Humber College Council (HCC) held its fifth meeting of the 2016-17 academic year on Thursday, January 12 at the North Campus. To ensure the Humber community is informed of upcoming events, new initiatives and important issues, College Council reports the highlights of its monthly meetings. For more information or to provide feedback on the highlights, please contact jean.o’donnell@humber.ca.

Program Planning, Development & Renewal

• Three new graduate certificate programs in the ideation stage were presented to HCC by the following: School of Social and Community Services in collaboration with the School of Health Sciences (working title: System Navigator); the School of Hospitality, Recreation & Tourism (working titles: Advanced Chocolate & Confectionary Artistry; Adventure Tourism). All programs have an anticipate start date of Fall 2018, with more information becoming available as these programs go through the approval process.

The Business School

• A. Cassiani, Dean of The Business School, introduced the associate deans of the school (M. Hanna, S. Kelsall, J. Cullin, P. Griffin, P. Madott and M. MacDougall – Director, CE). Together they presented the breadth of programming offered across all of Humber’s campuses, including the following highlights:
  • Strong international growth in business diploma programs.
  • The optional co-op streams are very enticing to prospective students.
  • A Paralegal graduate certificate program will be offered soon.
  • Humber was the 1^st college in Canada to receive Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
  • Humber’s Centre for Entrepreneurship opened this September and is a cross-institutional collaboration with all schools.
  • The Business School’s continuing education programs are growing external partnerships; currently 3 diploma programs are offered fully online.
  • The Dean’s Newsletter highlights competitions and events, students, staff and faculty success stories.

Aboriginal Education Plan

• S. Charles, Elder, presented an overview of the Aboriginal Resource Centre (ARC). The Centre, which focuses on student engagement, community outreach and partnerships, aboriginal awareness and cultural competency, has changed considerably as a result of the Ministry’s policy framework, the Indigenous Education Protocol (2014) and the Truth and Reconciliation Recommendations (2015). Annual initiatives include indigenous knowledge gathering, all-Nations pow wows, culture days, and staff training and professional development opportunities.  In addition to these initiatives, Humber will host the Pan American Aboriginal Summer games in 2017. ARC is well integrated into the new Academic Plan and is involved in the Aboriginal Education Council. It was also instrumental in designing and offering Humber’s Indigenous Knowledge Certificate, and is working to incorporate aboriginal knowledge into curriculum.

Internationalization at Humber

• A. Ness, Dean of International, presented an overview. Overall, international student mobility is growing, with numbers having tripled over the past 25 years (1.3M to 5M students); these numbers are expected to grow to 8M by 2025. Currently, the competitive landscape includes the US, UK, Australia and Canada, with international students contributing billions of dollars in GDP to the Canadian economy. At Humber, we have about 4,000 international students from 136 countries. To achieve this, Humber’s internationalization strategy has engaged in recruiting, providing opportunities to study abroad, and developing strategic partnerships. We also offer a Culturally Inclusive Educators Certificate to ensure faculty have the knowledge and skills to ensure quality learning experiences to all students; to-date, 79 people have completed this program. 

Human Resources Update

• L. Diduch, K. Saxby and N. Adamson presented an update that included Employee Engagement and Change Management.
• Employee Engagement: following the initial Employee Engagement Survey in 2014, a new ‘pulse survey’ will be administered by CCI in late February/early March. To address employee recognition, Humber will be launching the new Humber STAR! (Special Thanks and Recognition) Program; target launch for this system is mid-February. Update: target launch is mid-March.
• Change Management: The mandate of the Change and Improvement Division (CID) is to promote Humber’s change and improvement philosophy of, “teaching people how to fish.” Next steps include piloting the change management methodology with 2-3 “real life” projects at Humber, providing ad-hoc coaching to individuals and project teams, facilitating change management workshops as part of Humber’s leadership development training programs, and allocating dedicated change management consultants for complex projects at Humber (*Note – Change management consultants will be available where the resources have been built into project team budgets).

Update on Campus Development and Campus Land Use Plan

• A. Presta presented an update on these two areas. Humber is growing 2-3% annually, and our campus development plan is set to meet those needs.  At its current rate of growth, with no new infrastructure, Lakeshore will run out of classroom space in 2020; North will run out of space in 2021. Campus planning directions include: (a) quality of campus experience; (b) connections to surrounding neighbourhoods and natural assets; (c) stewardship and efficient use of owned assets; (d) engagement and collaboration with third parties; (e) emerging modes of transportation; and (f) internal organization and allocation of space in existing buildings.
• North Campus development: construction of the new parking structure and the new Centre for Technology and Innovation (CTI) has begun; Longer term development includes the Centre for Innovation in Health & Wellness as well as campus and administrative services space (ex. IT Data Centre, Catering, etc.), a new Sports, Wellness & Recreation facility, and expansion of Humber’s Transportation Training Centre and motorcycle training programs.
• Lakeshore Campus development: Future developments include the A/B building redevelopment, the Centre of Innovation and Creative Enterprise (COICE), a new parking lot as well as generic instructional space and academic offices.    

The next meeting of College Council will be held on Thursday, February 9 at North Campus. For meeting highlights, supporting materials, or opportunities to provide feedback please visit the College Council website at: humber.ca/wearehumber/staff/committees/college-council