Board of governors

NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-At-Large) 

Financial and Physical Resources Committee

Anthony Novac is a serial entrepreneur focused on gaming and technology opportunities. He is the co-founder of Trident Gaming PLC which was sold to Party Gaming PLC in 2006, and founder and former of CEO Spreed Inc. which developed an end-to-end mobile publishing platform and launched over 500 newspaper apps. He is currently the President of Sonco Gaming Inc. which has developed and managed casino projects across Canada and in London, UK.  Founded in 1995, Sonco Gaming is a company engaged in the ownership, operation and development of gaming properties. It has and continues to be active in joint ventures with major multi-national gaming/entertainment companies, Aboriginal groups and First Nations, and other interested parties.

Anthony is an art collector with interests in Canadian mid-century artists and emerging global contemporary art. He recently completed three terms (8 years in total) on the Board of the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto. While raised and educated in Halifax, he currently resides in Toronto with his wife and three children.

NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-At-Large)

Audit and Risk Oversight Committee

William Barker joined the Board in September 2022. He was the President and Vice Chancellor of the University of King’s College, with a cross-appointment at Dalhousie University. He is now retired at as an emeritus professor of Dalhousie and Inglis professor at King’s. He has served on boards and committees in education and the arts.

Bill continues to write and research, and currently serves as the weekly seminar director for Halifax Humanities, an educational project for mature students who were unable to attend or complete university, often because of health or financial barriers. When he retired he started to take courses at NSCAD, mostly in photography. The mode of teaching at NSCAD relies on critique and practice, unusual forms of education that are strongly focused on the growth and development of the individual student. The atmosphere is one of continuous experiment and discussion. For Bill, it is a privilege to serve on the board of NSCAD to support this kind of learning.

Alumni Member, NSCAD Board of Governors

Advancement Committee

NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-At-Large)

Audit and Risk Oversight Committee

Cheryl has been COO/CFO at Viewpoint Realty Services, Inc. since 2017 when she joined the company full-time. She had been working part-time as VP of Finance from its inception in 2010. Viewpoint.ca is the leading real estate website in Nova Scotia, and the brokerage has over 65 real estate agents across the province.

Cheryl is a seasoned business executive with 25 years of experience in finance, accounting and operational management, with a focus on small-to-medium-sized companies and start-ups. She began her career in 1990 as a controller for an international food trading company. She has been responsible for financial analysis and budgets for a leading cellular phone company in Nova Scotia. Then in 1999, she became the controller of a high-tech company focused on-call management; managing the finances through to an acquisition of the company by a large US Multinational. In 2003, she moved to Virginia to manage the finance function for the Voice Services division of America Online, Inc. While there she assumed additional financial responsibility for other business units while broadening her scope to include more business operational roles.

In 2007, Cheryl started a dental practice management company, Fine Touch Dental Atlantic, with a business partner, where she was CFO until selling the company to a multinational practice management organization in 2015.

In 2015, she was Vice President Finance of Keas, a health and wellness IT company based in San Francisco, as well as Director of Finance for Densitas, a tech company developing software for analyzing breast density from mammograms.

Throughout her career, Cheryl has demonstrated the ability to develop process, reporting and operational improvements that contribute significantly to company growth.

Student Member, NSCAD Board of Governors

Financial & Physical Resources Committee

VP Finance & Equity,  SUNSCAD

Account Director
Ciena
Halifax, Nova Scotia

EXPERIENCE
Account Director
Ciena 1998 – Present
(24 yrs. 9 mos.)

Business Development
Bell Mobility
Oct 1995 – Feb 1998 (2 yrs. 5 mos.)

Business Development
Nortel Networks
Jan 1992 – Oct 1995 (3 yrs. 10 mos.)

Systems Development
Lenbrook
Oct 1988 – Sep 1989 (1 yr.)

Office Manger
Rogers
Dec 1986 – Oct 1988 (1 yr. 11 mos.)

EDUCATION
Université Laval
MBA, International Management
1990 – 1992

Mount Allison University
B. Comm, accounting
1980 – 1984

VOLUNTEERING
Board of Governors, NSCAD University, Nov 2015 – Present (7 yrs.)

Workplace & Industry Campaigns, United Way, Jan 1993 – Present (30 yrs. 2 mos.)

NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-At-Large)

Advancement Committee

A woman of action and creative spirit, Fabienne Colas is a charismatic leader with an unwavering persistence who makes things happen. She used both her passion and her frustrations to become an unstoppable force in her niche.  Her mission is to foster diversity off-and-on-screen, inspire people to take action that leads to change as well as giving a voice to creators who otherwise, would not have been heard.

Recipient of the 2019 Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women award, named 2018 Canada’s Top 40 under 40, Winner of Prix 2019 Prix Relève, Femme d’Exception (Mercuriades) from The Federation of Quebec’s Chambers of Commerce, named La Presse’s Newspaper 2018 Person of the Year (Arts and Culture), award-winning actress, filmmaker, speaker, business owner and consultant, Fabienne Colas works tirelessly and passionately to support and promote diversity off and on screen around the globe.

She is the ‘Queen of Festivals’ who created and manages nine successful festivals between Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, New York City, Port-au-Prince, Salvador (Bahia – Brazil)–including the Montreal International Black Film Festival, which has become not only Canada’s largest black film festival but also a key player in cultural diversity in Quebec and Canada; as well as the very popular Toronto Black Film Festival–Canada’s largest celebration of Black History Month through films and so much more.

Besides attracting close to 1 million festival-goers over the years, and showcasing over 2,000 artists, those events have also welcomed and paid tribute to top celebrities from around the globe such as Spike Lee, Harry Belafonte, Stedman Graham, Danny Glover, Martin Luther King III, Dany Laferrière, Wyclef Jean, Alfre Woodard, Souleymane Cissé, Arcade Fire, Bobby Brown, Isaiah Washington, Louis Gossett Jr. and more.

Named Personality of the Week by La Presse in 2018, her primary mission is to continue to create platforms that show a diversity of voices, faces and points of view.  As chairman and founder of the Fabienne Colas Foundation (FCF), she helps support, awards grants and promotes independent films and artists who, otherwise, would not have been seen or heard.

In 2015, Fabienne was awarded a Medal from Quebec’s National Assembly recognizing her leadership and contribution in the fight against racism and discrimination in Quebec. In 2017, she received the prestigious Harry Jerome Arts and Culture Award from the Black Business Professional Association in Toronto. In 2018, Femmes en cinéma, télévision et média numériques (FCTMN) paid tribute to Fabienne for her exceptional contribution in the Quebec Film Industry (2018). Nominated and chosen by the U.S. State Department as the 2017-woman leader to represent Canada in the 3-week exchange leadership program: The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).  She is also a finalist for the Charles Biddle Award as well as the Prix Femmes d’affaires du Québec in 2018.

In 2019, she received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award from the Black Theatre Workshop; joining Oscar Peterson, Oliver Jones, Dany Laferrière, Gregory Charles, Doudou Boicel, Charlie Biddle and Tony Lee Williams who have previously received this award.

Colas is the CEO of the media and business consulting company Zaza Production, and also sat as a board member on the Society for the celebrations of Montréal’s 375th anniversary. She has been part of many juries among which the Canada Council for the Arts, Prix Gémeaux, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec.

Secretary
Colonel Harland Sanders Charities
Toronto, Ontario

EXPERIENCE
Instructor/Coach
Annex Hockey Skills
Apr 2012 – Present (10 yrs. 6 mos.)

President
Edwards Family Charitable Foundation
Jul 2007 – Present (15 yrs. 3 mos.)

Secretary
Colonel Harland Sanders Charities
Nov 2000 – Present (21 yrs. 11 mos.)

Musician
Hopping Penguins
Aug 1982 – Present (40 yrs. 2 mos.)

EDUCATION
Dalhousie University
Bachelor of Laws (LLB) 1981-1984

Saint Mary’s University
Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.), Business/Commerce, General 1975-1980

Treasurer, NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-In-Council)

Financial and Physical Resources Committee (Chair)

Summary:

-35 plus years of public accounting experience with a focus on serving the interests of a broad range of clients primarily throughout Nova Scotia

-25 plus years in a partner role

-One of the founding members and architects of the AC Group of Independent Accounting Firms

-Broad sector experience including, real estate, forestry, manufacturing, non-profit, retail, medical, dental, engineering, law practices, other professional service firms, integrated business to business services, information technology, alternative energy developers, insurance and financial planning, farming, transportation and automotive

-Served in numerous leadership roles

-Active in community activities

Secretary, NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-At-Large)

Financial and Physical Resources Committee

John Keating is the Atlantic RVP for BMO’s Real Estate Finance team. The team manages a portfolio of diverse clients involved in the construction of or ongoing management of real estate properties across the region. His role further supports BMO’s national leadership team in the development of policy, forecasting and portfolio management for BMO’s Canadian real estate finance business. John has 10 years of experience in real estate banking at various levels of responsibility. He has also been the treasurer for the Canadian Homebuilders Association of Nova Scotia for the last eight years and has served on various economic committees for the association over that time. John holds a Bachelor of Arts (2005) and Master of Business Administration Degrees from Saint Mary’s University (2010).

Marketing & Communications
White LeBlanc Wealth Inc.
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Kathryn is a writer and marketing & communications professional with extensive financial services industry experience. After nearly a decade of life outside Canada, she returned to Nova Scotia in 2013.

Possessing a lifelong passion for the creative process, Kathryn has always been a fan of NSCAD and its role in Nova Scotia; she believes that NSCAD helps to shape the culture within the province and the landscape of the arts in Canada & beyond. Over the past several years, she has actively sought ways to support the University and looks forward to this opportunity to serve.

Previously, Kathryn was a member of the Metropolitan Regional Housing Authority board.

Chair, NSCAD Board of Governors

Governor-at-Large, NSCAD Board of Governors

 Ex-Officio member of all Board standing committees

NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-At-Large)

Advancement Committee (Chair)

Dr. Marco Chiarot is a board-certified oral and maxillofacial surgeon with degrees in both medicine and dentistry. He received his dental degree from Dalhousie University in 1993 and then went on to study hospital dentistry at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina and then on to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to complete an internship in oral and maxillofacial surgery. Returning to Halifax and Dalhousie University in 1995, he completed a six-year residency in the specialty of oral and maxillofacial surgery at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre (2001).  During his specialty training, he also completed a Masters of Science degree in oral and maxillofacial sciences and his medical degree (2001). After completing his specialty training, Dr. Chiarot left Canada to study head and neck cancer surgery and cleft lip and palate surgery at the San Paolo Hospital in Milan, Italy.

Returning to his hometown of Halifax in 2002, Dr. Chiarot entered into oral and maxillofacial surgery private practice.  Since this time, he has been active in all aspects of patient care as it relates to his specialty. His clinical interests include all aspects of oral and maxillofacial surgery, with a special interest in surgical rehabilitation of the jaws with dental implants and bone grafting techniques. Dr. Chiarot is a Fellow of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists.

Dr. Chiarot is involved in organized dentistry serving on committees for the Nova Scotia Dental Association and is a member of the Prescription Monitoring Board of Nova Scotia. Apart from dentistry, in his free time, Dr. Chiarot enjoys recreational sporting activities and belongs to both the Italian Wines Societie and the Commanderie de Bordeaux. He lives in Halifax with his wife and two daughters.

Associate Professor
Division of Fine Arts, Printmaking
NSCAD University
Halifax, Nova Scotia

BACKGROUND
Mark Bovey is Associate Professor in Printmaking at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (2004– present). Previously, he taught at Queens University for five years, at UBC Okanagan, and at Mount Allison University. He received his MFA in Printmaking from the University of Alberta, Edmonton Canada in 1992 and his BFA (1989) and BEd (Artist is the Community Education ACE) (1997) from Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario Canada. His practice and teaching ranges from traditional printmaking methods (combinations of Intaglio, lithography, screen printing, and woodcut) to digital, post-digital and print installations that incorporate digital video projection components.

His work has represented Canada internationally in juried biennial and triennial exhibitions in 19 nations worldwide since 1998, winning prizes at the Seoul Space Biennial 2008, Seoul Korea; Kochi Triennial 2007, Kochi Japan; Canadian Juried Travelling Exhibition Sense of Place 2009. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally and been invited to 17 curatorial projects, including projects in Poland, Hungary, the United States, Canada and recently in Egypt. He has been invited to organize international exhibitions of work by Canadian artists in China and Russia and was awarded the top curatorial prize in 2009 at the 6th International Biennial of Printmaking in Novosibirsk, Russia, for the exhibition, Landscapes of Decay and Renewal in Canadian Contemporary Printmaking. In 2016–2018 and 2020 he represented Canada at the International Academic Printmaking Alliance (IAPA). The exhibition and symposium took place in the Peoples Ancestral Temple. This was the first exhibition of contemporary art inside Beijing’s Ancient Forbidden City.

CURRENT RESEARCH AND/OR CREATIVE PRACTICE
Images of current and past research referenced below are available on my website: markbovey.com

As a descendant of colonial settlers living on turtle island, lands taken for the powers of the western world, who also looks through the lens of the medium of printmaking, my research starts by asking if the images of the printed past can reveal or help us better understand our problematic past. How have images— fragments as knowledge or technologies— now amassed in archives, shaped or mis-shaped the human experiment? Can images, as material culture, be recombined into new visual contexts, and across media platforms to arrive at new ways of seeing and knowing our past? When images are recovered from analog or electronic archives and composed into new contexts, can the meaning shift within the new context? What is uncovered by the poetic play, collision or compression back through the printing matrix?

My recent work involves utilizing images collected from an array of archives including the British Library in London, UK, and Mitchell Library in Sydney, AU. One decaying volume of Cyclopedic metal plate engravings, printed between 1802 and 1819 (Rees) I bought in 2014 has been deconstructed, and printed onto multiple times in transparent layers of colour using stone lithographic means. The pages were then sewn into two-page spreads and laid out on the floor to suggest a visual quilt of knowledge and as a bed for an exhibition in Lodž, Poland, that explored the history of printmaking and textiles. The pages have also been digitized at high resolution, altered and set against photos of cloudscapes. The portfolio of 20 images titled Pages of the Skies is intended to give the historical documents back to nature metaphorically. The process is about symbolically problematizing the residue of colonial histories that have brought us to the brink of environmental demise.

The Stone Wall for Alexandrina Project involves building a hyper-real printed wall of lithographic stones with the images recombined on them. The wall will be adhered to the actual wall in the Library of Alexandrina in Egypt. The stones, which hold a special place for lithographic printers, are capable of holding hundreds of images over time but were also used to build temples. The integration of ideas of knowledge control with and within architecture as monuments for conquerors, now seems conspicuous in relation to current humanitarian and environmental need. If research goes as planned the wall will also have video projections of water and fire that will suggest that the wall is being breached by the forces of nature brought forced to destruction by human greed. The virtual expression is both ironic and emblematic of all the technologies that came before and are represented on and in the wall as this wall is capable of being moved with ease and appear almost anywhere.

SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS/EXHIBITIONS
Noted exhibitions include Last Frontier 2012 at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Canada, A New World 2013 at the Modem Center for Contemporary Art in Debrecen, Hungary, Resonance 2015 at the Shengzhi Art Centre in Beijing’s 798 Art District in Beijing, China, and the 2016– 2018 and 2020 International Academic Printmaking Alliance (IAPA) Exhibitions, in Beijing and Jingdezhen, China. In 2020, work will be exhibited in the Okanagan Print Triennial in Vernon, BC, Canada and was invited to the Exhibition Anthem: 15 Expressions of Canadian Identity. The first stop is at the Canadian Language Museum in Toronto, Canada, 2021 and a show at the Library of Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt in 2022.

Works are in numerous collections that include the Canadian Foreign Affairs Visual Art Collection, Ottawa, Ontario; Kennesaw Museum of Art, Kennesaw, Georgia; The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Tama Arts University Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Beijing Museum of Fine Art, and the Shengzhi Art Centre in Beijing’s 798 Art District, Beijing, China.

Student Member, NSCAD Board of Governors

Advancement Committee

President, SUNSCAD

President, NSCAD University

Ex-Officio member of all Board standing committees

Peggy Shannon, PhD, MFA, became NSCAD University’s president on July 1, 2022.

Dr. Shannon is an award-winning scholar and artist who holds a BA in Theatre from UC Riverside, an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington, and a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London. She holds dual Canadian/American citizenship. 

For more than 20 years, Dr. Shannon has been a professor and administrator at several North American universities, including the University of California – Davis, Ryerson University and most recently San Diego State University, where she serves as Dean of the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts. She brings to her new role at NSCAD a strong belief in preparing students for the creative economy with real-world problem-solving opportunities.  

Dr. Shannon has a proven record of building strong partnerships and collaborations within institutions and their broader communities. Throughout her distinguished career, she has provided exceptional leadership in strategic planning, curricular excellence, teaching excellence, and multinational and interdisciplinary research within the visual and performing arts, humanities and social sciences. 

Associate Professor, Division of Interdisciplinary Design
Director, MDES
NSCAD University
Halifax, Nova Scotia

BACKGROUND
Dr. Meyer is the Director of NSCAD’s Master of Design (MDES) Program in which, in addition to administrative responsibilities, he teaches studio, theory, and design history courses.

His research interests include, but are not limited to, the social implications of packaging, and the future of dwellings in light of sweeping demographic changes. Both of these projects have been supported by grants from the Japan Foundation; grants that allowed for extended residencies in Japan. He is also deeply interested in ecological design practices and research through designing: use of sustainable materials, long-lasting materials, biologically-inspired forms and repairability, to name only some aspects of the approaches to the issues.

Dr. Meyer has lectured widely on his interests; he has given presentations in Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada on numerous occasions.

In his capacity as Director of the MDES, he sits on NSCAD’s Senate on which he has also served as its Chair and Vice-Chair. As well, he has been a member of the NSCAD University Board of Governors, including sitting on both its Governance and Finance Committees.

Dr. Meyer is an alumnus of NSCAD. After attending NSCAD, he went on to earn his other degrees at McGill University and the University of Toronto. He followed these with his Ph.D. at McGill. He also taught at McGill and Concordia Universities for a decade before a sojourn in Japan, after which he came to NSCAD.

Partner
McInnes Cooper
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Sarah is a Partner in our Halifax office with a practice specializing in immigration and employment law. Sarah provides strategic and practical advice to a wide range of clientele with Canadian immigration issues, from individuals seeking temporary resident visas, study permits, work permits and permanent residency, to corporations that require labour market impact assessments to hire temporary foreign workers. With extensive experience obtaining work permits under international agreements, such as CETA, NAFTA and GATS, Sarah supports employers seeking to recruit and retain international talent.

Sarah also practices employment law in all matters relating to human resources, hiring, discipline and termination, including wrongful dismissal and other employment-related claims, and human rights and workplace accommodations. She is certified by the Workplace Institute in workplace investigations, and has conducted a wide variety of investigations in both the private and public sector.

Sarah is a member of the Canadian Bar Association, the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society and the Canadian Association Counsel to Employers (CACE), and is the current Chair of the CBA-NS Citizenship and Immigration Section. Sarah is actively engaged in her community; she offers pro bono legal services to individuals through the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia and was a partner in implementing the Halifax chapter of the Refugee Sponsorship Support Program.

NSCAD Board of Governors (Governor-At-Large)

Governance and Human Resources Committee

Ms. Burke is a senior manager and management consulting professional with over 30 years of experience. She has extensive experience in strategic and operational planning, business transformation, management of organizational change, program evaluation and review, and facilitating workshops with diverse stakeholder participants. She holds a Master of Business Administration in Sustainable Management (Green MBA) from Anaheim University, in addition to her Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Ottawa, complemented by her professional certification in Change Management from PROSCI. Ms. Burke has held Board of Directors’ positions in the past with two private sector companies. Functionally bilingual in English and French, Ms. Burke is a proud citizen of the Metis Nation of Ontario through her maternal lineage, her paternal ancestry is Scots-Irish from Cape Breton Island.  Throughout her career, she has managed and worked on more than 100 projects for public and/or private sector clients across Canada (Coast to Coast to Coast). Over the last five years, she has been the Managing Director of Operations at NVision Insight Group Inc., an Ottawa and Iqaluit-based Indigenous consulting company.

Ms. Burke specializes in: strategic and operational planning; organizational reviews; business process re-engineering; business transformation; business planning; management of change; facilitation; research and analysis; market research and analysis; and relationship building amongst diverse stakeholders.

Secretary, NSCAD Board of Governors

Alumni Member, NSCAD Board of Governors

President, NSCAD Alumni Association

Sunil Sarwal (BDes 2002)

Branding consultant, owner, the Small Monsters

Pronouns: he, him and they, them

Sunil Sarwal is an award-winning branding consultant in the food and drink industry, working with innovative companies around the world to build creative brands that people love. Clients range from billion-dollar multinationals such as London-based Compass Group Inc., to small, innovative companies like PEI’s Upstreet. Recent brands created include Libra Craft Beer (recipient of the Bronze Medal for Design at the World Beer Awards) and local favourite Viveau.

A graduate of NSCAD, Sunil ran Montreal’s rambunctious design agency the Small Monsters for over 10 years before recently returning to his hometown of Halifax.

Chief Executive Officer
Delmore Buddy Daye Learning Institute (DBDLI)
Halifax, Nova Scotia

As CEO of the DBDLI, Sylvia provides leadership to the organization through the identification of opportunities, awareness and capacity building, and the implementation of initiatives designed to improve the education environment for African Nova Scotian learners and educators.

Sylvia has over 30 years of experience in the field of education. Additionally, she has extensive public sector involvement through which she has gained a deep understanding for what it takes to conduct meaningful policy analysis, implement research-informed initiatives, strengthen community engagement, and develop relevant education, and capacity building projects.

Known for getting things done in a thoughtful, respectful and engaging way, Sylvia’s experience, knowledge and leadership qualities are highly regarded.