It would be impossible to write this annual report without making mention of George Wallace, Director of Champlain - St. Lambert for 27 years, who retired in September 2003. The success and excellent reputation we enjoy is due in large part to his vision and leadership.

The 2003-2004 year was marked by substantial time and resources being allocated to respond to government requirements first for the College's institutional self-analysis and later for the development of the strategic plan and revision of the student success plan. The quality of the documents and the results produced are a testament to the commitment and dedication of the faculty and staff at the College.

This past year, the emphasis was placed on pouring resources into those initiatives that have a track record of positively affecting student success. These included: Improving access to quality Academic Advising; Linking as many incoming admitted students as possible to one or more caring persons including deans, advisors, counselors, and mentors; Maintaining links with students in academic difficulty - either through regular meetings or e-mail or through online vehicles including chat channels and web site bulletin board exchanges; Improving the student experience in the first semester to make certain that students, particularly those in the technology programs, feel an attachment to their program and to the College; Providing services that ease transitions from high school to college life including workshops, counseling, orientation sessions, and mentoring; Where possible, removing curriculum barriers to student success such as long breaks between classes, schedules that begin at 8 in the morning and end at 6 at night, and moving courses out of the first semester that place unrealistic demands on new students.

While the bulk of these initiatives have been aimed at the students studying in the Technologies and the Sciences, many of the interventions have also been applied to other disciplines. In the coming academic year, Champlain - St. Lambert will continue to learn from our collective efforts to improve the student experience and student success.

A research team from Champlain - St. Lambert, consisting of Dianne Bateman, Steve Taylor, Rachad Antonius and Elizabeth Janik was awarded a PAREA Grant that will allow them to officially examine and document the approach that was taken by our campus to increase student success. The goal of this research is to establish the link between an increased level of curriculum alignment and coherence with student success and retention rates. Alignment or coherence refers to the degree to which the intended learning outcomes (instructional objectives), the instructional processes (learning activities) and the assessments (formative and summative evaluations of student learning) are connected. This necessitates measuring the learning outcomes, that is, the difference between entry and exit characteristics of students and completing an in-depth analysis of the degree of alignment between the assessments used by teachers and the instructional goals of the course, the program and the institution.

During the first year, the research team worked closely with four departments, one each from Social Science, Science, CORE and Career programs. They lead the participating departments through a curriculum review process designed to validate the curriculum and the assessments used to measure student learning. The curriculum revision focused on first semester courses. In the second year they will continue to work with the lead departments on their second semester courses while they add four additional departments to the research project. This pattern will repeat in the third year of the research; as the lead departments revise their third semester courses and the second group of departments revise their second semester courses, a third group of departments will join in the process.

The Science Program completed the evaluation of the program and produced a document which was lauded for its honesty and directness. The evaluation methodically proved that the Science program at Champlain - St. Lambert was one of high quality but that there were issues that needed to be addressed - particularly in the areas of student assessment, coherence in the curriculum, program leadership, teaching methods and physical resources. The release of the evaluation report has since proven to be a catalyst to much discussion on the campus - both inside and outside of the program - about the issues raised in the report and how they apply to all programs at the College.

The implementation of our new Sport Marketing and Management option in Business Administration has been a hit in its first year. With only a limited amount of information available during the recruiting period, as the program was just then under development, we nevertheless succeeded in attracting 40 new students and transfers for the first semester. Under the expert guidance of Dean Anthony Singelis, who has introduced a number of innovative activities into the program, the first year suggest that we have a winner. The success of the program was underscored by the fact that we were able to admit a minimum of 80 students in 2004-2005.

In order to respond to requests from students, parents and counselors, the Explorations Science preparatory semester was developed to respond to the needs of students who have been prevented for various reasons from enrolling in high school science and mathematics courses which are prerequisites for the Sciences or certain Career programs at CEGEP. In its first semester, the College admitted 37 such students who were overall good students with averages over 70% but who were blocked from considering any science-related area. The high schools are very happy that the College is able to provide this opportunity for students who were not able to prove themselves in high school.

This was the first year that the ICS program expanded to include follow-up on ICS students past the first semester. Historically, students in ICS who received support throughout their first semester and had a "caring person" as a contact point did well enough to be readmitted into their second semester. While this was an improvement over the past, students still faced a major challenge in their second semester when nearly 90% of the students would fail out once the support was removed. This past year, however, of the 14 students offered the continued support into their second semester, eleven progressed on to their third semester. This underlines the importance of having a "caring person" in place to offer these students the coaching they need to get through their studies.

ICS continues to function as a project designed to ease the transition into college life by providing a coordinated effort of offering academically based support services to students. The project has primarily one goal: to facilitate the student transition from high school to Cegep. The project includes summer orientation sessions, academic advising at the beginning and end of the first semester, tutoring, supplemental instruction, services for students with disabilities, academic support services designed especially for first-year academically-challenged students, career advising, and support services for students who fall into academic difficulty during their college experience. It also includes weekly group meetings with a dean.

One of our students, Catherine Goyer, resident of Boucherville and a graduate of l'École d'éducation internationale in St-Hubert, was selected as one of 50 semi-finalists of the Magna International's 2003 As Prime Minister Awards. Catherine was chosen as a winner from among hundreds of post-secondary students from across Canada who accepted Magna's challenge to write a 2,500-word essay answering the question: 'If you were the Prime Minister of Canada, what political vision would you offer to improve our living standards and ensure a secure and prosperous global community?'.

Once again, Champlain - St. Lambert was delighted that the Fédération des Caisses Populaires Desjardins, région rive-sud, donated $7,500 for incentive scholarships to students who were mid-way through their CEGEP programs. Thirteen students, one from each of our programs, each received a $500.00 scholarship at a special awards ceremony held at the College in October. In attendance were representatives from the Fédération des Caisses as well as faculty and administrative staff from Champlain - St. Lambert.

At the same awards ceremony, we also continued our practice of issuing 13 entrance scholarships valued at $500 each. These scholarships are provided by La Fondation des Amis du Collège Champlain Inc., a non-profit foundation established many years ago by retired Director of Student Services André LeBlanc. The foundation raises money from a variety of sources, the most important of which is parking revenue from the use of our parking lot during the annual fireworks exhibitions at La Ronde. In addition to these thirteen scholarships, our cafeteria company, Sodexho Mariott, also provided two additional scholarships of $250 each given to International Baccalaureate Program students. In summary, 28 different scholarships for a total value of almost $16,000 were awarded at the awards ceremony.

Adam Currie, a second year Dean's List student in Science, won a $34,000 athletic scholarship to attend Notre Dame University. Adam is a track specialist who was also named as The Montreal Gazette's athletes of the week.

Champlain - St. Lambert's team, organized and coached by Mathematics professor Benoit Larose, finished first in Quebec in the American Mathematics Competition ahead of Lower Canada College and Collège de Maisonneuve. Individually, International Baccalaureat Science student Letao Wang placed third in Québec.

In the 2004 Bell Montreal Regional Science and Technology Fair Arthur Cielecki (2nd semester Science) and Richard Beranek (2nd semester IB Science) won silver medals for their project "The Maglevator" as did Christine Johnson (4th semester IB Science) who earned her medal for her project "Too Soon to Breathe". Champlain - St. Lambert is investigating the possibility of hosting this event in 2006.

Champlain - St. Lambert Alumnus Sonia Tran presently employed by the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport was selected by the World Anti-Doping Agency to be responsible for the Drug Education Program for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.

We were proud to announce that five of our Science program graduates were admitted to Pre-Medicine, three at McGill and two at Université de Montréal. Congratulations to Noémi Savard, Farouk Khan, Audrey Gilbert, My Tien Nguyen and Sandra Liu.

We were also pleased to announce that three of our students won Canadian Millennium Scholarships. Among only 208 students Canada-wide to win in the provincial category ($4,000 per year renewable for three years) were Science graduate Stephanie Childs and Social Science (World Studies option) graduate Catherine Goyer. Noémie Savard won a $4,000 local scholarship and also a $5,000 scholarship from McGill University. Champlain - St. Lambert is proud that four of our graduates have won university scholarships valued at between $40,000 and $60,000 during the last four years.

At the beginning of January, 17 International Baccalaureate students and 2 Humanities faculty members, Bruce Toombs and Stephanie Conway, traveled to Nicaragua to help build a pre-school in the town of Niquinohomo. Students spent one year planning, organizing and raising money for the Nicaraguan Project. This is a trip the students will remember for a lifetime.

Champlain - St. Lambert's media coverage improved in 2003-2004. Educational Media Services Coordinator Brian Smalridge was interviewed by the Gazette for an article on e-mail SPAM and the steps Champlain - St. Lambert has taken to thwart it. During the fall semester, the campus installed sophisticated anti-spam software that has virtually eliminated the problem for the campus community. Other colleges who have not yet introduced this software have been shut down for various periods of time due to the huge volume of spam that insinuates its way in through e-mail. Gazette reporter Alison Lampert was on campus during Carnival week and wrote an article about the event, accompanied by color pictures of some of the activities.

The 32nd annual Creative Arts Exhibition was held on Friday May 16th in the College auditorium to a packed house. Close to 500 students, faculty staff and family members turned out to view the best work of our Creative Arts students. The exhibition showed off the digital and traditional 2-D and 3-D work, short films and video productions and the photography of our gifted students. The caliber of the students' work is superb and this is confirmed by the high number of students from our various options who have been admitted to Concordia's Bachelor of Fine Arts options. Our Creative Arts faculty is to be congratulated for the quality and professionalism of the instruction that they provide to our students.

The Publication, Design and Management Program also held a well-attended "gala" on April 28th. It was completely organized by the graduating class and was well attended by just over 150 guests - including former graduates of the program and "scouts" from companies looking for young creative talent.