Heather Latter
The local Confederation College campus is striving to continue to meet the needs in the community by offering an array of programing and developing partnerships with employers while following its strategic plan.
“We have a very busy campus here,” college president Jim Madder noted during a luncheon here last week to update members of the community on the work it is doing.
He said 14 programs are running at the Fort Frances campus, with 76 full-time students and 36 part-time ones.
“These programs are doing extremely well,” Madder said, noting four new programs just started up this month—office administration, educational support, general arts and science, and concurrent disorders.
“We want to give people more opportunities in the winter to continue their studies,” Madder explained.
“And for the fall of 2016, we’re going to run 16 programs so people [can] plan for the fall or next winter,” he added.
Madder said the college has other programs, but the ones it is offering are what people have indicated they are interested in.
“If there are others, we’ll certainly take people’s names, as well,” he remarked, noting they will go to great lengths to provide programming when it’s requested, such as creating a partnership with another college.
“When we, ourselves, don’t have a program, we can partner with other ones,” he said, citing the Perinatal Nursing program, where nine RNs from Riverside Health Care Facilities, Inc. were able to further their education while remaining in their home community.
“We ourselves can’t justify developing a program for seven students,” Madder stressed. “But if the program already exists somewhere else, we can bring that in and deliver as a partnership and everybody’s happy.”
The program here was offered through a partnership with Conestoga College in Kitchener.
“We are quite willing to do it,” Madder said. “[But] we need employers to tell us what they need to make that happen.”
Madder noted developing partnerships with employers also is key with the Canada-Ontario job grant, which provides an opportunity for employers to invest in their workforce with help from the government.
“[It] links direct employer need with people who are interested in doing that type of training and work,” he remarked.
“It directly involves partnerships with employers to make that work.
“We will help make that occur,” he vowed. “But working with the employers is a critical piece to have that happen.”
Madder also said it was great to see so many local employers attending last Tuesday’s luncheon at La Place Rendez-Vous.
“It was great to see everyone here,” he enthused. “We had a great turnout.”
Madder also spoke about the “Confederation Bound: Early Acceptance” program, which is designed to encourage Grade 11 students to consider a future at the Thunder Bay-based institute.
Last year there were 35 applicants, of which five were from Fort Frances High School.
The students apply for their program in Grade 12 through the Ontario College Application Service (OCAS) by the deadline.
The OCAS application fee will be reimbursed by Confederation College.
Students must meet all entrance requirements for their chosen programs and once they are registered, they receive an entrance award of $1,000 paid in two instalments.
Madder said it’s a great way to keep students local.
“People being able to live at home in their home communities, we have a much, much higher success rate,” he noted.
Access and success of learners is just one of the pillars in Confederation College’s strategic direction.
The others focus on aboriginal learning and serving Northwestern Ontario.
“Three years ago we developed a strategic plan,” Madder said.
“I’ve committed to both come back and update people about what progress we are making on this, but also to keep connected to the communities,” he added, noting next year will be the last of this strategic plan.
Madder said the college soon will begin collecting information to see if these pillars are what they should continue to work on, or if it should be focusing on something else.
“However, we will remain committed to our smaller communities,” he pledged.
