May 15, 2023

The Government of Nova Scotia has announced a new nursing program at Acadia University as well as additional nursing seats at Nova Scotia Community College. Acadia will be offering a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program as a satellite site of Cape Breton University, which will allow Acadia to begin training nurses in Fall 2023. The program will eventually be established as a standalone program. NSCC will receive 30 additional practical nursing program seats for its each of its Annapolis Valley, Lunenburg, Strat Area, and Truro campuses in September, as well as 30 seats each at the Burridge and Kingstec campuses in January.

The Government of Saskatchewan is investing $1.5M to expand the number of available apprenticeship training seats. The expansion will introduce 250 additional seats in order to expand programming, increase apprenticeship intake, and grow sector capacity. “We’ve observed an increased demand for apprenticeship training in recent months,” said Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission CEO Jeff Ritter. “These additional training seats will help ensure Saskatchewan’s skilled tradespeople progress efficiently through their apprenticeships and achieve journeyperson certification in a timely manner.”

Trent University and Centennial College have agreed to establish a new college-to-university pathway. Students in Centennial’s Business Diploma will be able to earn a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree at Trent with two additional years of study, allowing them to attain both a diploma and a degree in a total of four years. “This newest learning pathway in particular—related to business education—enhances the collaborative role of universities and colleges in delivering highly qualified persons to work in the diversity of careers available in corporate, not-for-profit, and public sectors,” said Trent VP, Communications & Enrolment Marilyn Burns.

The Government of British Columbia has unveiled a new process for skilled trades certification. SkilledTradesBC will be accepting trade designation applications from businesses, labour organizations, industry associations, Indigenous organizations, and communities that are working with or are interested in the trades. SkilledTradesBC will evaluate applications and make recommendations to the province about which trades should be considered for skilled trades certification. Trades that have been identified for skilled trades certification are expected to be announced in spring 2024. The certification will formally recognize worker skills, raise the profile of the trades, and attract more people to trades professions.

Business students from Toronto Metropolitan University’s Ted Rogers School of Retail Management are learning about category management principles by exploring a newly developed virtual Circle K convenience store. “It’s something that you really don’t learn until you get out into the industry and you start working in a retail head office or if you’re working in fast moving consumer packaged goods,” explained Dr Janice Rudkowski, the project lead on the eCampus Ontario-funded learning experience. The convenience store simulation allows students to develop their critical thinking and decision-making skills while thinking about core principles such as pricing, promotion, product, and placement. The experience will be integrated into TMU’s category management course for Winter 2024 and will be made available to all public ON institutions through eCampus Ontario’s online portal.

Okanagan College has received additional support for its new Vernon campus daycare in the form of a $500K donation from former Okanagan instructor Lloyd Davies and his wife, Janet Armstrong. As an instructor, Davies saw students with childcare challenges struggling to complete assignments, labs, and exams, and wanted to help improve the situation through his donation. The $500K gift from Davies and Armstrong opened the Sunflower Daycare Centre campaign, which will raise the remaining $750K needed to equip the facility with furnishings, supplies, and an outdoor space so that it can open in September 2024. Davies and Armstrong and other community donors will also be matching donations to the campaign up to a total of $80K.

In a recent article for Higher Education, Wendy Nuis, Mien Segers, and Simon Beausaert describe the development of a scale for evaluating mentorship programs in employability-oriented higher education programs. After studying mentorship programs at four universities, the researchers developed a Mentoring Support Scale that assessed factors such as psychosocial support, networking support, and emotional support. “In contrast to what was expected, career support was not recognized as a separate type of support by the students,” noted the authors. “However, this finding could imply that students do not perceive career support to be a substantial mentoring function of mentoring programs in higher education.”

La Tribune reports that Cégep de Sherbrooke’s Board of Directors has directed cégep leadership to modernize how it manages complaints and anchor this process in an institutional action plan before the end of next school year. The Association étudiante du Cégep de Sherbrooke (AÉCS) reportedly circulated a petition demanding the resignation of directeur général Éric Gagné and board president Isabelle Fontaine at the end of April, alleging that both leaders had remained silent in the face of student complaints. AÉCS told La Tribune that the board’s directive does not meet its expectations of a complete overhaul of the complaints process and it is still calling for an official apology from leadership.

Mohiuddin Alamgir of University World News reports that the number of students from Bangladesh studying abroad has tripled over the last 16 years. The author states that Canada is among the top destinations for Bangladeshi students; other receiving countries include the United States, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia. Alamgir reports that this has resulted in a “brain drain” in Bangladesh, as many students do not return after completing their studies abroad.

A pair of new courses at Concordia University have drawn the attention of the local press. Concordia Professor Yassin “Narcy” Alsalman has announced that he will be teaching a course on controversial comedian Dave Chappelle this Fall. The Daily Hive and Yahoo!News report that Alsalman has previously taught classes covering hip hop figures and rappers such as Kanye West, Kendrick Lamarm and Chance the Rapper. MTL Blog reports that Concordia will also be offering a new four-week course on drone videography this month. “It’s a new tool that allows for new perspectives. These shots and images used to be super expensive to get,” said indie filmmaker Diego Rivera-Kohn, who will teach the class.