Academic year brings changes to Manitoba’s three post-secondary Christian schools

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This article was published 24/09/2024 (748 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Increased enrolments, a new campus and new programs are highlighting the start of the new school year for Manitoba’s three Christian colleges and universities.

At Booth University College, there are a total of 413 students, compared to 380 a year ago, or about a nine per cent increase, with most of the students studying at the school’s new campus at 290 Vaughan St. in the historic Public Press Building.

The new campus — which had been home to the Salvation Army’s College for Officer Training before it relocated to Toronto — is two blocks away from Booth’s former location on Webb Place.

Booth has also rented space at Union Station on Main Street for its two-year associate of arts and business administration degrees, and has launched a new academic innovations department to pilot new programs.

“It’s a testing hub,” said Booth president Rob Fringer, noting that one of the first new programs will be for people living in homeless shelters who want to further their education.

Operated in partnership with Centre of Hope, a Salvation Army homeless shelter, the program will start in January with classes for up to 15 students.

The goal of the program, called Shelter U, is to explore how education can promote change in the lives of people living in emergency shelter housing. It will offer a decolonized and experiential learning experience, covering topics such as literature and trauma, race and Christianity and art and music.

Booth also plans to offer more “project based and experiential learning” in the future, Fringer said. “Not just sitting in classrooms, but non-traditional ways of learning.”

Booth will officially unveil the new campuses with a grand opening ceremony Saturday at noon at the Vaughan Street location.

Final enrolment numbers aren’t in for Providence University College, but the school is serving more than 1,000 students in its undergraduate and seminary programs at and through its Otterburne campus, as well as at what it calls its “Providence Downtown” program in Winnipeg.

The school, which purchased Booth’s former campus on Webb Place for its international student programs, had to scale back when the federal government greatly restricted the number of international students who could study in Manitoba.

Providence is now planning to sell that building, while continuing to serve a smaller number of students in leased facilities downtown.

“We had planned to pivot to graduate programs for international students, since they were not initially included in the cap, but the recent announcement by the government about limiting those numbers as well will significantly challenge us as we wait to hear from the provincial government what our student allocation will be,” college president Kenton Anderson said, adding that Providence intends to continue offering master’s degrees in business management to both domestic and international students.

The school is offering new bachelor of science programs in environmental science and in biology-psychology and a certificate program in chaplaincy/spiritual life. As well, its aviation program will offer an airline transport pilot licence for the first time, in partnership with Harv’s Air in St. Andrews.

At Canadian Mennonite University, there is a 10 per cent increase in enrolment this fall.

In total, the school has 694 students at its campus in Tuxedo, said president Cheryl Pauls. Only about 30 per cent of the study body comes from the Mennonite faith tradition.

“I am really impressed by the quality of the incoming students,” she said, adding “there is a sense of recovery from pandemic conditions.”

New at CMU this year is a bachelor of social work program, and the school has appointed Vincent Solomon, a member of Norway House Cree Nation and a priest of the Anglican Church of Canada, as its elder in residence.

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