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Centre to open in Hall Building 

Efforts to support and facilitate volunteer engagement in the works

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Soon, Concordia will have one central place for information about volunteerism.
The Leadership, Initiative, and Volunteer Engagement (LIVE) Centre – a part of Counselling and Development – will open in H 608-1 and 608-2 by the end of May and will be fully functional before the fall semester starts.

“The centre will provide anyone interested in volunteering, as well as people who recruit volunteers a point of contact, a central place to connect and establish partnerships,” says Valerie Millette, career advisor at Career and Placement Services, who will become the LIVE Centre Coordinator.

“As an extension of current Counselling and Development services, we’ll be providing one-on-one and group advising to students looking for volunteer opportunities. And now we’ll be able to go much further, bringing together students, staff and faculty and building bridges with the larger community” she says.

Announced April 8 at the Concordia Council for Student Life awards (see Journal, April 15, 2010), this is the latest effort of the Concordia University Volunteer Initiative (CUVI), a committee developed in 2008 and aimed at recognizing the many volunteer efforts taking place throughout the university.

In 2009, CUVI launched their website (see Journal, May 7, 2009) as a resource for volunteering locally, nationally and internationally.

The LIVE Centre has received three years of funding from the Office of the Provost.

The timing of the centre’s establishment is opportune, as it will serve as a convenient launching pad for the Co-Curricular Record, a pilot project aiming to provide students with official university accreditation for volunteer efforts.

Students will submit their volunteer activities and identify learning outcomes, which will then be approved by an official validator. Though the pilot will only be available for predetermined on-campus activities, the project is expected to extend to a greater number of opportunities in the future.

Managed by Millette and the Dean of Students Office, this marks the first time a Co-Curricular Record has been established at a Quebec university. Similar projects exist at a number of Canadian and American universities.

The centre’s two offices (the coordinator’s office and a multipurpose resource and information centre) will occupy the former offices of the Garnet Key Society, who moved into GM 725 on April 12.

Millette invites anyone who wants to be informed of upcoming events to join the new Facebook group, Concordia LIVE Centre. Get in touch with her with any questions or ideas.