Shad Valley

Shad Valley is ... hard to describe. It's a month long program for Canadian (and now Scottish) high school students that is taught at university campuses across Canada (and recently Scotland). It is an intense experience to say the least. Officially it is an advanced session in Science and Entrepreneurship, which tends to bring to mind something like a "math camp". That it definitely is not. Shad Valley is about challenge - physical, intellectual, emotional, and social. It is unlike any other program and it produces a very unique community of people.

I had the opportunity to go to Shad myself in 1991 at Acadia University and it had a very profound effect on me although I have to say that a lot of the effect was delayed... I didn't appreciate how much of an effect until much later. In 1999, I pestered the program director of the Calgary campus until he gave me an interview and eventually a job.

Teaching at Shad has been on of the most gratifying experiences of my life. It's like attending the program knowing all the things you wish you had known in the first place. And best of all is the chance to work with and inspire some of the most incredible people our country has to offer (including the Scots - you're all honourary Canadians anyway!)