Have you met Emily, Project Specialist at the Career Centre? Spend the next 2 minutes getting to know her a little better.
Where is your favourite place on campus?
I think this has changed a lot since I’ve been a student or staff member but I think currently my favourite place is the climbing wall because I just get to forget about school and work and focus on climbing.
Tablet or paper?
Paper. I have an iPad and I haven’t used it for three years because they’re inefficient, they’re bulky, they don’t always serve your purpose. And paper you can shred!
Name one thing you’ve brought to work from home.
I brought a little stuffed toy elephant that my partner gave me, not because elephants have any special meaning to us, but because it’s a nice little thing to see on my desk.
What is the one thing you can’t live without?
[In case you weren’t sure… it’s coffee. Emily needs her coffee fix.]
If you won airfare to anywhere in the world, where would you go?
My answer to this would probably change on a fairly regular basis. Currently, top of my list would be to go to Patagonia in Argentina. It’s been on my bucket list for a while. But it’s fairly pricey to get there.
You can invite anyone — alive or dead, real or fictional — to dinner. Who would it be?
I think I would want to have dinner with Eduard C. Lindeman. He is one of the forefathers of adult education and has been very influential in how we see and philosophise adult education and he has a very interesting perspective on it. So I think it would be interesting to have dinner with him because he positions adult education as starting where vocational training ends. And I think that all of this can be adult education. So it would be interesting to sit down and have a conversation around “Is higher education, adult education?”
Or Kim Kardashian. She’d be very fascinating to have dinner with. Don’t you think? She’s built her little empire.
If you could switch jobs with someone else on campus for a week, what would you do?
I think that if I could switch jobs with someone, I would want to be one of the parking attendants in either the Education or the stadium parkade because they have the little booth where you pay for parking and you get to briefly chat with people and see what’s going on, on campus. So I think it would be fun to do for a week.
What does “uplifting the whole people” mean to you?
To me, uplifting the whole people means that the U of A is here to support the collective good of the province, of the country, and we’re here to serve students, and all students. So, not just domestic students, and not just international students, not just undergraduate students, but also graduate students, and all of the different students and staff and faculty that come to campus.
If you could solve any problem in the world, what would it be?
If I could solve any problem in the world, I would want to solve issues of gender inequity and access to education for women.
What 3 words best describe your U of A experience?
Diverse, fun, coffee.
About Emily Gregory
Emily is the Project Specialist at the Career Centre. Emily completed a Bachelor of Arts at Campus Saint-Jean, after which she worked at the Registrar’s Office in recruitment, and in student engagement with Residence Services. She is currently working on a Masters in Education Policy Studies with a specialization in Adult, Community and Higher Education.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.