Everything you need to know about writing print, and more, in one hour

By Bridget Sainsbury and Rupinder Mangat, learners in the Bachelor of Arts in Applied Communication at Royal Roads University.

Students of the bachelor's in applied communication program at Royal Roads learned about the role of public relations professionals in news generation in a presentation on Nov. 28 in Nixon 220.

The 31 students in Vivian Smith's "Writing for Media" class learned more about public relations from Ange Frymire, a PR and communications expert with more than 20 years experience.

Frymire, president of Vocal Point Communications, gave an information-packed seminar about the importance of good writing and good relationship management skills for public relations professionals.

Frymire admitted she "loved writing" and continues to write freelance to indulge her passion. Working as a freelance journalist, has given her new insights into how journalists and PR persons affect each other.

"The relationship between a PR person and reporters is very critical," she said.

She emphasized the importance of being available for media and providing honest, newsworthy information suitable to the media and their audiences.

"Anticipating reporter needs and understanding their deadlines is important for a PR person," she said.

Frymire cautioned students to be careful with their demands for corrections and retractions in publications.

"You can become a pest," she said, suggesting an approach towards relationship-building instead.

Some important writing tips Frymire gave the students were to write like the media, and to write with consistency, coherence, clarity and concision.

"If you've got spelling or grammar mistakes in your writing, editors will toss your piece in the garbage," she said.

Frymire said good writing and proactive messaging often got her news releases replicated in news publications. She told the students to be hands-on PR persons in their approach to contacting media, asking for their requirements, and finding out more about them.

"Asking is very important. Asking is what journalists do for a living," she said.

By asking about the media's requirements, PR people can reduce the effort required in making news for both the PR and media persons, and build a genuine relationship not only with the journalists, but also with their audiences.

Frymire's top tips:

1. Write with clarity, cohesiveness, conciseness and consistency (plain language with no unnecessary jargon).
2. Know your audience and write for them.
3. Avoid technical or foreign terms unless expected by the audience.
4. Avoid redundant words, phrases and acronyms.
5. Use action words e.g. use words like 'ambled' or 'sprinted' instead of 'went'.
6. Beware overuse of adjectives and adverbs.
7. Avoid exclamation marks.
8. Write as the media write.
9. Convey message proactively.

Born in Winnipeg, Ange Frymire has lived and worked in Saskatchewan, Ontario, and B.C., gaining a variety of experience in banking, management, and radio, obtaining credentials in Urban Land Economics, Radio Broadcasting and an MBA. In 1992, she founded Vocal Point Communications specializing in PR and other communications services.

Is 'Death to Yankee Imperialists' the answer for Bolivia?

Words and photos by Gregory Spira, a learner in the master's in professional communication at Royal Roads University. Spira witnessed history while in La Paz doing work on his M.A. thesis. Spira's research involves facilitating a "photo voice" for residents of a small remote indigenous community in the Bolivian Andes mountains. The account below was the result of his own interest in the presence of Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Bolivian capital, La Paz and the subsequent signing of an agreement between the two nations.

Oct. 3, 2007

Last week, the controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inserted himself into the heated politics of the Bolivian capital of La Paz. His visit, coming after a failed attempt to win over New York audiences, reminds us that perceived abuses of U.S. hegemony are leading some nations to build alliances deemed ‘unsavoury’ by the governments in the north. While not blind to the political implications, many Bolivians see the Iranian President’s visit as just another means to accelerate their nation’s long-stagnant economic development process.

The economic spin-offs of partnering with Iran include both knowledge sharing and a one billion dollar inversion into the Bolivian petrochemical, mining, micro-enterprise, and agricultural sectors. However, will the Iranian economic fruits remain as palatable if relations with Western governments turn bitter?

As blood-curdling cries of “Death to Yankee Imperialists” rang out across La Paz’s main square, Ahmadinejad pranced along the red carpet in front of the Presidential Palace. Amidst the adulation, I and members of his elite security team were swept into the crowd where we received hugs, handshakes, and kisses. Despite having identified myself as Canadian, I was nonetheless mildly perturbed by the scene.

The cacophony of shouts and chants that washed over the several thousand spectators changed abruptly as leaders of the Popular Civic Committee saw an opportunity to take advantage of television cameras. “Andemos muchachos! Let’s go, Channel 2 is over there!” The pro-Iranian chanters, many having been paid to be there, shouted “Iran and Bolivia. One heart! One Soul!”, and surged towards their next date with the Press.

Realizing that some in the crowd might not truly be fervent supporters of the Iran-Bolivia partnership, I wondered how average paceños (La Paz’s residents), normally extremely politically astute, viewed the visit.

Cooler heads abounded in the crowd. Victor Cortez, vice-president of the Civic Movement of La Paz, welcomed the visit but declared, “We want constructive dialogue, not hatred.” Others showered the Iranian President with shouts of “Jallalla! Jallalla!”, a traditional Bolivian indigenous blessing of long life and health.


American commentators have condemned Ahmadinejad’s anti-American political pilgrimage to South America. Claudio, a thirty-year veteran shoe shiner, agrees with them. He declared that the Iranian President’s “made clear his intentions by visiting both Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.” Both are vehemently anti-American.

Other sceptical paceños doubted the economic focus of the assistance, fearing it served to advance aggressive middle-eastern political agendas. ‘Freddy’, a La Paz taxi driver, noted, “the Presidents say they are talking about economic issues, but Iran clearly comes with two objectives. They won’t talk about the political matters publicly because Bolivians don’t support Iranian international policies.”

While recognizing the political undertones, Susanna Balderramas, a Bolivian government training officer, declared, “What really matters is whether this money will help remove the weighty label of ‘developing nation’ from Bolivia’s shoulders.”

Likewise, Amparo Aguirre, a Law student, asked, “Does it really matter why Ahmadinejad is here? If working with Iran helps develop our country, then this is a good thing.”

It remains to be seen whether the billion-dollar investment will actually yield change for the 5.8 million Bolivians living below the World Bank’s poverty threshold. While many in La Paz want development at any price, most are not rushing to join Ahmadinejad’s anti-American crusade. La Paz’s politically astute residents clearly understand that the political costs must not outweigh the economic benefits.

Getting back to nature

Environmental educator Bill Hammond delivered the third annual Robert and Birgit Bateman Lecture, speaking passionately about the necessary links between nature and healthy childhood development.

Holding aloft a fist-sized, grey-green rock, Bill Hammond grins. “Is this rock alive?” he asks.

It’s a simple almost nonsensical question. Yet suddenly a room full of master’s students and academics have slightly pained looks on their faces, as if forced to do long division in their heads.

Hesitant hands go up. Yes. No. Maybe. Define “alive.” Educated adults may grit their teeth, but for Hammond, such questions are key to spurring curiosity in kids about nature. Without tactile, playful relationships with the forests and the trees, Hammond says the nature-deficit disorder popularized by author Richard Louv will only compound the list of developmental woes facing children today.

“Learning in nature is critical,” says Hammond, a recently retired ecology and marine sciences professor from Florida Gulf Coast University, and an RRU associate faculty member in the Master of Arts in Environmental Education and Communication program. “Nature teaches things beyond just information.”

Hammond headlined the third annual Robert and Birgit Bateman Lecture Aug. 7 in the Mews at Royal Roads, which drew among other notable guests Bob and Birgit Bateman, Gordon Hogg, the Minister of State for ActNow B.C., and Guy Dauncey, a Victoria-based environmental author.

Hammond delivered an impassioned, down-to-earth talk about the necessary links between healthy childhood development and feeling the grass between one’s toes ­– or feeling the swamp up to one’s neck.

His southern Florida field trips into gator country would often involve guiding school classes for a hands-on experience in swamp ecosystems. For graduate students, that could involve wading up to their necks. Hammond would often don his best thrift-store suit and tie.

“It’s more dangerous for kids in the bus then wading in a swamp in Florida,” Hammond says. “When you get kids wading around in swamps, interacting with nature, the magic happens.”

As the world urbanizes, he says children disconnect from natural systems and are familiar only with concrete jungles and hemmed-in city parks. Citing Richard Louv, Hammond argued that without enough time exploring nature, mental acuity dulls and health problems inflate, noting the rise of obesity and type 2 diabetes in children. Further, he says kids with scant knowledge of nature will see little value in the environment as an adult.

“If you separate yourself from nature, it gives the opportunity to exploit nature without feeling guilt,” Hammond said.

Reintroducing kids into the natural environment, introducing natural environments into cityscapes and neighbourhoods becomes imperative. Hammond spoke of using “biophilic” design, which adopts real or simulated natural elements into building design, understanding complete lifecycle of all building materials and the building’s complete energy profile.

While not speaking directly to the planned Robert Bateman Art and Environmental Education Centre at Royal Roads, Hammond's remarks echoed the university’s own designs for developing an environmentally benign building.

“We have to integrate design so nature is experienced in a way that is valued,” he said. “The question is how do we design without interfering with what nature is doing? Humans and nature interacting is two interactions happening. We have to know how both work.”

Royal Roads University - News and Events

Communication from the edge

Those living on the fringe of society – sex trade workers, the poor, and the drug addicted – don’t have much of a voice, and those who speak face running battle to be heard.

Creating awareness about the plight of the marginalized to an impatient public is difficult, but not impossible. Jody Paterson, Mavis Henry and Rev. Al Tysick, three veterans from the trenches of social advocacy, spoke to Royal Roads University bachelor of applied communication students Aug. 13, detailing the struggle to win the hearts and minds of the Greater Victoria community.

Rev. Al Tysick, Jody Paterson and Mavis Henry shared their thoughts on communication strategies to bachelor of communication students at Royal Roads.

Paterson, the former executive director of PEERS Victoria, a sex-trade worker support society, said speaking about prostitutes to local service groups initially earned her disdain or outright hostility. She says prostitutes were so stigmatized that audiences tuned out and turned off. After 65 fundraising talks in her first year as executive director, she needed a better communications strategy.

“The stigma was much greater than I gave credit for. People didn’t like it. They actually wished I would go away. They didn’t feel empathy, they felt apathy and felt judgemental,” Paterson said. “It was a tough slog that first year.”

Paterson changed tack and started talking about sex trade workers as if explaining the health risks of working the asbestos industry. She spoke about safety regulations, reducing demand and keeping youth from entering the trade.

“I had to wrap it in a normal perspective. You need the government to believe in it to give funding, and have the pubic agree the government should give money,” she says. “You have to be very strategic to get people to engage in social issues.”

But despite the success of PEERS in transitioning sex trade workers out of the industry and the society’s relatively high profile in Victoria, Paterson said the sex trade remains a high-risk and highly vilified profession. “Nothing has changed in three years. Things may have actually regressed and gotten worse,” she said.

Henry, the executive director of Nil-Tu,O Child and Family Services, which provides support services to seven south Island First Nations, spoke of the long road to overcome racism and discrimination. The problem still exists, she says, but is less overt.

She said her father joined the Canada military before the Second World War because businesses wouldn’t hire aboriginal people. In the same era, the government appropriated property for a growing population in Victoria. Deals with the government to protect First Nation traditional lands were broken, she says.

“For me that’s why private land should be in the mix with treaties. We’ve lost so much,” Henry said.

When studying at the University of Victoria years ago, Henry says academics were resistant to ideas of aboriginal rights and title, but slowly ideas of aboriginal perspective and decolonisation became part of mainstream academia.

“Not just me but everyone uses the lens of decolonization,” she says.

Rev. Tysick, a self-described “panhandler at heart” and tireless champion of the homeless and downtrodden through the Open Door ministry, says as social issues become worse, poverty advocates need to communicate a clearer message to the public.

“Praying doesn’t bring in the money,” he quipped.

With Tysick’s gregarious, emotive style, he told the students effective communications could employ powerful imagery and symbols. In full Catholic cardinal garb, Tysick brandished a large knife, chopped an apple in half and silently held aloft the rotten core, a recreation of his favourite anecdote from his childhood in Montreal.

“Sometime silence can be the best communication,” he said. “Use communication wisely and clearly. My communication is mainly to tell stories. That is extremely powerful if you can tell a story well.”

Royal Roads University - News and Events

Green gathering at RRU

They say it’s not easy being green, but while relaxing on the lawn behind Hatley Castle with a view of the snow-capped Olympic Mountains, somehow it’s not that hard either.

Royal Roads University played host July 10 to Green Drinks, a growing social networking event for those seeking green thinking in their communities and economies.

Green Drinks is hosted in dozens of cities across Canada and more than 240 cities around the world. Roger Colwill, a vice-president with International Composting Corp., launched the event in Victoria last September, after prompting from noted sustainability author Guy Dauncey.

Roger Colwill and Guy Dauncey speaking behind Hatley Castle.

Starting out with 150 environmental professionals and activists at a downtown café, Colwill says the Victoria chapter is the fastest growing Green Drinks the world. The Royal Roads event surpassed all expectations, drawing more than 300 people for salmon burgers and beer.

“Green Drinks is quite amorphous, quite unique. We have presidents, scientists, politicians, social activists and people from everyday walks of life coming together to share ideas,” Colwill said. “There is no equivalent meeting like this.”

Appropriate to a social gathering focused on sustainability, most people arrived at Royal Roads on bike via the Galloping Goose Trail from Victoria, although the distance champion pedaled from Salt Spring Island. A few people drove in their electric, bio-diesel or vegetable-oil fuelled cars. Ichiko Sugiyama, 18, walked almost four hours from Saanich.

Shrugging her shoulders, Sugiyama said why shouldn’t she walk? She has two working legs and it was a beautiful day. “I don’t use fuel and it’s healthy,” she said.

Royal Roads University associate vice-president and environmental scientist Steve Grundy noted that the university itself is striving to become a model for sustainability. Grundy described the campus as a potential “living laboratory.”

“We want to go carbon neutral and in 10 years I’d like to see us off the grid. It will be a real challenge but we should set lofty goals,” Grundy said during a speech. “This campus has everything we need — wind, a large elevation drop and tides. It has all the pieces for a self sustaining campus.”

Dauncey lauded Royal Roads commitment to going green through-and-through, saying people and institutions need to take responsibility for their impact on the planet. “If you aren’t trying to make a difference you are part of the problem,” he said.

It was that kind of thinking that drew the who’s who of sustainability movers and shakers to Royal Roads. Dockside Green and Westhills reps pressed their case that property developments can be sustainable and environmentally progressive. Car-share groups, renewable energy companies, and ecological conservation non-profits were on hand to share notes and new ideas.

“The whole sustainability movement in Victoria is close-knit, and all play a role to move toward a healthier future,” said Darlene Tait, with Westhills development, a 6,000-unit project in Langford seeking advanced certification in Leadership in Energy Environmental Design. “The people here have shared philosophy and direction, and we are here to support each other.”

Jody Watson, director of the Esquimalt Lagoon Stewardship Initiative, said Green Drinks has opened new methods for her group’s efforts to restore fragile dune ecosystems along the lagoon’s beach. Watson said Victoria’s International Composting Corp. is helping provide mulch derived largely from household organic waste.

“It is amazing how many environmentally conscious people there are in this area. Green Drinks is wonderful for bringing people together,” Watson said. “The green community is more connected and collaborative. And we get to have a beer.”

For more info see http://www.greendrinks.org/.

Royal Roads University - News and Events

Roar of the librarian

When RRU librarian Dana McFarland accepted a secondment at the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group (HTG) a year ago, she faced a librarian’s nightmare. Hundreds of boxes of First Nations research papers, journal articles and legal opinions sat stacked with no cataloguing and no discernable order, in the HTG portable building on the outskirts of Ladysmith, B.C.

Amassing thousands of documents was meant to give an information edge to negotiators seeking a self-governance treaty for the six First Nations within the HTG – the Cowichan, Chemainus, Penelakut, Lyackson, Halalt and Lake Cowichan bands. Instead, the information became an incoherent burden eating into floor space.

The problem also added inertia to the notoriously officious pace of negotiations, now in year 14. Without quick retrieval of historical texts or background research, discussion threads with the provincial and federal governments on fishing rights or timber resources, for instance, could drag out to nothing.

“Two years ago we realized we had a critical mass of data, more than we could efficiently find,” says Brian Thom, an HTG negotiator. “We had thousands of documents that were more-or-less inaccessible. We needed a professional librarian to come in and help.”

With small-town serendipity, a top-flight librarian just happened to be in the neighbourhood. McFarland, the head librarian for Royal Roads University, lives only a few blocks from Thom in Ladysmith, a picturesque seaside community on Vancouver Island’s east coast. They even knew each other as kids from the old neighbourhood in Abbotsford, in B.C.’s Fraser Valley.

Royal Roads agreed to assign McFarland to the HTG and even made up the difference in her salary from what the treaty group could afford. The deal had other advantages. Her hour-long commute to Victoria was cut to seven minutes.

McFarland came into the HTG on the heels of a UBC library sciences student who had made an admirable dent in the document mass. “[The student’s] work served to magnify the value of an information management program,” McFarland said. “It was a fascinating opportunity to make the document system work, and Royal Roads certainly saw value in it.”

McFarland, admittedly a little overwhelmed at first, set to work. The information management system had to be sustainable and consistent, and provide reliable Google-like document retrieval. McFarland mapped out a classification and key-word strategy as she and her assistant Della Daniels digitized documents into the Xerox Docushare database.

An intractable challenge was avoiding losses in translation. Hul’qumi’num, an ancient Coast Salish language, had been written with the Roman alphabet for less than 100 years. Spellings could be inconsistent between aboriginal communities separated by less than 50 kilometres.

“It’s a big issue to have systematisation with a language that is primarily oral,” McFarland said, who spoke on the issue at a provincial First Nations technical conference. First Nations members within the HTG office made executive decisions on Hul’qumi’num spellings for consistency. McFarland herself took weekly classes on spoken Hul’qumi’num.

“It was a good opportunity to learn the language and it really facilitated the work,” she said. “The [HTG staff] were a great group of people to work with. And the project was an opportunity to get back in touch with my profession, to do real library work but in a different context.”

Stacks of binders and documents remain, but by any reckoning, McFarland’s library framework is a resounding success, and with deep ramifications.

Thom, the HTG negotiator, says the electronic and physical libraries are a key element for future self-governance. Moreover, he says consultants and academic researchers could remotely access portions of the document database, making the HTG electronic library an active research institution.

“Royal Roads has made a major contribution. The university has provided a technical framework for building future self-governance,” Thom says. “It shows the difference between theory and practice. Royal Roads sent us the best librarian we could have, and she built an incredible amount of capacity for us. It is a university in action.”

Robert Morales, the HTG’s chief negotiator, agreed McFarland’s work give the strategic edge the HTG has sought for a decade.

“Dana made the information accessible,” Morales says. “If we can find information quickly it does create an advantage. At the negotiating table it is good to respond to issues quickly to maintain a level of interaction, rather than let things die or lose continuity.”

The document library couldn’t have come at a more critical time. Recent developments in British Columbia have called entire treaty negotiation structure into question. Morales has formed a unity table with 60 First Nations to break common stalemates with the provincial and the federal governments.

The Hul’qumi’num table has been at the agreement-in-principal stage for years, the phase that hashes out the meat of the treaty, including land, governance, taxes, co-management rights and fiscal relationships — all the problem points.

Thom says the document library has allowed the HTG to take a leadership role in writing policy and developing solutions to move past the impasse.

“This has allowed us at HTG to become policy leaders. The HTG library is now a key resource to draw on a decade of work under our belt,” Thom says. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We can get to policy solutions, bridge the gaps and get to a final treaty.”

Royal Roads University - News and Events
Royal Roads University - InRoads newsletter

Royal Roads University Convocation Spring 2007

Human rights dissident Mohammad Emami escaped from Iran six years ago after being imprisoned and nearly executed. In the remote jungles of Uganda, Ottawa business consultant Carl Byers helped youth demobilize from a brutal civil war.

Both students graduated with a Master of Arts in Human Security and Peacebuilding, alongside more than 800 graduates from dozens of programs at Royal Roads University’s 21st convocation Friday, June 15.

Their stories are two of hundreds that speak to the personal struggle and personal sacrifice made to improve lives around the world. And their stories reflect why Royal Roads University honoured humanitarian poet Dr. Gary Geddes and international development expert Isabel Lloyd with honorary degrees, and First Nations community leaders Chief Andy Thomas and Chief Robert Sam with the Chancellor’s Community Recognition Award.

Emami, an author an activist who agitated for democratic reforms in Iran since the fall of the Shah in 1979, says Human Security and Peacebuilding stretched his political horizons, enough so that he would eventually like to teach the program.

“I want to teach the younger generation to be brave,” says Emami, who is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Alberta. “The only thing that brought me here is courage and bravery.”

Byers, who earned the RRU Chancellor’s Award and the RRU Founders’ Award, helped reintegrate children back into Ugandan civil society through entrepreneurial skills training.

“The program comes from an applied perspective so the graduates have the skills and knowledge they need on the ground. We are able to look at problems from a practical point of view,” Byers said. The Ottawa-based business consultant said the Royal Roads program was tough, but worth two years of juggling work, family and school.

Certainly, balancing school and life was a theme that resonated through many graduate tales of surviving the programs with families and jobs intact. And the number of spouses with small children in tow at the convocation ceremony spoke to the Royal Roads demographic, and to the success of its learning model.

“It was a great marriage and life experience,” says Galen Hutcheson, an art therapist from Vancouver who graduated with an MA in Leadership and Training. Her husband Steve Krehbiel said the three-week residency system blended with online learning made advancing her education possible.

“The distance learning was amazing. She was gone a month at a time twice and we could manage that,” Krehbiel said with his infant daughter Lily strapped to his chest. “Having her at home for most of the program was wonderful.”

Scott Ackerman, an MBA-Executive Management graduate and Founders’ Award winner, said a clear plan helped him and his family successfully navigate a stressful two years.

“My top advice is to have a discussion with your family and friends,” says Ackerman, a manager at Hewlett Packard in Calgary. “You’ve got to know what you are getting into. Your life will be very different.”

Ackerman says that after 18 years in the information technology sector, the MBA program changed his entire career focus to management consulting and business financing. With two promotions since starting the MBA, he’s now working with Hewlett Packard in strategic planning and finance.

“My career was transformed from my MBA,” he says. “I went to work knowing nothing about business and finance, but reached a point where I feel I can do just about anything.”

Humanitarian work and leadership

At the morning and afternoon ceremonies, enlightened advice from the award recipients gave hundreds of Royal Roads University graduates plenty to ponder.

Dr. Gary Geddes, a political poet and Canadian literary figure, and Isabel Lloyd a former B.C. deputy minister who now works in international development, were bestowed with honorary Doctor of Laws. Esquimalt First Nation Chief Andy Thomas and Songhees Chief Robert Sam were presented with Chancellor’s Community Recognition Awards.

The university honoured the chiefs for their tireless work advocating for aboriginal rights and for improving the lives of their people. But RRU president Allan Cahoon also acknowledged that the Coast Salish people used the property that is now Royal Roads for a millennium before European contact.

“For 35 years, Chief Andy Thomas has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of Esquimalt First Nation people,” Cahoon said. “He is a model and pillar of the community, dedicated to promoting land rights, health, education and economic progress for all aboriginal people, while preserving the ancient Coast Salish culture.”

With wit and wisdom, Chief Thomas related stories of hardship and struggle to science and social science graduates at the morning ceremony.

Chief Thomas offered the idea that before changing the wider world, change must first come from within. As the hereditary chief for the past 35 years, Thomas said he had fought hard for aboriginal resources and land rights, sometimes with seemingly little success.

“One day enough was enough. I was stuck in the past. If I wanted change I had to change in here,” Chief Thomas said gesturing to his heart in a poignant, off-the-cuff speech. “It was a big struggle for me and for any person who wants to see change in the world.”

He told the graduates to make the world an inclusive place, not a world where people struggle to have hope. “When you look at the world look at everybody,” Chief Thomas said.

Dr. Gary Geddes, a long-time human rights advocate, spoke of his harrowing time in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship and the social upheaval he witnessed during the Vietnam-war era.

Geddes reminded the graduates not to take for granted the freedom to write and speak without fear. Nurture that innate poetic faculty, he said, that faculty that lets you separate lies from the truth.

“Tell our current leaders and those who replace them that guns and war are not the answer, that clichés and Band-aid solutions will not save the planet…,” he said. “Be bold in your pursuit of what is good and what is of genuine human value.”

At the afternoon convocation, Songhees Elder Elmer George accepted the Chancellor’s community award on behalf of Chief Sam, who was unable to attend the ceremony.

“I’m thankful to be here to accept this for our chief,” George said. “He worked hard for a treaty, almost worked himself to death. But he is still with us, still fighting for us. We are thankful for him.”

Isabel Lloyd, a former deputy minister in the provincial government and a consultant on economic and human rights programs in Southeast Asia, offered cautioned advice to MBA graduates.

Ms. Lloyd told the graduates they are entering a difficult world fraught with conflict, where leaders speak of good governance and human rights but often act with opposite intent. She said governments and corporations need to play a greater role promoting social responsibility.

“As current and future leaders, and as RRU alumnae, you will be in a position to make a difference,” Lloyd said. “They key for you, as for all of us, lies in your individual code of ethics and how you apply that in your work. Individuals can and do make a difference.”

Royal Roads University Spring 2007 Convocation
Royal Roads University - News and Events