Sign up for the northeastNOW newsletter

University of Saskatchewan tour through the northeast

Nov 16, 2018 | 9:41 AM

A chance to connect with local residents and communities.

A team from the University of Saskatchewan is making its rounds in order to stay connected within the province.

The delegation made a stop in Melfort on Thurs. Nov. 15.

“We’re all here from the University of Saskatchewan today as part of what we’re calling our ‘provincial tours’, which allows us to be out and about in the province in communities that we might not always have a visible presence in, in order to be sure that we’re staying connected with our many communities,” said vice-president of university relations, Debra Pozega Osburn.

She said those connections are mutual.

“We want to understand what’s going on in our communities, and we also want our communities to understand the impact that we are having on those communities through the teaching and research that we do, through the sort of reaching out into communities and working with, and for, and hand-in-hand with communities, which is something the University of Saskatchewan does very well,” Pozega Osburn said.

The university maintains strong ties to the northeast, as Pozega Osburn added there are over 850 students from the region that are currently enroled at the University of Saskatchewan.

“And our enrolment is up now to almost 25,000 students, so we are enroling more students now in the university than we ever have,” said Pozega Osburn. “And we feel that in staying connected with our communities, people will understand us to be an option for them as they want to further their career, further their education, or maybe even just sort of further their growth as a community member in the teaching, learning, and research that we are doing.”

Pozega Osburn said during their recent tour, they have been discussing their University Plan 2025, “which we feel will allow us to become, as we like to say, the university the world needs, while still being firmly rooted here in Saskatchewan.”

“When you think of the work that happens in Saskatchewan, when you think of the value added Saskatchewan brings to Canada and to the world, so many of the challenges facing the world ahead of us can be solved through the work we’re doing here in Saskatchewan,” said Pozega Osburn. “Challenges related to food supply, challenges related to access to safe water, challenges related to natural resource development and growth, and more and more challenges related to that knowledge economy, so you will understand that if you look throughout Saskatchewan there is actually a growing number of people with backgrounds in computer science and different kinds of computer engineering that are building a whole new industry in Saskatchewan, and we’re contributing to that as well.”

Pozega Osburn said you can expect to see them more frequently in the months and years ahead in cities and towns across the province.