CREDIT: MELANIE ANDERSON
Wil Sorrell (seated) took over Dr. Howard Rundle’s job as President of Fanshawe College for a day after winning an auction by United Way.

Wil Sorrell has been the president of the OPSEU Local 109 union, and after March 20, he can add another presidency to his resume: President of Fanshawe College.

He won the presidential prize in an auction during Fanshawe's United Way campaign, which raised $112,805.

“I was really excited (when I found out I won the President for a Day prize). I thought it would be a really good opportunity,” he said. “At the time I was president of the Local 109 and I thought it would be an interesting thing to be president of the College for the day.”

His term as Fanshawe College president only lasted one day, but Sorrell said it was a full day of fun.

His day began at 9 a.m. on March 20, and had a “packed schedule” that included attending a college council meeting, media interviews and helping full-time college president Dr. Howard Rundle prepare for some presentations.

Sorrell stated his favourite part of the day was attending the college council meetings. “It was very interesting to see some of the behind-the-scenes things that happen at the College in terms of policy and the negotiations that happen around policy,” he said. “I find the policy aspect of the college really interesting.”

He said that spending the day with Rundle and experiencing a full-time college president's day-to- day job gave him some valuable insight. “I think any opportunity you have to spend with anyone in any kind of leadership role lets you see the amount of work that actually goes into it.”

Sorrell works full-time at Fanshawe as the FanshaweOnline administrator for the Faculty of Arts, Media and Design. He has been a member of the Fanshawe community for over 10 years, first as a student, completing his three-year Internet Technologist advanced diploma in 2006, then as a part-time instructor. He has been a full-time staff member for the last five years.

If he became the full-time president of the college, Sorrell joked that his first action would be to “give everyone a raise!”