Duane Hicks
After spending more than 20 years with Confederation College, Fort Frances native Don Lovisa has been appointed president of Durham College in Oshawa.
Lovisa, who first joined Durham College in July, 2007 as vice-president (Academic), had been serving as interim president there since May. He was unanimously endorsed by the school’s Board of Governors on Dec. 18.
His appointment is for a five-year term, effective tomorrow (Jan. 1).
“I am very proud they chose me. I am honoured to be the fifth president of Durham College [in the school’s 41-year history],” Lovisa said during an interview Monday at the Times’ office while in the area during the Christmas break to visit family and friends.
“My stay there has been very, very short, and to be given this sort of opportunity after having only been there a year-and-a-half is quite an honour,” he added. “I am excited about the job and the challenges.”
Lovisa has several key priorities in the coming months and years as president.
“I think the main thing for any college right now is responding to the need for workforce development,” he remarked. “Of course, being in Oshawa and the impact we’re seeing in the auto sector, in the very short run we need to help communities as far as any retraining and retooling of people from the auto sector.
“At the same time the auto sector is experiencing declines and closures, we have the whole energy sector that’s booming. We’ve got the Darlington expansion—that’s going to be a 15-year build—starting within the next couple years,” Lovisa continued, referring to the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station, Ontario Power Generation’s newest CANDU (CANadian Deuterium Uranium) nuclear generating station which is located in the Municipality of Clarington in Durham Region, 70 km east of Toronto, and provides about 20 percent of the province’s electricity needs.
“We’re trying to help those people who find themselves displaced [from the auto sector] to provide training for them so they can enter a new sector. That’s priority one,” he stressed. “But to do that, you have to make sure you have the capacity, that our priorities are aligned so that we are responding and we are opening up seats for students who need them.”
He noted the nuclear power plant expansion project is expected to employ 1,300-1,500 tradespeople during the build, but that nearly 50 percent of those hired to do it will be of retirement age only five years into the 15-year build.
Lovisa said Durham College is in “a growth area,” and is always trying to respond to the demographics in Durham Region to make sure the school offers courses people need.
“Unlike my experience with Confed, where we were always struggling to try to fill seats, we’re trying to find seats to put people into because we have such a high demand for our programs,” he remarked. “So it’s about building strategies so we can grow strategically, so that we can grow in the areas that are best suited to the Durham area.”
Lovisa also said Durham is a unique college in that it also co-exists with two universities—the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and a campus of Trent University.
“It’s really important we work with our university partners in developing pathways for our students, so those students that are done college can go on to university,” he explained.
“That’s another part of the job that’s unique to Durham College. It’s also the most exciting part—to have university partners right on your campus, to share a campus with them, is really exciting.”
Lovisa expects his first six months as president to include consultation with the college community and the community at large to determine what their priorities are going to be for the next three-five years.
“We’re in Year Three of a five-year strategic plan [the ‘Success Matters Strategic Plan’], and it’s time now to look at where we’ve been and where we want to go as a college,” he explained. “That will be the second priority—starting those consultations and figuring out where want to go as a college.”
After conducting a nation-wide search for candidates which started this past summer and ended earlier this month, the Durham College Board of Governors was impressed by Lovisa’s decades of experience with Confederation College and decided he was the best candidate for president.
“Don has proven himself to be a trusted leader over the past seven months as interim president, earning great admiration and respect at Durham College, in the community, and within the broader post-secondary sector,” Aileen Fletcher, chair of the Board of Governors and chair of the presidential search committee, said in a press release.
“Everyone on the search committee was struck by Don’s vision for Durham College and his belief that our future is bright, and that the road ahead of us is challenging but also full of opportunities to further our reputation as one of Ontario’s leading colleges,” she added.
Fletcher noted the search committee also was unanimous in its selection, and that the college community clearly indicated over the past several months that it has rallied around and supports Lovisa’s leadership.
The committee also received “countless unsolicited recommendations” in support of his application.
Lovisa, who has a Masters degree in International Management, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, and a diploma in adult education, began his work in post-secondary education more than 20 years ago at the Fort Frances campus of Confederation College, transferring from here to the Thunder Bay campus seven years ago.
Over those two decades, he served in a number of roles, including dean of the School of Business, Hospitality and Media Arts, dean of the School of Access and Literacy, trainer, part-time faculty member, business advisor, and manager.
During those years, he also led a successful $5.2-million capital campaign for the creation of the Centre of Applied Media Productions in Thunder Bay, as well as worked internationally in Jamaica, Ukraine, and Poland, where he consulted and provided training and teaching in the area of globalization, market-driven economic transition, international trade and entrepreneurship, and business development.
Lovisa said he’s experienced “quite a change” over the years, moving from the Fort Frances campus of Confederation College, which had 13-20 staff and 200-300 students, to a college with 6,400 post-secondary students, 1,800 apprenticeship students, 400 high school students, and close to 1,000 staff members.
But in many ways, all Ontario colleges are similar—and his most recent promotion is a big step forward on the same educational road.
“Confederation College is very similar to Durham,” Lovisa said. “Our size is larger, and we have some unique programs as does Confed, but the mandate of the college system in Ontario is pretty consistent right across the board.
“So from that perspective, having 20 years at Confederation College really provided me the depth and the breadth to move forward.
“My 20-plus years at Confed—that was the training ground, that was the foundation by which I still build from. And it’s a great foundation, a very, very good foundation,” said Lovisa, adding he still keeps in touch with people he worked with at Confederation College here and in Thunder Bay.
As for the distant future, the 51-year-old Lovisa said he couldn’t speculate right now whether he’d move back to the Fort Frances area when he retires.
“At this point, I don’t see returning to this area, for no particular reason other than we’re really enjoying the eastern Ontario experience—it’s so new,” he remarked. “You’re 35 minutes from Toronto, four hours from Quebec City and Montreal.
“You have to live that experience for a while before you compare and look at all the great qualities of the Fort Frances area,” he noted. “I can retire in about seven-eight years, and in that last three to four years, you start to contemplate where you want to end up and where you want to retire.
“My daughter’s here and I am going to be a grandfather in the spring—my first grandchild,” he added. “And my mother’s here, my mother-in-law’s here, I have sisters living here—it’s still home. It’s still home for us.”
