Welcome to Con-Ed!

You have made a great choice by deciding to join us here at Queen’s! The students of Con-Ed (more commonly referred to as ‘Con-Eddies’) are active and highly involved in the Queen’s Community!

Check out the Frosh Week 2010 site, and get ready for an amazing week!

The Concurrent Education Students’ Association, or CESA, exists to provide you with great social and professional opportunities.

From the Con-Ed Frosh Week to Professional Development Workshops (like ‘Classroom Management’ or ‘Teaching Literacy’) to Con-Ed Formal and the ‘Queen’s Conference on Education’, CESA helps to make your time here at Queen’s the most enjoyable and educational as it can  possibly be!

One of the benefits of being a Concurrent Education student is that we are a small faculty. This way you become close with lots of wonderful, enthusiastic Con-Eddies just like yourselves! It’s a great environment to grow, learn, and further develop your passion for teaching.

Because we are a smaller faculty we have the opportunity to create more great events. It a awesome way to have fun, relax, and become more in tune with our amazing Con-Ed family.

One of the most obvious pluses of being in Con-Ed is our guaranteed acceptance into teachers college in fifth year and our education classes in years 1,2, & 3. These opportunities, along with our practicum placements, give us a great advantage: we simply have more experience.

Getting Involved in CESA

Interested in being part of CESA Council (the body that plans events, and takes care of the operations of the organization)? There are several positions reserved for first year students. They are either elected or appointed positions.

The Elected Positions are:

• First Year Representative (2 positions)
  • Representing their year on CESA Council, the First Year Representatives attend meetings of the Council every second Sunday with many other Con-Eddies. Other duties include keeping all first year students in Con-Ed informed about the events, initiatives, programs and opportunities offered by CESA. Acting as a liason between the Association and first year students, the First Year Representatives bring feedback to the Association to help serve all students better. Planning events for first year students to maintain the spirit of Frosh Week is a major focus. New to the job this year will have the First Year Representatives acting as photomasters for the Association, taking pictures at CESA events to post on the website and for use as promotional material.
• CESA Representative to the Alma Mater Society ( 1 position)
  • Representing CESA to the Alma Mater Society Assembly, the CESA Representative to the AMS attends meetings of the AMS Assembly with the President and another CESA Representatives. This is where issues facing Con-Ed students may be brought to the attention of the entire undergraduate student body and gives CESA an opportunity to become involved in the administration of the entire undergraduate population at Queen’s. Reports are made back to CESA Council and to the Con-Ed student body as whole on what is taking place at the AMS level. This is a great way to get involved in CESA and in the greater Queen’s community.
• 1st Year Athletic Stick (1 position)
  • The First Year Athletic Stick is elected to serve on our Athletics Team, joining the BEWS (Men) and WIC (Women) Athletic Sticks in organizing Con-Ed’s participation in Queen’s Intramurals. They also organize our participation in the yearly ‘BEWIC Sports Days” a weekend long, 4 sport team tournament.

Appointed Position

• Clerks of the Council (1 or 2 positions)
  • A great way to get involved with CESA, the Clerks of Council are responsible for taking minutes at the meetings of Council. This is a great way to get involved in the Association and to become informed of all the opportunities Queen’s and Con-Ed has to offer. Clerks have always been an important part of the Association by supporting other members of Council in their duties, involving themselves in many aspects of CESA.

Besides positions on Council, there are many ways for students in Con-Ed to become involved:

-Any Con-Ed students can sit on any of CESA’s committees. They are the Community Affairs Committee (dealing with fundraising and awareness campaigns for local Kingston initiatives), the Academic Affairs Committee (which looks at  ways that we can improve our education at Queen’s; they host academic forums, and speak with policy makers at the University) and the Social Affairs Committee (which plans all of Con-Ed’s social events, the largest of which is Con-Ed Formal in March).

Awesome Opportunities

At the end of their first year, Con-Ed students get the opportunity to be chosen to be ‘Teaches’ (our orientation leaders) who plan and implement the Con-Ed Frosh Week every year in September.
In January, we host the “Queen’s Conference on Education”. The conference is for anyone at Queen’s interested in Education and has speakers and workshops on a wide spectrum on education related topics.

A Quick List of Terms (Because at Queen’s we like our odd words and acronyms!):

Con-Eddie: That’s you, or anyone else enrolled in the Concurrent Education program!
CESA: The acronym for the Concurrent Education Students’ Association. We serve you!
‘Teach’: The names we give to our Frosh leaders!
PJ: An acronym for ‘Primary-Junior’, a teaching division. If you choose this stream at the end of first year, upon completion of your degree you will be certified to teach kindergarten to grade 6.
IS: An acronym for ‘Intermediate-Senior’ , a teaching division. If you choose this stream at the end of first year, upon completion of your degree you will be certified to teach grades 7 to 12.
Teachable: Fields of study that are taught in Ontario Secondary Schools including  Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Drama, English, French, Geography, History, Math, Music, Physics, or Visual Arts. I/S students will be required to complete 5 full credits in one teaching subject and 4 credits in another. Teachables are not  required for P/J
Con-Ed Office: Located in room 047 in the John Deutsch University Centre, the Con-Ed Office is a great place to come if you have any questions, to drop off any forms for events, or just to relax.
West Campus: Is home to Queen’s Faculty of Education. Most of your concurrent education classes will be held here. A 20 minute walk or a 5 minute bus ride, west is a great place to come to set up your practicum, a placement you do in year 1, 2, and 3 in different classrooms.