‘This reboot is an opportunity for you to do things differently’

Jennifer Flanagan encourages grads to rebuild on a different foundation

My challenge, my call-to-action for you, the designers of our post-pandemic world, is to do this rebuild on a different foundation than what we had before — on a foundation of antiracism, of equality for women, honouring and incorporating the incredible Indigenous knowledge and voice of our country and building in diverse perspectives at every opportunity.

Your unapologetic, unwavering commitment to equality must be built into every structure, every bridge, every city, every research project, every computer program.

This reboot is an opportunity for us, for YOU, to do things differently.

Jennifer Flanagan is co-founder, president and CEO of Actua.

Margie Gillis advises the Class of 2020 to hold an active place for joy

One of the hardest things to face is the inability to do our work, or to share and practise our talents.

To you, I offer this advice: Work with your seeds, work with your cocoon. Big ideas will be needed, and big ideas, technologies, visions and desires incubate and are nurtured in such times.

Hold your centre. Practise stillness into movement, feel beginnings. Imagine the larger vision pushing out your edges. Bless the frustration that grows your purpose deeper, clearer and wiser. Hold an active place for joy.

And so, as an elder artist who has lived through times of poverty and challenged transformation, through wonder and want, this I know: The problem becomes the strength. Your problem becomes your strength.

Margie Gillis, OC, CQ, is a modern dancer, choreographer and teacher.

Lyse Doucet urges grads to dream big

I hope that, as your world has narrowed, it has been a time for you to think broadly, dream big, but also to clarify what it is that you value most in your own life, your relations with your family and friends, and what you want to do in the world, because the world needs you needs more of you.

You have to be armed with the resilience and the resolve, to be active, to be really active. To go out into the world with all of the education Concordia has prepared you with. And never mind that the world is in the state that it's in; go out and do your part.

Lyse Doucet, OBE, CM, BBC, is a foreign correspondent, host and documentarian.