate the CCSU at Homecoming 2024, with a special reunion on Saturday, September 21, 2024. (Contact us today to volunteer to help coordinate.)
Meet the Concordians featured in our videos:
Max Bazile, BSc 02, is a partner with Deloitte Consulting, where he leads the firm’s Total Rewards practice nationally. He is a fellow of both the Society of Actuaries and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and has presented on various consulting issues around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom and Japan. Bazile led Deloitte Canada’s Black Professional Employee Resource Group from 2018 to 2021. He is a member of the firm’s Black Action Council, helping advance its mission to dismantle systemic barriers through sponsoring and sustaining opportunities for Black colleagues.
Dwight Best is a founding member of the non-profit social enterprise ACSioN Network of Canada and has been building teams of Afro-descendent student and young professional leaders for more than 18 years. From an early age, he was passionate about leadership development and economic empowerment throughout the African diaspora. Since studying political science and modern Chinese language and culture at Concordia and Université de Montréal, he has worked in the financial services and wealth management sectors — most notably as an investment advisor and start-up consultant — for more than 10 years.
Isabelle Miller is a social justice advocate, trade union activist and labour relations expert with nearly 20 years’ experience. She has shared her expertise on these subjects as a guest speaker, panelist and lecturer. Active in her high school, college and university student unions, she attended Concordia in the late 90s to study mathematics and marketing. In recognition for her leadership contributions to the labour community, she received the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Rising Star Award in 2014 in Atlanta, Ga.
Amilcar Murray was born in Montreal, grew up in Trinidad and came to Concordia to study mechanical engineering in the late 90s. He now works in San Diego as a director of Global Operational Excellence for Abbott Laboratories. Both his parents were involved in Concordia’s Computer Centre Protest.
All videos by Camina Harrison-Chéry, BA 23
Caribbean alumni: Join us at Homecoming 2024!
- Save the date for our CCSU reunion on Saturday, September 21, 2024. Visit concordia.ca/homecoming for more information in the coming weeks. Contact us today to volunteer to help coordinate our CCSU alumni reunion.
Explore and support Black initiatives at Concordia
- Make a gift to support our public art program Honouring Black Presence at Concordia, established to showcase the artworks of Black communities on campus.
- Learn more about the implementation of recommendations made by the President’s Task Force on Anti-Black Racism and programming offered by the Black Perspectives Office at Concordia.