7 minute read
Class Acts
Matt Cundill ’87 (Pre-U ’88)
Finding the Right Wavelength
Matt Cundill ’87 (Pre-U ’88)
BY ASHLEY RABINOVITCH, WRITER
Like many children of the ’80s, Matt Cundill ’87 (Pre-U ’88) spent the first hour of his day listening to the radio. Montreal stations like CHOM-FM and CKGM kept him company as he set off early for tutoring before the school day began at LCC. “I discovered early on that I wasn’t very good at math, but I learned to appreciate algebra over black coffee,” he remembers. He looks back with gratitude at the teachers who arrived at their desks by 6:30 am to offer extra support to students like him. “My teachers really cared about where I would end up,” reflects Matt.
Matt experienced similar frustrations in English classes until writing analyses of Shakespearean works gave way to crafting creative personal stories. “Once they let me write what I wanted, the whole world opened up to me,” he says. “The English department taught me how to write and, in media, writing is everything.”
Matt studied government and political science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia after graduating from LCC, but he spent every spare hour at the campus radio station. “Once I got on air, I couldn’t get enough of it,” he says. He landed his first summer job at a station in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. A decent portion of his initial airtime focused on dispensing lottery numbers, farm reports, and bingo nights, but he was hooked.
Matt Cundill ’87 (Pre-U ’88)
Over the next 20 years, Matt honed his performing and programming expertise at rock, adult contemporary, and talk radio stations across the country, from Montreal’s CHOM 97.7 rock station to Edmonton’s 100.3 The Bear. He eventually landed in Winnipeg, where he agreed to brave frigid winters for the opportunity to direct programming for three popular radio stations. In 2014, his career in radio jolted to an unexpected halt when he was laid off in a restructuring process. “Honestly, I didn’t know what I was going to do next,” he admits. “All I knew was that I missed being behind the microphone, so I built a studio in my basement.”
From that basement studio, Matt launched The Sound Off Media Company, an audio solutions group that provides voice-overs, develops radio programming strategies, and hosts and manages podcasts for businesses, entrepreneurs and performers. After navigating the well-defined, fiercely competitive world of radio, he found a refreshing change of scenery in the creative, collaborative podcasting landscape.
Despite the proliferation of more than two million podcasts worldwide, the Canadian podcasting space was surprisingly ripe for opportunity, especially after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, Matt and three employees have played a role in launching close to 25 new podcasts, including The Sustainable Burrito, a podcast produced by members of the LCC Green Team. “These students’ heightened social awareness is striking,” Matt marvels. “They know what they want to say, and they say it.”
As business booms during the pandemic, Matt will continue to provide support to those who aspire to follow in his footsteps. “My industry is all about giving back, sharing, and teaching,” he affirms. “We really don’t know where the podcast space is heading, but it’s an exciting place to be.” “When you are trying to figure out what to do with your life, try to pay attention to what really fills up your cup”
Samara Fox ’04 (Pre-U ’05)
Samara Fox ’04 (Pre-U ’05)
Defines Her Own Success
BY DANA KOBERNICK, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Samara Fox may have taken a circuitous route to the current stage of her career, but she believes that one’s career can be a journey rather than a destination. After graduating from LCC’s Pre-University program, Samara attended Yale University where, while majoring in psychology, she also took classes in a variety of other fields as a way of exploring her diverse interests.
While at LCC, Samara earned a spot on the Canadian National Debating Team, and the love she developed for debating influenced her decision to pursue law at Harvard University after completing her undergraduate studies. Once she realized she craved more day-to-day human connection in her work, Samara enrolled in premed classes during her final year and finished them while working as an immigration attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services.
“I was involved in asylum advocacy and health policy and believed that I could apply what I liked about the law to the field of medicine,” she says. “During my legal training, I developed my communication and critical thinking skills which, as it turns out, are heavily relied upon in medicine.”
Samara returned to Yale to complete her medical degree and is now in the second year of her psychiatry residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Even with degrees from two of the most acclaimed universities in the world, Samara does not cite those as her proudest accomplishments. “One of the hardest things that I have finally learned is how to do something because I really want to and not to fulfill the expectations of others,” she says.
LCC GIRLS RUGBY, 2005
The daughter of a Jewish WWII refugee, Samara is also proud of the service work she does for immigrants. Combining her medical and legal expertise, Samara conducts forensic evaluations of asylum seekers to document medical evidence of persecution. In addition, in collaboration with a former mentor at Yale and Physicians for Human Rights, she has advocated in op-eds and legal affidavits for the release from immigration detention of individuals who are at high risk of death or serious illness from COVID-19.
Looking back on her LCC experience, Samara fondly remembers teachers like John Vlahogiannis, Chris George, and Barry Armstrong who taught her, above all else, how to think critically. She also recognizes how much her co-curricular activities — primarily debating and rugby — played a role in shaping her by teaching the values of teamwork and grit.
Samara acknowledges there were things she did not learn in high school and in her post-secondary studies. “LCC, Yale and Harvard are environments largely of privilege, and the most pressing problems in the world can feel less acute when most of your peers are very advantaged,” she says. “At LCC, we were required to do a certain amount of community service in keeping with its motto Non Nobis Solum, but I still felt that implicit in our overall education was an emphasis on the ideal of success. Historically, LCC was a selective and relatively expensive day and boarding school attended by mostly white males and so, like many ideals, Non Nobis Solum was always limited by an evolving social context. While I was a student, the humanities were taught with a standard emphasis on classic Western history and thought. In retrospect, I think I left LCC with an underdeveloped understanding of important minority experiences and perspectives. Intellectual frameworks such as feminism, queer theory and critical race theory are important and foundational, and I’m thrilled to see that, since my time at LCC, the school has integrated more social justice issues and historical re-centering into the curricular and co-curricular programming.”
Samara has just started a research project to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of online group therapy for LGBTQ asylum-seekers to provide better access to mental health care. She also looks forward to being at the cutting-edge of clinical practice by learning about the novel treatments for mood disorders that are being researched at Harvard and Yale medical schools.
Samara draws from her own experience to offer this piece of advice to new graduates: “When you are trying to figure out what to do with your life, try to pay attention to what really fills up your cup — what makes you feel satisfied and happy. It’s true that part of growing up is learning how to do some things we really don’t love doing. At the same time, if we get in the habit of working hard in pursuit of praise or someone else’s idea of success, we end up trying to fill up a cup that is cracked.”
