October 30, 2009
The Carpenters Union of Mainland Nova Scotia has opened a private college in Lower Sackville that will train more tradespeople for the construction industry in order to address a shortage of qualified workers. The Carpenter Millwright Trades College offers an 8-week pre-employment course for people with no experience in the field, and two 4-week elective courses in scaffold training and installing construction forms. The college also plans to offer a drywall course, as well as instruction in other industry-related trades.
Halifax Chronicle-Herald An analysis of funding distributed from the Knowledge Infrastructure Program shows that the federal government has awarded a disproportionate amount of money to universities and colleges located in Conservative-held ridings, says Liberal Infrastructure Critic Gerard Kennedy. The analysis indicates that institutions in Conservative ridings received an average of 33% more funding on a per-student basis than schools in Opposition-held ridings, amounting to a funding gap of $263 million. The analysis also suggests a bias against larger institutions. Campuses with over 15,000 students received below-average per-student grants of just $1,038 per student, while the highest per-student grants were given to smaller, generally private schools, particularly in Western Canada and in Conservative ridings.
Liberal News ReleaseLast Thursday, the City of Mississauga approved a lease agreement for a new Sheridan College campus in the city centre. In the first phase of development, the campus will accommodate 1,760 students when it opens in fall 2011, and another 3,740 students will follow in the second phase, bringing potential student enrolment to 5,000. The city and Sheridan have also reached an agreement on sharing costs to service and develop the property, as well as the construction and operation of 2 municipal parking lots with at least 352 parking stalls.
Mississauga News Release |
Mississauga NewsFollowing on the heels of a research initiative to better understand its current and prospective students, the University of Victoria has created a new campaign for its 2010-11 undergraduate recruitment initiative -- The Anything Project. The campaign is centered around the question, "If you could do anything, what would you do?" UVic produced a video featuring student, faculty, and staff responses to the question, and is now inviting the public to share their answers through a campaign-related microsite that launches today.
The Anything ProjectNearly 3 months after launching a new website, Royal Roads University has seen a marked increase in traffic to the site. Since the August 7 launch, traffic from Google is up 15% compared to the same period the year before. Page views are up by 17%, and requests for more information about the institution's programs have risen by 30%. The redesigned site landed the university the #2 spot in a list of top 5 North American university websites by Appnovation Technologies, a Vancouver-based Web and software design firm.
Royal Roads U News Release |
Royal Roads U websiteAcadia University has introduced a policy banning vehicle idling on campus, with emergency and public transit vehicles excluded. The new rule is part of the university's Share the Air policy, an initiative of the school's joint occupational health and safety committee. Acadia also prohibits tobacco sales, smoking on campus, and the use of scented products. The university will put up signs on campus to publicize the ban, but will not issue fines.
Acadia News Release |
Halifax Chronicle-Herald Memorial University has won the 2009 Award for Best Brochure and Catalogue for
Novel Ideas: President's Report 2008 at the ICE (Innovation, Creativity, Enterprise) Awards last Wednesday. The annual report also received 2 Craft Awards: one for writing, the other for design. The ICE Awards are organized by a diverse group of Atlantic Canada advertising and marketing professionals. The report, comprising a website and 48-page brochure, was honoured this past summer with a grand gold medal and bronze medal from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.
MUN News Release |
Novel Ideas: President's Report 2008 According to a new analysis by the Pew Research Centre, the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the US hit an all-time high in October 2008, driven by a downturn-era surge in enrolments at community colleges. Approximately 11.5 million students, or nearly 40% of young adults ages 18 to 24, were enrolled in either a 2- or 4-year-college last October, up almost 39% from the same month the year before. In 2008, 11.8% of young adults were enrolled in 2-year colleges, the highest figure for 2-year college attendance among 18- to 24-year-olds on record. 27.8% were attending 4-year colleges last October, a figure unchanged from the year before.
Read the reportAccording to new research from Ambient Insight, nearly 12 million PSE students in the US currently take some or all of their classes online, and this number is expected to rise to over 22 million by 2014. Some 1.25 million students currently take all of their classes online, while another 10.65 million take part of the classes online. By 2014, the majority of PSE students will be taking a combination of online and in-class courses. Ambient estimates that 18.65 million students will take some of their classes online, 3.55 million will take all of their courses online, and only 5.14 million will have classes in a physical classroom.
Campus Technology
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