{"id":72226,"date":"2020-09-22T00:54:56","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T21:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-colleges-in-canada-are-hard-wired-to-the-communities-that-surround-them\/"},"modified":"2020-09-22T00:54:56","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T21:54:56","slug":"why-colleges-in-canada-are-hard-wired-to-the-communities-that-surround-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-colleges-in-canada-are-hard-wired-to-the-communities-that-surround-them\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why colleges in Canada are ‘hard-wired’ to the communities that surround them"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Why colleges in Canada are ‘hard-wired’ to the communities that surround them<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Assiniboine\u2019s<\/p>\n

Assiniboine\u2019s meat-cutting facility (Courtesy of Maple Leaf Foods)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It all started when Maple Leaf Foods added a second shift to its plant in Brandon, Man., the company\u2019s flagship facility in Canada, and needed more employees. It was able to find some workers locally, but international recruiting became a big part of its strategy\u2014and Assiniboine Community College, also in Brandon, saw a way to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided we were going to go down the path of building a food processing centre for animal protein,\u201d Assiniboine president Mark Frison says. In the past, the college had provided language training for Maple Leaf\u2019s international recruits, as well as those hired by HyLife, a Manitoba-based pork producer. But a full-fledged training facility that covered everything from sausage-making to smoking meat to what it\u2019s like to be on an actual meat-cutting line would help those companies expand their pool of app<\/a>licants. Maple Leaf decided to invest, as did the province of Manitoba and the federal government. UFCW Local 832, the union that represents workers at the Maple Leaf plant, invested, too. The result was a 3,000-sq.-foot facility that opened in 2019.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t just a smart business decision; it was also about the needs of Assiniboine\u2019s community. Colleges are uniquely connected to the towns and cities where they\u2019re located, and administrators often try to provide value to local residents, whether through industry-related research, services or job training. According to Denise Amyot, president and CEO of Colleges and Institutes Canada, this is partially because of sheer numbers. \u201cNinety-five per cent of Canadians and 86 per cent of Indigenous people live within 50 km of a college,\u201d she says. That means colleges are literally everywhere. Unlike universities, which tend to cluster in major centres, colleges can be located in tiny communities. New Brunswick Community College, for example, has a campus in Fredericton, the provincial capital, but it also has outposts in St. Andrews and Woodstock. And B.C.\u2019s Selkirk College has campuses in West Kootenay\u2019s biggest cities\u2014Castlegar, Nelson and Trail\u2014as well as a learning centre in Kaslo (population 968). This type of proximity makes it easier for students to attend class, but it also means members of the wider community can access libraries, gym facilities, green space and other services.<\/p>\n

At Assiniboine, the first class to learn in its brand-new meat-cutting facility were all international students\u2014and they overwhelmingly wanted to stay in Canada once their training was done.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of our students who come to us from other countries, their goal is really to be in Canada,\u201d Frison says. \u201cAnd so, this is not only a way that they can learn that skill, it\u2019s pretty seamless for them then to be able to go work for those companies, or in other parts of the sector, such as retail.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Amyot, about half of the international students who study at Canadian colleges plan to apply for permanent residence upon graduation. But what is unique about Assiniboine\u2019s meat-cutting program is that it isn\u2019t just a vehicle for students who come to Canada to stay here. The school also began receiving inquiries from overseas family members of Maple Leaf employees, who saw the program as a way for them to immigrate, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we have an interest list of 147 folks associated with people who already work in plants,\u201d Frison says. \u201cA lot of our international [recruitment] strategy is based around supporting the province\u2019s immigration and population strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/p>\n

Students at the college\u2019s brand-new Food Processing Centre for Animal Proteins (Courtesy of Assinibione Community College)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The meat-cutting program is also reflective of colleges\u2019 ability to coordinate with employers and industries. Programs are often built in consultation with local professionals, a fact that contributes to these institutions\u2019 high rates of post-graduation employment. \u201cCollege is hard-wired to the community,\u201d says Frison. \u201cWe\u2019re hand-in-glove with how things work in the economy and the social<\/a> fabric of the community. Every program that we would have has an advisory committee, made up of people from industry, typically in the province, who provide advice about how that program should meet the needs of the occupations and the sectors that it serves.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also the case at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ont. Its City School program makes college education accessible to local residents who are experiencing poverty. They access workshops, career exploration modules, non-credit courses that run for just a few weeks, and longer, for-credit courses. All are free, down to the cost of equipment and safety gear. Mohawk faculty develop these courses in conjunction with employers. \u201cIf an employer comes to us and says, \u2018Look, I have a need for a fitter welder position,\u2019 we will customize the curriculum to meet those specific skills,\u201d says James Vanderveken, dean of the Centre for Community Partnerships and Experiential Learning at Mohawk College.<\/p>\n

The program owes its existence to \u201cCode Red<\/a>,\u201d a\u00a0Hamilton Spectator<\/em>\u00a0series that debuted 10 years ago and looked at the ways poverty impacted the city\u2019s residents. One news<\/a>-grabbing stat revealed by the project: residents of the wealthy Hamilton neighbourhood with the highest life expectancy lived, on average, 21 years longer than residents of the poorer neighbourhood with the lowest life expectancy. Faced with those statistics, \u201cthe college made a critical decision that we wanted to be a catalyst,\u201d Vanderveken says. \u201cWe wanted to function as a leader in the community to address these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mohawk\u2019s<\/p>\n

Mohawk\u2019s City School offers training, such as this welding class, inside modified transport trucks (Courtesy of Mohawk College)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

City School, which emerged out of this resolution, started as a mobile classroom program. Instead of asking people experiencing poverty to literally cross the city\u2019s railway tracks to come to one of Mohawk\u2019s three campuses, the college went to its potential students, offering free introductory courses for skilled trades. City School opened its first location at the Eva Rothwell Centre in Hamilton\u2019s North End in 2015. Over the next five years, the program would open three more locations\u2014one at Hamilton Public Library\u2019s central branch, and the other two inside souped-up transport trucks. So far, the program has served almost 2,300 students. And while employment is an important goal, the courses can also help students find a pathway to college. In fact, nearly 200 former City School students have transitioned to full- or part-time studies, academic upgrading or language instruction for newcomers to Canada at Mohawk.<\/p>\n

The project has been so successful that Vanderveken has started expanding City School beyond Hamilton. So far, the school has provided some services in Burlington, Ont., and has reached out to contacts in Caledonia, Ont. But the program might be getting much, much bigger. \u201cWe were invited by the Future Skills Centre [an arm\u2019s-length government program run by Ryerson University, the Conference Board of Canada and Blueprint ADE] to consider launching our programs and engaging other communities across Canada,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Colleges are also playing a part in reconciliation. In B.C., North Island College\u2019s Centre for Applied Research, Technology<\/a> and Innovation (CARTI), is working on a research project on wild sea kelp with Kwiakah First Nation, the second-smallest First Nation in the province, with only 23 members.<\/p>\n

In 2014, the Nation realized there had been a profound change in the eelgrass beds in its territory. \u201cWe had a lot of talk with the Elders, and they made us aware that in the past, [eelgrass] was really abundant everywhere in our territory. But when we were out in our boats, we could hardly see any eelgrass beds,\u201d says Frank Voelker, band administrator and economic development officer at Kwiakah First Nation. \u201cSo, we knew there was a discrepancy, over the last 100 years, [between] the abundance we have been told about and what the reality is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nation commissioned an environmental survey, and results proved them right: the eelgrass had basically vanished. While this was disappointing news, it was important information to have; Indigenous people\u2019s traditional knowledge is often considered anecdotal evidence by Western scientists, and Voelker hoped this survey could help bolster the First Nation\u2019s observations. And that would soon become necessary. In 2018, the provincial government started accepting applications from businesses that wanted to harvest wild bull kelp. (Kelp is a $10-billion industry\u2014it\u2019s used in food products, makeup, toothpaste and even pharmaceuticals.)<\/p>\n

\u201cSo now, knowing that ocean plants overall don\u2019t do so well anymore in our coastal waters, and hearing that the government is actually supporting a wild harvest without having the means to monitor what these harvesters actually would do, we didn\u2019t think this harvest actually was justified,\u201d Voelker says. Around that time, he read an article about North Island College (NIC) and its work farming kelp. \u201cI just made a cold call and said, \u2018Would you be able and willing to work on a project with us to see what the real situation of the kelp is now in our territory?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\"Byrne<\/p>\n

Byrne (left) measures bull kelp near Campbell River, B.C., with NIC graduate Sally Enns (Photograph by Melissa Renwick)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

That was two years ago. In the time since their initial meetings, Kwiakah and CARTI have been building a relationship and hashing out the project\u2019s goals and objectives. Their plan is twofold: first, lead researcher Allison Byrne and her team will create an inventory of the wild kelp resources in Kwiakah\u2019s traditional territory using a combination of drone, aerial surveys and boat surveys. They will be measuring and weighing kelp. Then, they will provide Kwiakah First Nation with information about the kelp\u2019s role in carbon sequestration in the ocean. (Kelp is highly effective at carbon sequestration; it absorbs carbon dioxide and other forms of carbon from the atmosphere. In fact, kelp is better than trees at improving air quality.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve really seen this as an opportunity to help [Kwiakah] diversify their economic businesses in a sustainable, long-term and traditional way,\u201d says Randall Heidt, NIC\u2019s vice-president of strategic initiatives.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, NIC benefits from access to the Nation\u2019s traditional knowledge. \u201cAs a researcher, I really enjoy going out and doing these projects and working in a collaborative team with members from the Nation and NIC students and industry personnel,\u201d Byrne says. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s just been an excellent learning opportunity. Every time we go out, we exchange knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time NIC has partnered with neighbouring First Nations. It has completed kelp aquaculture trials with First Nation-owned businesses, and it has received grants to send its nursing students into communities where they work on language revitalization and traditional ways of learning and knowing. From the college\u2019s perspective, these projects \u201chelp us to answer some of the calls that were issued in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission\u2019s report for community colleges to support capacity building and achieve some of those outcomes,\u201d says Naomi Tabata, manager of the college\u2019s Centre for Applied Research, Technology and Innovation.<\/p>\n

In times of trouble\u2014like the COVID-19 pandemic\u2014colleges are uniquely positioned to pitch in. Colleges and institutes across Canada \u201csupported the local health needs of the community with personal protective equipment that they had, because they are teaching in the health sector,\u201d Amyot says. \u201cAnd they were able to graduate students faster, [so they could start to] work faster. But if there was not this synergy with the community, it would not have happened like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, Yukon University launched Pivot, a three-month program meant to help local businesses of all sizes and stages survive the pandemic. Participants were able to lean on a team of experts who helped them \u201crework, re-envision and revamp\u201d their companies. At C\u00e9gep de Trois-Rivi\u00e8res in Quebec, 38 nursing students graduated early so they could work on the front lines, while Red River College loaned 14 students from its health information management program to Manitoba Health, where they collected and tracked data about COVID-19 throughout the province. And Canadore College in North Bay, Ont., did its part to keep its community occupied during the pandemic by offering modules from six general<\/a> education courses free of charge. Topics ranged from astronomy to the science<\/a> of everyday life, and with no marks or tests, the intention was purely to help people pass the time.<\/p>\n

Back in Brandon, Assiniboine\u2019s next intake of meat-cutting students is getting started on their education. Part of their course will be delivered online because of COVID-19, but the college is working with employers to make sure their 12-week work placements still happen\u2014after all, students can\u2019t really practise their meat-cutting skills at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, they\u2019ll have to be in the shop,\u201d Frison says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s how we\u2019re plotting our next year, as well. We expect that folks at the end will be able to step out in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that includes newcomers to Canada. \u201cPart of our interest in international students is to help pave a pathway for them to come to Canada and Manitoba, and for them to find ways to live and work here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the Maclean\u2019s 2020 Canadian Colleges Guidebook with the headline, \u201cA hand-in-glove partnership.\u201d Order a copy of the issue here. Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here<\/a>.<\/em>
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