To kick off National Co-operative Education Week, the University of Lethbridge announced Kyle Cole as the 2017 U of L Co-op Student of the Year.
Cole, a fourth-year economics student, has completed three co-op work terms with two different employers, totaling 12 months of work experience. A commitment to his academic responsibilities and work-integrated learning, coupled with his advocacy for and stewardship of the Co-operative Education Program, were lauded as major reasons for the reward.
“Having worked with thousands of students over the last 20 years, Kyle stood out as a superstar because he possesses an incredible balance of professionalism, humility and unmatched work ethic,” says Jasminn Berteotti, director of Co-operative Education and Applied Studies at the U of L. “Our communities across Canada thrive when our young people, the workforce of the future, come together with today’s leaders to fuel intellectual and economic growth. Canada wins with this mode of education.”
During Cole’s last eight-month co-operative experience, he worked in the University’s Career Bridge office as the special project assistant for the Orbis implementation – a platform that is now being used to merge several decentralized co-op programs into a unified centralized portal.
“I can genuinely say the co-operative education experience has changed my life in many ways,” says Cole. “The professional and personal opportunities that I was exposed to during my work terms provided me with skills, insight, perspective and drive like nothing before.”
National Co-op Education Week runs Mar. 19 to 23, 2018 and begins at the U of L with a special celebration from 12 to 3 p.m. in the Career Bridge Office (Anderson Hall, Rm. 151). As well, a social media contest will run throughout the week with a challenge-a-day for co-op students. They are asked to share their personal co-operative work experiences on social media platforms using the official hashtags: #CoopWeek and #WILWeek. People can also follow posts from employers using the hashtag #HireStudents.
More information on National Co-operative Education Week is available here: http://www.cewilcanada.ca/.
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Trevor Kenney, News & Information Manager
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trevor.kenney@uleth.ca
