About Marc Iturriaga
Marc Iturriaga is the Executive Director of the Mohawk Students’ Association and founder of Bonobo Consulting, whose mission is highlighting the importance of fostering belonging within our society. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Master of Arts in Leadership.
Marc started his career as a student leader in both Campus Rec and Residence Life, and upon graduation, he worked as a Program Coordinator for national and international youth development programs, an International Program Coordinator for the University of Toronto, a Residence Life Manager for McMaster University, and eventually back into Collegiate Recreation as an Intramural Coordinator for the University of Waterloo, eventually leaving after 13 years as the Associate Director of Recreation and Business Development. Marc has served as the Recreation Program Manager at Mount Royal University and the Executive Director of the Genesis Centre, a multi-purpose community complex acting as a recreational, cultural, social and educational hub of the community in the most culturally diverse quadrant of Calgary.
Currently in his role as Executive Director for the Mohawk Students’ Association, Marc is on a journey to ensure students are supported, have a voice, and feel like they belong in their higher education experience.
He’s a family man, cat dad, LEGO master, Comic nerd, and basketball enthusiast who can pretty much identify most 80’s shows by their theme song.
Connect with Marc Iturriaga: Email | Instagram | Linkedin
Listen Now
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Resources Mentioned
Mohawk Students’ Association
Bonobo Consulting
The Transcript
**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.
Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode on the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host Sam Demma and today we are joined by a special guest. Marc Iturriaga serves as Executive Director of the Mohawk Students Association and the founder of Bonobo Consulting, leveraging his extensive higher education experience to champion student belonging and support. His diverse career path includes roles in international youth development, residence life management, recreation coordination, and executive leadership at community complexes like Calgary’s Genesis Centre.
Sam Demma
With a master’s in leadership and commitment to fostering inclusive environments, Marc brings both professional expertise and personal passion to his work, balancing his dedication to student advocacy with family life, Lego building, comic book enthusiasm and basketball fandom. Marc, thank you so much for being here on the show today.
Marc Iturriaga
Oh, Sam, thank you. That’s got to be the wickedest intro I’ve ever heard for myself. I got to write that down. That was awesome. Thank you for that.
Sam Demma
Just let me tour with you when you go to these events.
Marc Iturriaga
Done.
Sam Demma
Tell me and the audience a little bit about who you are and what got you into working with young people and in the world of education.
Marc Iturriaga
Yeah, so my high school career and elementary school, I was a good easy student. So I skipped a grade. So I was always the youngest in my grade school came easy to me, didn’t need to try high 90s in high school, and decided to go to University of Waterloo for actuarial science. So I really loved math. And then first year university hit and my whole world changed.
Marc Iturriaga
We talked about being from Pickering. So I had a culture there that I was experienced and comfortable with. And then when I hit university, whole new world of different people, music, lived experiences. And let’s just say my first year university experience wasn’t great. It started off with maybe failing four of nine classes and maybe I would have failed that fifth if I hadn’t dropped it. And a lot of that came not from, well, part of it was, you know, attendance and those pieces. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle it. It was I was just involved in this whole new world and I loved it. So I was getting more involved with intramurals. I started reffing. I started working on campus and joining clubs and different pieces. And though I got my marks back on track and I switched, you know, course loads to something a little bit more down my line because I realized I didn’t want to do math for the rest of my life. Actuarial science is the business of insurance. Nothing’s more boring to me than that. But as I got more engaged and involved with the people around me, yeah, I just realized how interested I was in people. So I became a student leader and it was those opportunities that came my way, some by luck, some by, you know, a little bit of grit and determination, but I had so many different experiences in my university career that led me to say, hey, I can actually do this for a living, and that’s what really brought me into those things. So I started off maybe wanting to go to teacher’s college. I worked at a private school as a dorm master when I first graduated, which led me to go, I don’t want to do formal education anymore. So I’m out. Great, great experience, but it’s one of those things you learn what you don’t want to do sometimes is a valuable experience. And then from there, I worked with youth programs. And then I got back into higher ed, where I was in residence manager and all those pieces. And I realized that I had a lot of influence and impact in those positions with young people and students and realizing you didn’t need that formal teaching piece. I love teachable moments. I love just like being in the moment with students and learning together. And I think that’s the biggest piece about what brought me here and to where I am today is that I’ve worked for institutions for most of my career. This is the first time I’m really focused 100% on working for and with the students in my role. And it’s just so rewarding. And really for me, as long as it involves students and youth in a leadership capacity, and let me preface that by also saying, I believe all students are leaders, just by taking a journey of education and just growth, that is leadership to me. Yeah, nothing could be more rewarding. And I think the coolest part too is, so I’m 50, I just turned 50. I still feel like I’m 27, because I feel like I’m older than the students that usually I work with, but not that far removed, but I realized now that I am. But it is, I still learn from, from my experiences working with them as much, you know, it’s corny, but they give me as much as I give them. And it’s just an awesome journey. And I don’t think I would ever not do anything that doesn’t involve the youth and students in some way.
Sam Demma
Teachable moments. Can you walk me through what that means in your mind, or what one of those has looked like in your own life or the life of a young person? And the reason I ask is because I believe that curriculum is secondary to those teachable moments, especially the moments I remember most when I was a student were not when my teacher was standing and teaching us something at the front of the classroom, but when they pulled me to the side of their desk and talked me through something that really mattered to me. So tell me more about that.
Marc Iturriaga
Yeah.
Marc Iturriaga
So it’s about outputs and outcomes. And I stress this a lot. My staff and students would go, oh, here goes Marc again with outcomes. Curriculum is an output, right? The outcome is the learning, right?
Marc Iturriaga
The realization, the reflection, the growth of the individual. The outputs are teachable moments and tests and all these pieces. My experience has been those teachable moments are the ones where we’re most successful in achieving those outcomes of growth. And you’re right, it is about that one-on-one conversation. I’m a one-on-one guy. I really love the sit down chats and all that. And I know the best way I’ve learned, even though I was so great.
Marc Iturriaga
I mean, I was great at taking tests and book learning, writing essays. Like I felt like I gamed the system because I just knew how it worked, but the true growth for me was sitting down with someone, especially when I failed, who sat me down and really helped me reflect and understand, okay, what happened here? Did you achieve your outcome? So for me, actually, one of the biggest learning moments that I really said, okay, this is how I want to be engaged as a mentor, is I remember I had a task, I was working in a youth program, I had to find host families. And I was there four months, I found five out of nine host families thought I was doing good in the first month. Cool, the rest will come to me. And then within two weeks of the program, three of them had quit. And now I got two host families, I need nine. And I got a group of students from all across Canada and Ecuador about to arrive on a bus, and they needed a place to stay and I didn’t have it. And it took my boss and mentor who came all the way down, it was up North in Kapuskasing, so they were from Toronto, they had to drive all the way up. They didn’t do it, there was no Zoom, right? They weren’t doing a phone call.
Marc Iturriaga
They knew I need to talk to you one-on-one. And they sat me And so I said, but I did this and I did that and go, all great. Didn’t work, did it? So you need to change gears. Your outcome is you need those families. And they started saying, you need to go on the, on the radio. You need to go talk to pastors. You need to do whatever you can. And I realized those were things like, I kind of don’t want to do that. And it’s like, yeah, but you gotta. And that’s what it took.
Marc Iturriaga
And it was really that hands-on conversation that really made me realize that that’s what I want to have when I speak with individuals and staff and students is that teachable moment. So what is happening in the moment and sitting down and going, let’s reflect on that.
Marc Iturriaga
And it’s not about what answers I have, it’s what that individual sees and understands and reflects on their own experience to go, yeah, you know, you’re right. Because my boss wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know already.
Marc Iturriaga
It’s just, I didn’t want to do it. And so again, that flow, and sometimes it just takes that person. And so that’s where I say too, that that relationship is both ways. And so I’ve got to earn that trust when I have that moment with others. And that’s a huge piece to say, hey, you’re trusting me to sit you down and walk you through your experience. That’s pretty important too. And so that’s, again, it’s about that interpersonal connection. That’s why I love the teachable moments.
Sam Demma
When you think of your experiences as a university student, maybe in that first year when things were not going the way you expected them to, were there any individuals that provided mentorship to you, that redirected your path? And if so, who were those people and what did they do for you?
Marc Iturriaga
Yeah, one was my mom who just took it and understood. I was so surprised how much she did not berate me. You know, you know, you accuse me of like, well, what are you wasting our money on? You know, and all those things, you know, understanding. And I know she was disappointed, but just that, knowing I had someone in my in my corner that way and saying, you know what, I trust in the past, you figured this out. I’m going to give you the space to figure this out as well. I’m sure I got a couple of conversations that were, you know, a little bit more on the what are you doing side. But it was giving me that space to figure it out. And I greatly appreciate that. The other was, I would say it’s observations of friends that I saw of realizing where they were going and what I could learn from their lived experience and realizing how different that was that I didn’t feel pigeonholed to say, well, I have to be doing X because that’s what’s expected of me. It was about that freedom to go, hey, there is a Y. Let me figure that out. And that was when I realized I learned. And it wasn’t first year university. It was actually second year when I actually had to move out due to my living arrangements. I had to find a new place to rent from and I found a whole bunch of new guys to live with who I didn’t know. There were different programs. And one of them just said, saw me just kind of sitting around and going, what are you doing? And it’s like, I don’t know, like I’m just going to class. He goes, go do something. And one of the things that brought me on my journey too was he actually said, well, you should get hooked on crack. And I was like, what? Now, let me preface that is the Campus Rec Advisory Council, C-R-A-C.
Marc Iturriaga
All right.
Marc Iturriaga
So he knew I liked basketball. He knew I liked, you know, get involved. So just come on this. So it took that invitation of I didn’t know I could get involved that way. And that was my stepping stone to get it and I was highly involved in high school so I don’t know why I didn’t check it out at university but it was that invitation from a roommate that got me involved and that’s where I met my future boss in an intramural coordinator as a student so he was kind of my mentor through that time giving me more leadership opportunity and to the point where when I did some roles in the like residence life and all that I was looking for a permanent role and he called me when I got married. He called me and said hey I’m going to teacher’s college you want my job. I went uh sure so he walked me through and that’s what got me on my kind of larger career for a long time was with athletics and recreation and campus recreation. And that was a you know there’s a 13 year with just the University of Waterloo but is where I’m involved now with a lot of other organizations, still my passion and yeah it all came from that personal invitation from a leader. And that’s the other piece about curriculum. Curriculum doesn’t invite you to anything. It just gives you the info.
Marc Iturriaga
It just gives you the data. It’s the people that invite you, that welcome you, that include you, that help you in that growth. That’s the power, and you’re right, like curriculum, it’s just a book. And you can get lots of insights from book, but there’s so much that an inanimate object doesn’t do for you in your growth and education that an individual does.
Sam Demma
The title of this episode, How I Got Hooked on Crack. Of course not, but it’s too funny. You said, knowing I had someone in my corner, those are the words you use to describe your mom’s impact on you when you were going through university.
Sam Demma
And I think that’s a beautiful way to position it for any relationship with somebody who’s supporting you. When you truly know someone is in your corner, you can have the difficult conversations because in your heart, you know, they’re doing it. They’re trying to share these things with you for your best interests. And they have your genuine best interests in their hearts too.
Marc Iturriaga
How do you build a relationship with a staff member or a young person to the point where they do know, yes, this person is in my corner and is rooting for me? It’s hard, right? Because I think the biggest thing is that it takes time. It takes consistency, right? You got to behave that way constantly. And the one time we used to say this a lot in Resonance Life is they don’t remember the nine times that you were there for them. They remember the one time that they let you down, right? And so and that comes from that, you know, role modeling, and hey, we’re all human, we slip, we make mistakes, you make bad judgment calls. But it’s got to be that consistent, you cannot say, hey, I got your back. And then two seconds later, not, right. And so how do you create intentional interactions and pieces that demonstrate, I got your back, right? And that is more importantly, usually through failure than it is through successes. It’s easy to celebrate success and going, you rocked that, you’re awesome. It’s when they failed and they go, I failed you. And it’s like, you have not failed me or anyone. You learned, hopefully.
Marc Iturriaga
You’re gonna fail me if three, four more times you continue to repeat the same mistakes and not get to where we need to get to. But those are all learning pieces, right? And that’s the most important. So when did my mom have my back the most is when I was failing, not when I was being successful.
Marc Iturriaga
Cause when I was successful, she was kind of like, you got this, I can help you. It’s when we’re at our lowest that you need someone there to either support you, push you, do something to say, you got this. Because in the end, it’s I got this, right? I have to have it. I can have all the mentors in the world holding me up and trying to, but if I’m not going to do the work to actually get to where we need to go, it’s not gonna happen. So it’s like, they’re the support, but you still gotta put in the work, right? And that’s where I know I did. I put in the work to get to where I am.
Marc Iturriaga
There’s a lot of luck. There’s a lot of privilege as well. I get that, but there’s also a lot of work and a lot of learning along the way that if I didn’t take those opportunities that when those supports times were happening, yeah, I may not be where I am today.
Sam Demma
My favorite authors is a gentleman named Jim Rohn who’s passed away now, but he said learn to celebrate in the spring if you’ve planted really well in the fall and and learn to accept if there are no fruits in the spring or the summer that it’s because of your own previous actions and that the beautiful thing is another season will arrive where you can change the choices you make and hopefully reap a larger harvest. And I always think about that when I examine and reflect on my own life and how things are playing out and luck and privilege play a huge role, but labor does too.
Sam Demma
And most of the time our list of reasons why things aren’t working out doesn’t include our own name. And that’s like, it’s important that we put our own name on there if we want things to change. So I appreciate you sharing some of that as well. Tell me a little bit about what your role looks like today. You’ve worked in many different positions, and now you’re with the MSA.
Marc Iturriaga
So the coolest part about this role is that I was hired because I have an expertise, a lived experience that really relates to the operational pieces of the student association. So that is designing programs, having staff that support the student journey. Where a big gap was, was learning about student government and what that looks like.
Marc Iturriaga
Over the last four or five years, I’ve had a crash course in that. And the cool thing is I learned from so many different people that a lot of the work that we’re doing right now is ensuring that our outcomes are what are important, not our output. So our outcomes is that students have voices that students are supported.
Marc Iturriaga
And the more we look at those outcomes, we can start looking at some of the structures and systems that maybe are barriers or constraints for there’s some gaps that are preventing us to get to those outcomes. The other cool pieces is doing that collaboratively. So though I’m tasked to look at these things, I can’t do it on my own. I’m not going around saying, I know how to fix this, here’s this. It’s about making sure that if I’m going to fix a problem, I need the people with the lived experience to come and talk to me about it. I need to hear their voices. I need to see other lenses. I need to see diverse opinions. I need to see opposite opinions to really help us do that. So right now, our focus is on how do we, especially at you know in Ontario and the the university and college system being affected by international student enrollment, there’s a whole new lesson of learning to happen that we need to do together because we have so many people with different touch points with students and their needs that I can’t, I can’t assume I know the needs of every student there, it’s impossible. We need others in our circles, in our relationships to help us define that and help us move forward. So that’s what I really appreciate about my role is that I’m still learning. I’ve always said, and I used to tell students that, if you’re in a student role, like a job or a leadership role, and you think you’re not learning anymore and you’re just going through the motions, I can’t use you anymore because it’s time for you to move on, time to give that opportunity for someone else right and the kicker is there’s always something to learn but it comes back to that what you said who’s putting in the labor and the work to do that it’s easy to go I did this before go through the motions but then you’ve lost the outcome, right? You’re just focused on outputs. And so when we start losing sight of that, it’s time to move on. And I’ve done that with student leaders to say, hey, maybe time for you to take a break because I could use some other, even though it would be easier to have them because they know what they need to do and they already know the task. But I love, you mentioned too that, what I love about, especially higher ed is that cyclical nature. You got a term and things didn’t go right, hey, you got a new term. You got a new term and it’s not for everyone, but I love it because every new term we can go back, what did we do well? How can we repeat that success? Hey, what did we not do well and what can we work on that? Again, it always changes because the next generation of student comes in and those needs change every time. And so we need to be nimble. We need to keep learning and that that’s exciting. That’s what I love.
Sam Demma
I feel the passion coming through the mic for this this podcast. So you’re in the right position. You’re doing the work you’re supposed to be doing. It’s obvious and I appreciate you spending some time sharing your journey through education, some of your beliefs around building relationships with young people on the podcast.
Sam Demma
Keep up the amazing work you’re doing at the MSA and just know that I’m rooting you on and I’m excited to just continue following the journey. If there’s someone listening, Marc, and they wanna reach out to you, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Marc Iturriaga
It’s a Mohawk Student Association. It’s, you know, my first name, last name, I’m on the website. You can see us at, you know, https://mohawkstudents.ca/.
Marc Iturriaga
Yeah. But for me, outside of that, I do work with a higher ed organization, sports organization to help foster that sense of belonging amongst, you know, especially young people, but it is with Fostering Belonging and staff, and they can reach me at bonobo-consulting.com. And I love to talk, you know, help organizations really understand that impact they have when it comes to fostering belonging.
Sam Demma
Awesome, Marc, thank you so, so much. Keep up the amazing work and we’ll talk again soon.
Marc Iturriaga
Awesome. Thanks, Sam.
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