Bruce Mallen, S BComm 58, S BA 64, LLD 04, on November 22 received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, United Kingdom, for his contribution to business literature, film making and academia. Bruce, who also received an honorary doctorate from Concordia in 2004, is the Director of the Carl DeSantis Center for Motion Picture Studies at the Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and Visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire. He spent 25 years at Sir George Williams University and Concordia as a student, faculty member and administrator before leaving Montreal in 1978 for a varied career that included being involved in the film industry in Hollywood. In 1996, Bruce returned to the academic world, joining Florida Atlantic University as dean of its College of Business.

John White, BComm 03, in January became President and CEO of Volkswagen Group Canada in Ajax, Ont., making him the first Canadian-born head of the German automaker’s operations in this country since it was formed in 1952. When Volkswagen Canada and Audi Canada merged on January 1, the new organization became Volkswagen Group Canada. John has been in the automotive industry for 30 years and joined Volkswagen in 1993. He had served as executive vice-president at Volkswagen Canada Inc. since January 2005.

Concordia Filmmakers Shine

James Braithwaite, BA ( Eng. lit.) 05, produced the main animation for the five-minute film I Met the Walrus . Braithwaite’s illustrations have been featured in Maisonneuve and En Route magazines (see thebathwater.com ). I Met the Walrus was written and directed by Josh Raskin and is based on an incident in 1969, when a 14-year-old teenager snuck into John Lennon’s Toronto hotel and interviewed him on audiotape. The film was also featured January 17–27 at the Sundance Film Festival, in Park City, Utah.

Maciek Szczerbowski, BFA (design for theatre) 94, and Chris Lavis directed Madame Tutli-Putli, a National Film Board of Canada production about a woman on a train trip that turns into a metaphysical voyage. (View a film clip at nfb.ca. ) Before making the film, Maciek and Chris spent several years running a small indie multimedia company. And documentary filmmaker

Jason W.C. Yung Chang, BFA 99, was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize for Up the Yangtze at the Sundance Film Festival, where it had its U.S. premiere. The film examines the negative effects on two young people of the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. It won Best Canadian Documentary at the 2007 Vancouver International Film Festival and the Pierre and Yolande Perrault Award for Best Documentary Spirit at the 2008 Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal. .