2011 Student of the Year Winners
Winner ($19,000) Leanne O’Neill
First Runner-up ($5,000) tie Melanie Cannon Early Childhood Education
First Runner-up ($5,000) tie Deanna McCullough Practical Nursing
Second Runner-up ($2,500) Jana Bjorndal Special Education Assistant
Psychiatric Nursing
Nominees Gershon Dazon, CSOW Grace Pedroso, ECE Colleen Marsh, HCA Melina Komaromi, HCA Shailini Anganu, HCA Ivan Cabral, HCA Maricel Cabral, HCA Navdeep Sangha, HCA Monika Kowalski, HSS Navjit Khella, HSS Despina Ganatsios, HSS Michelle Massey, MLA Jaspreet Dhadwal, MLA Cindy Van Beek, MLA Navdeep Samra, MLA Marian Impey, NUC Anjali Raman, NUC Mandy Ostapovich, PN Firas Haddad, PN Vanessa Young, RDPN Amanda Harris, SEA
Joyce Munroe, CAT
Theresa Vanderhorst, HCA
Nicole Brubaker, MLA
Lindsey Green, CSOW
Andrew Chong, HSS
Angela Taylor, NUC
“To graduate from something—but also be able to do it in an area I’m so passionate about—is so precious to me,” she says. Cannon has already been hired to work at a daycare centre near her home in the Newton area of Surrey, B.C. The new job marks a formalized extension of the independent daycare she operated out of her home for seven years while she was a stay-at-home mom. Stenberg commemorates Cannon’s accomplishments with a Student of the Year 1st Runner-up award, which grants her a $5,000 tuition reimbursement. “There’s a gift in knowing every night when you go to bed that you’ve comforted or helped that child or taught them something new,” she says. “To be Success Magazine
Finalists
Student of the Year ESL Award Winners
Winner ($1,000) Jasbir Rai Practical Nursing
First Runner-up ($250) tie Doris Wang Health Care Assistant
part of their cheering squad and to support them: that’s a gift for me.” Student of the Year finalist Jana Bjorndal knows what it means to be the cheering squad for a young person. The 30-year-old mother of three graduated from the Special Education Assistant (SEA) program this year, and her new job as an SEA for the Chilliwack School District marks an exciting return to the workforce after five years of raising her family. Like Cannon, Bjorndal operated an independent daycare out of her home while raising her young sons, and fell in love with the process of helping children learn. Her extraordinary compassion, leadership, and community spirit was evident from the Stenberg College
First Runner-up ($250) tie Meskerem Gibson Health Care Assistant
moment she arrived in her Stenberg classroom. “She was a role model to others and had a motivating and stabilizing effect on her classmates,” says Bjorndal’s SEA instructor Lisa Shaw. Bjorndal’s leadership in and outside the classroom is celebrated with a Student of the Year 2nd Runner-up designation and a $2,500 tuition reimbursement. The SEA program changed her life, Bjorndal says. Her experiences reflect those of generations of other Stenberg students. “I felt like my self-confidence has just risen through the roof,” Bjorndal says of her time at Stenberg. “I feel so incredibly proud that I accomplished this for myself and my family… My life has taken a whole new path.” v 3