By Greg Nikkel
Southeast College is gathering input from various sources to develop their strategic plan for the next five years. The college held two focus groups at the Weyburn campus on Thursday as part of a series of seven consultation meetings with the public and with stakeholders.
The consultation meetings were run by consultant Laura Soparlo, and included president and CEO Dion McGrath, and Jeff Richards, vice-president of strategic development, with a meeting held in Assiniboia along with an afternoon and evening session in Weyburn. The remainder of the meetings will be held in Estevan, Carlyle, Moosomin and Whitewood before the end of the month, and the board will take the input gathered and create the new strategic plan for release by May or June.
“We had lively and robust discussions on a range of issues. This will set us up for the next five years and how best the college can be responsive to the needs of the community,” said McGrath prior to the start of the round-table discussions.
The questions asked those in attendance what their impressions of Southeast College were, whether they were meeting the needs of the community and of businesses and industry in the area, whether they would recommend the college to others, and what the college should do going forward, such as what partnerships they could develop.
Part of the strength of the college has been the resourcefulness of the staff, said McGrath, noting they have been empowered by the board to seek out opportunities for courses and programs that will fill needs.
“We don’t have permanency of programs like universities have, but I don’t see that as a negative, because we’re very unique in how we’re able to operate. We’ve been able to respond relatively quickly with programs for training,” he said.
The flexibility of the college has been in its ability to create programs such as the training offered to municipal workers from RMs around the province, and now for those in urban municipalities as well, and this is a flexibility that more established institutions like the universities are not able to offer, he said.
“Normally, colleges don’t do province-wide programs. It’s about investing in labour force development in our municipalities,” said McGrath. “Our staff did that because they’re out there looking for opportunities.”
He noted the college is in discussions with agricultural implement dealerships to possibly offer programs for their staff, as another example, and another opportunity is the possibility of offering training in the use of solar power panels, which will become more widely used as the province diversifies in sourcing energy alternatives.
Southeast College was able to offer Level 2 apprenticeships for electricians, the first centre in the province outside of Prince Albert and Saskatoon to provide this, and this came about from a need in southeast Saskatchewan without having to send employees up to those centres to get the training. The college was able to get the cooperation and funding from the apprenticeships commission to offer this program.
“I’ve got a great board who give me the flexibility to do that,” said McGrath.
The college returned to offering first-year university courses, which they had been doing a few years ago but stopped when students stopped enrolling at the height of the oil boom. There has since been a return to a demand for the program, and the courses are again available at the college.
“Losing that program was hard, so we’ve been rebuilding that. It might not be mainstream, but there are niche areas of training we can offer as we look at how can we meet the needs of employers and still commit to community training,” said McGrath.
Once completed, the new strategic plan will be sent out to all those who attended the sessions, and will be available upon request to anyone who would like to read it.
