(File photo/northeastNOW Staff).

By Aaron Schulze

Community College Input

Cumberland and Parkland Colleges seeking public input on five-year plan

Feb 10, 2020 | 10:00 AM

Talks are set to begin for the Parkland College-Cumberland College Coalition’s five-year strategic plan.

The coalition that was established on July 1, 2019, has created an Indigenous initiatives committee called ReconciliACTION and began the process of updating Cumberland and Parkland College’s websites in its brief tenure, but now the executives want to look further down the road.

To begin the process, the coalition is holding community engagement sessions to receive feedback from students, staff, local employers and politicians on what it’s five-year-strategic plan should look like.

Mark Hoddenbagh, president and CEO of the coalition, said their target audience, in a broad sense, is everybody. As he believes the work both colleges do could potentially impact communities in the northeast and east central parts of Saskatchewan.

“I don’t want people to come with preconceived ideas based on what they’ve heard me say,” Hoddenbagh said. “I’d like them to come with a clean slate. If we started from the ground up, what would they like to see in our community college and then how can we work together to make sure that happens.

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“In order to do this correctly, we want to make sure we’re plugging into our communities and [give them] an opportunity to voice their opinions, hopes, dream, and fears to ensure how they think they’ll potentially work with us as well, because we can’t do this alone.”

Some topics requiring input include what future programs should be offered at Cumberland and Parkland Colleges and what can they do to work more closely with local employers and entrepreneurs.

The first set of community engagement sessions in the Northeast will take place in Porcupine Plain (Feb. 10 from noon to 2 p.m. at Quilly’s Community Place Meeting Room), Melfort (Feb. 11 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Canalta Hotel Board Room), and Tisdale (Feb. 12 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Tisdale RECplex).

If interested participants are unable to attend the sessions, Hobbenbagh said they can voice their opinions via an online survey.

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow