Nunavut Arctic College seeks public’s help to shape its future
College launches public consultations on 10-year strategic plan
Nunavut Arctic College has launched a survey to help guide its new 10-year strategic plan. The college’s board of governors will also conduct community consultation sessions over the next three months to gather input and ideas on the future of the college. (File photo)
Nunavut Arctic College is looking for the public’s help to shape its future.
The college is working to develop its 10-year strategic plan—a document that will guide the college’s programming and highlight its key areas of focus for the next decade.
To help with this, the college recently launched a survey on its website that asks for the public’s input on what should be included in the plan.
In addition to the survey, the college is also conducting community consultation sessions over the next several months.
Sue Ball, the chair of the college’s board of governors, said the community sessions will help the board determine whether they are “going in the right direction” with the 10-year plan.
“We want to have consultations that reach as many people as possible. This plan will guide the college development for the next 10 years. It will also establish a focus so that we can align our resources with our priorities,” Ball said.
Ball said the college hopes to have the plan written by Sept. 2020, with consultations wrapping up in Feb. 2020.
The college has already identified five main goals for its 10-year plan: specialization, accessibility, accountability, responsiveness and stability.
Specialization means ensuring Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and Inuit societal values provide the foundation for approaches to research, program development and administration. It also involves using Inuktut as the language of work and instruction, the survey states.
Ball said specialization also includes creating partnerships with circumpolar institutions, Inuit organizations and diverse post-secondary institutions.
The college recently signed a 10-year memorandum of understanding with Memorial University that will offer Nunavut students access to new joint degree programs.
“So what we’re trying to figure out is how do we become the international leader in Inuit culture, knowledge, science, language,” Ball said.
The second goal, accessibility, involves mapping out pathways for students, from high school advance credits to certificates, diplomas, degree status and more.
“We want our college to be the first choice for people heading into post-secondary studies. So this is our commitment to the students. What is it we need to do to make this their first choice? How are we going to be different than all the other post-secondary institutions?” Ball said.
The third goal, accountability, is focused on the quality of the college’s governance, administration and operations.
The fourth goal, responsiveness, involves supporting Nunavummiut through housing, day care and counselling. It also means creating learning opportunities to encourage community self-reliance.
“We have a responsibility to Nunavut, to the territory, to educate people. So this is our commitment to Nunavut. What do we need to do to prepare Nunavummiut not just for jobs, but to participate in our society, contribute to our society? It’s knowledge, it’s skills, but it’s also those other qualities,” Ball said.
And the final goal of the 10-year plan, stability, states that the college will become an independent post-secondary institution.
Members of the college’s Board of Directors met with community members in Igloolik on Nov. 18 and will hold another meeting in Hall Beach on Nov. 20.
Community consultations will also take place in Cambridge Bay and Arviat before the new year and will continue in other communities in 2020, Ball said.
“This is a chance to really shape the future, at least for the next 10 years, of the college. To me, it’s a period of really exceptional growth. We have the chance to become a different kind of organization, one that’s hopefully more responsive to the needs,” Ball said.
The survey on the college’s 10-year strategic plan can be found in the territory’s four official languages here and at all of Nunavut’s community learning centres.
Interesting article, I can’t help but roll my eyes a little at all the IQ bull though. It has the feel a religious mantra that needs to be recited in the preamble to every policy or action or idea, but never is it qualified or given any real definition in the contexts where it’s used. Say this, absolve your sins and proceed. What a joke
Where can we find a list of the board of directors? I have looked everyone with no luck.
Go to https://arcticcollege.ca/about and scroll down – there’s a list of current Board members there.
That list might be out of date. Just below it is a “call for applicants” for people what to be on the Arctic College Board. But when you download the page, you find out that the “call” ended almost a year ago. Seems no one is updating the page.
This is an old joke about the college, they never update their page. Expired links and dead ends abound. Maybe they need to run a computer tech or web design course.
Arctic colleges in communities need a lot of improvement. The staff work by themselves with no supervision and so it’s just a joke. Some staff are very pro active and some just sit around and get paid. Some building are being used by family members at all hours for the computers. There needs to be a workshop to share ideas with other instructors and also how a community college should run. In some communities it’s such wasted building going on. There is lots of drop out father and mothers who need help to get jobs or start a business to help themselves. Too many young men in communities don’t have any thing to do. Arctic college need a better promotion of what they can do to help. It should not be only IQ for we need to move forward and become more independent and job oriented to get off welfare. IQ is just a thought process to be more user friendly. If Arctic College want to be IQ’d , the staff need to seek those who need help and set up courses tailored to attract those that just sit at home , play games and drug.
Useless survey. It’s a series of strongly agree to strongly disagree multiple choice questions asking whether or not you affirm one of their pre-selected goal statements then a short open ended question for what activities you think they can do to achieve that goal. There is no space for review, no open options for what community members feel the priorities should be.
Much criticism and no useful thoughts in the comments. They that criticize need to get to these consultation hearings and make some real suggestions that will make the changes they want to see.
If this is a real effort to make change then attend these meetings and speak out with some concrete suggestions that will benefit the college and the young people on how to get them motivated.
The mining companies are making their move and as usual Inuit who make this their home will be educated for mines and then the resources will be gone. Then it will be time to relearn for something else. I believe we have to think longer term than the mines, mines are a finite resource. Inuit have lived in this unforgiving land for centuries and will continue to be here long after these developments.
I think there are some good criticisms here, the point of which is to point out absurdities. Granted, criticism can be reactive and pointless too. Quality varies for sure.
That said, preparing Inuit to participate meaningfully in mining projects is a must and the college has a duty to play a lead role in this. Of course it’s not black and white and not everyone wants to work at the mines either. The college should be training mental health and social workers, bureaucrats and educators too.