Core values

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/04/2009 (6022 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A decade ago, Red River College was a place near the airport that educated about 5,000 full-time students a year in subjects you’d never find at university, like welding or carpentry.

And the block of Princess Street north of William Avenue was a boarded-up, abandoned and derelict series of once-magnificent facades.

As for celebrating alumni of Red River College — alumni? Is that really a community college thing?

Today, that dumpy block downtown is home to 2,000 RRC students and 200 staff.

People even get married in its atrium.

Seriously.

RRC president Jeff Zabudsky wasn’t around when all of this rejuvenation got started, but the former Toronto radio guy intends to be the architect of a far greater expansion of the downtown campus.

You want to hear ambitious?

"We’re creating more of a downtown and urban campus. It’s more of a U of T, McGill environment," said Zabudsky.

Now that’s ambitious.

Red River College takes over the Massey Building on William this summer, and is anxiously awaiting word whether it’s getting federal funding for a transformation of the Union Bank Tower and former Leland Hotel site at William and Main into a 100-unit student residence, culinary arts school and restaurant, and applied research centre.

That school would feature three storeys of glass frontage, allowing people passing by on William and Main to watch culinary arts students at work, creating their stovetop art.

Under the turn-of-the-century high ceiling, amid original columns and pillars within the bank section of the first skyscraper in Western Canada, those same students would serve in a high-end restaurant close to the concert and theatre district.

"Our goal is to operate something that operates full-time, but we want to partner with it" so that the college is not seen as a competitor to private business, Zabudsky said.

Red River College has grown to the point where it’s passed the University of Winnipeg as the province’s second-largest post-secondary institution, with 10,000 full-time students.

With more than 30,000 students including part-timers and distance education, RRC has more individual students than any post-secondary institution.

Red River has a 16 per cent student population self-identified as aboriginal, and students from more than 40 countries.

But still…

"We are hitting up against a wall in some programs," Zabudsky said. There’s a waiting list for the skilled trades programs at the main Notre Dame campus, which he points out was built with federal money in the mid-’60s.

Red River desperately needs new classrooms at Notre Dame, the kind of classrooms that come with specialized and expensive equipment and workstations.

"The issue for the college now is capacity. There are lineups and lineups of people who want to get here," said David Leis, the college’s vice-president of business development.

So Leis is trying to move pieces around, shifting students from Notre Dame into the new downtown spaces that Zabudsky covets, to open up more space in the facilities that those students vacate. When the Union Bank Tower project goes ahead, RRC can shift its hospitality students downtown, creating more space at Notre Dame for skilled trades.

The Massey Building? It sits in the short block between the Princess block and the Union Bank Tower, and will be home to the college’s 1,000 English as an additional language students who get their start in Canadian postsecondary education each year.

"We’d like to bring the students over from the Via Rail station" where they’re now taught, Zabudsky said. "We’d like them to be exposed to the different programs we’re offering."

Zabudsky is already talking up the possibility that some of William Avenue could be closed off, or perhaps limited to buses only, as U of W has done on Spence Street.

"We certainly would look at it," said Mayor Sam Katz, an enthusiastic fan of the Princess development.

"Red River College is a major asset to our city. I love what it’s done for the downtown," said Katz.

The Union Bank Tower proposal "is a fantastic, fantastic idea," Katz said. "I hope it’s embraced by everyone. It would take a building that’s been sitting vacant for far too long."

Premier Gary Doer recalled that the cost of the Princess campus was challenging, but he and then-mayor Glen Murray worked out a 20-year deal to apply the heritage tax credit to the project, making it a go. That’s the same strategy the province is using now to allow the former mental health centre nurses’ residence at the north end of Brandon to be turned into Assiniboine Community College’s culinary arts centre, said Doer.

The Princess campus "is obviously a tremendous advantage for downtown," Doer said.

Then there’s the proverbial elephant in the room — the largest public building and property in the area that’s rumoured to become vacant in the next few years. Zabudsky doesn’t want anyone to think he’s chasing the Public Safety Building, but neither does he want anyone to think he’s not interested.

"We’ve commissioned a consultant to study all the properties in the vicinity of the Princess Street campus," he said. "Over the next 10 years, it will be a process of defining what should be downtown and what should be at the main campus.

"A lot of Winnipeggers have viewed us as ‘that place out by the airport.’ The fact we’re downtown, I can’t overplay the impact that has had," Zabudsky said.

Students are the impetus for more housing developing in the downtown, and the growing relationship between colleges and universities is leading to more joint studies and even more growth, said the premier.

"We’ve got the drawbridge down a little further in terms of the accreditation of university and college courses," he said.

"We know we have a 96 per cent employment rate for those who are seeking work" within six to nine months of graduation, Zabudsky said. The college’s grads stay in Manitoba: "It hovers in the mid-90s as well."

As for that place out near the airport…

The automotive technology centre at the Notre Dame site is the first new construction there since 1985.

HETC is the Heavy Equipment Transportation Centre going up along Route 90. "We’ll have a one-of-a-kind treadmill for 18-wheelers," so that engines and fuel efficiencies can be tested at different speeds and temperatures, Zabudsky said.

Doer said that high school students are sitting up and taking notice.

"The completion of the transportation section, with all its hydrogen fuel cell testing and training, will put the ‘wow’ factor back in the Notre Dame campus," Doer said.

"Skilled, trained people is the number 1 priority" for Manitoba businesses, Doer said, pointing to his election promise to create 4,000 new apprenticeship positions. "We had to dramatically increase the apprenticeship and training spots in colleges," he said.

Space is one barrier, attitudes another, said Zabudsky. He’s been relentless in trying to persuade young people that community college can lead to a satisfying career that offers waiting jobs and good pay. But high school guidance counsellors have been a tough sell, and baby-boomer parents who see a university education as their kids’ primary, if not only option, are an even harder sell.

That’s why it’s so important that Red River College has just been granted provincial permission to confer degrees, Zabudsky said.

It will give the college "currency" with parents and students, he said, being careful to point out that RRC will take it slowly, beginning with construction management and not trying to duplicate university degrees.

Manitoba Hydro president and chief executive officer Bob Brennan sees the same thing among college grads.

"Their students are impacting the economy. Their graduates are ready for work — you plunk them in the right job, and away you go," Brennan said. "Their graduates are full of passion and vigour — the employer doesn’t have to spend a lot of money getting people ready for work."

Brennan said that industry is well aware that Red River needs to expand so it can teach more skilled trades and apprentices each year.

"The trades are probably the biggest problem. Those are good-paying jobs," he said. "The trades pay pretty well and there’s steady work there. There’s a shortage in virtually every trade."

Red River adds new programs each year. Some, such as wood products or green-space management, immediately boasted 100 per cent hiring records, and golf courses have sometimes snapped up grads of the latter program before they even finish their courses.

The college added courses for paramedics in September, but still lacks programs to train golf professionals, funeral directors, fashion technicians, some youth parks and recreation specialties, or the technology of theatre.

Then there are the international students, growing annually through deals that RRC is brokering to train foreign students.

"We have students from 40 countries that are studying here," Leis said. Chile, Brazil, China, Mexico and India are the primary markets.

Said Zabudsky: "I just signed an agreement with an institution in China," so that students would come here for 15 months and receive their credentials.

And there’s still the job of persuading young people, said Zabudsky, raising one hand to show where universities are in public perception, then raising his other hand to that level: "It’s not about being second best, it’s about being up here, and another choice."

RED RIVER FACTS

The college was founded in 1963 at the corner of Notre Dame Avenue and Route 90 as the Manitoba Institute of Technology, and renamed as Red River Community College in 1969, but traces its roots to the Industrial Vocational Education Centre on Henry Avenue in 1938.

With a budget of $125 million, RRC has eight campuses. The second main campus is on Princess Street at William Avenue.

Red River College has more than 900 faculty teaching more than 10,000 full-time and 20,000 part-time students.

 

 

What’s new at the

UNIVERSITY OF WINNIPEG?

There’s a huge hole in the ground on Portage Avenue between Langside and Furby streets where once used-car sellers offered their wares and baby-boomer kids roller-skated.

So what’s going in that hole?

How about hundreds of extremely smart people learning science and saving the planet from global warming and climate change?

That big hole in the ground is where the University of Winnipeg is building a $30-million-plus science complex and the Richardson College of the Environment. Right behind it is McFeetors Hall, the spiffy new student residence.

Under president Lloyd Axworthy, the U of W has surpassed 9,000 students and is expanding throughout the west end of downtown.

Closing Spence Street to all but a bus loop is a reality. The Asper film school is a reality. The former army surplus store site is in the U of W’s hands, as is partial ownership of the bus depot, Rice Building, and parkade.

Still to come are development of those properties, and still-just-potential space at the Bay and the Iceberg athletic field house.

Located on Portage Avenue on the west end of downtown, the U of W takes up a full block along Spence Street between Portage and Ellice avenues.

The university was founded in 1967, but traces its roots back 130 years to the founding of Manitoba College in 1871, and Wesley College in 1888, which merged to form United College in 1938.

With 9,133 students and 330 faculty, the U of W has an operating budget this year of about $94 million.

 

What’s new at the

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA?

The largest capital campaign in Manitoba’s history produced a new engineering building, the Richardson neutraceutical building, aboriginal students centre and other sparkling additions to campus.

The $100-million-plus Project Domino is underway, which will give the Fort Garry campus a new performing arts centre and a new residence, and refurbish and renovate 11 buildings, with programs and departments moving from one building into another across campus.

The indoor soccer complex is open; the new football stadium should soon be built.

And the university owns and will soon take possession of the Southwood golf course property, opening up a huge expanse of campus for its 26,000-plus students.

Founded in 1877, the University of Manitoba sits between Pembina Highway and the Red River in Fort Garry. The medical campus is downtown, adjacent to the Health Sciences Centre.

With an operating budget this year of $431.7 million, the U of M has about 26,000 students and 1,341 faculty, including 980 professors.

 

What’s new at

CANADIAN MENNONITE UNIVERSITY?

The decade-old campus in Tuxedo was welcomed recently as the 98th member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.

The capital campaign continues that has already brought new residence rooms and other facilities to the campus, which straddles Grant Avenue at Shaftesbury Boulevard. The north campus brought new life to the venerable former Manitoba School for the Deaf building.

Canadian Mennonite University is the result of the amalgamation of three colleges: Mennonite Brethren Bible College/Concord College (est. 1944), Canadian Mennonite Bible College (est. 1947), and Menno Simons College (est. 1989).

The federation was established in 1998 and opened its doors at Shaftesbury Boulevard and Grant Avenue as CMU in 1999. Menno Simons College is on the University of Winnipeg campus.

There are 434 full-time and 72 part-time undergraduate students, and 38 faculty. CMU has an operating budget of $11.9 million.

 

 

An impressive CV

 

The Asper School of Business at University of Manitoba has educated some of Canada’s leading business executives:

Gerald Schwartz: CEO, Onex

Richard Waugh: CEO, Scotiabank

Arni Thorsteinson: CEO, Shelter Canadian Properties Ltd.

Hartley Richardson: CEO, James Richardson and Sons, Ltd.

Charles Spiring: CEO, Wellington West Properties

John S. Pollard: co-CEO, Pollard Banknote

Keith McMahon: CEO, Arctic Glacier Inc.