Pandemic Reflections - Karen Warkentin

Meet Karen, one of our Program Managers at UWinnipeg PACE. She has a host of responsibilities at PACE including overseeing our Project Management Diploma and our Business Systems Analyst Diploma. Karen also attends many international recruitment fairs to meet students from around the globe who are interested in studying at UWinnipeg. We asked her to reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted her work-life.

"I worked from home as a precaution after returning from a recruitment trip in late February. I had just returned back to the office after 14-days of self-isolation when the University moved everything online. In one way I was a bit lucky. I had a “practice round” of self-isolating before the University transitioned to alternative delivery methods for our courses.

During the first round I was the only one working from home and I realized how important my PACE colleagues were and how closely we work together.

Now that we’re all working online some days we risk being “zoomed-out” with all our virtual meetings, but we know we need to connect in order to discuss and decide things together so that we can continue to provide a world-class learning environment for our students during this time.

This month marks 10 years that I’ve worked at PACE. In 10 years much has changed, but one thing I knew early on, and something that continues to be true for me, is that who you work with is just as important as who you work for.

During this time when the future feels uncertain and routines have drastically changed, knowing that I work with great colleagues at PACE helps me to stay focused on my tasks and our communal goal of continuing to offer exceptional programs for students."