Hi, my name is Matthew Smart and I am in my HBA1 year at Ivey, I spent my first two years at Western studying Globalization Studies at Huron College. I was born and raised in Burlington, Ontario. I spent the last two summers working at Manulife Financial in downtown Toronto. I have enjoyed working as a residence Don at Huron College for the past two years. I have been a member of two different marching bands, where I played the horn and mellophone. I also love to travel, and I'm always looking for opportunities to see more of the world!
Additional Information
Personal Definition of Sustainability
For me, sustainability means achieving your goals and producing results in a way that you can maintain for the foreseeable future. It is operating in a way that adds value not only to yourself, but also to those who you serve and those who may be affected by your actions. It means conducting yourself in a way that has no negative social or environmental impacts. This can be both at an individual level, and at an organizational level.
Sustainability-In-Action
I have been engaged in a number of sustainability projects in the past. In high school, I was a founding member of my school's "Green Team," a club focused on improving the environmental sustainability of the school. The club had a number of accomplishments, including implementing a recycling program at the school, and encouraging students and staff to save electricity by turning off unnecessary lights and computer monitors. During high school, I also had the opportunity to attend Burlington's Youth Environmental Conference, which was based on the theme "Imprint: Make Your Mark, Leave No Trace". More recently, this past year in my role as a residence Don, I organized an Earth Hour event. The event was designed to create awareness about Earth Hour, and it involved a number of fun activities that required no electricity. Looking forward to this summer, I am extremely excited to be a part of Ivey's service learning trip that is heading to Africa to teach a case-based course at a partner university. I am especially looking forward to this trip because I think it will be both more action-oriented than a lot of my previous experiences, as well as being an educational growth experience.
