Volume 11, No. 3 - December 2008 - John Abbott College

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE OPERATIONS REPORT FOR THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS MEETING ON: DECEMBER 9, 2008
MY JAC PORTAL
External access has now been made available to select members
of the College community who are neither employees nor students.
The board of governors will now have their own access
and will have a community that can be developed according to
the needs of the board. Ongoing improvements continue to be
made to the Portal, which will lead to a second ‘launch’ whereby
a series of major new features will be incorporated, such as
news item management, dynamic calendars and voice mail for
staff.
COMMUNITY
The communications department worked with the town of Ste-
Anne-de-Bellevue for the annual Christmas Parade. The event
took place on November 29 and had volunteers from the Abbott
women’s basketball and rugby teams.
OPEN HOUSE
Communications worked with the team in admissions to organize
a very successful Open House. This year, the College welcomed
an estimated 4000 people to the event and answered
countless questions from the visitors. This year, 94.7 Hits FM
were on site to provide a live broadcast from the College, during
which students, staff and faculty spoke on air about their
experiences with the College. The live remote segment were
preceded by a week’s advertising campaign on the station, as
well as print ads in local media.
COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT
The communications team has provided support to many divisions
at the College: uploading a revised structure to the Social
Science program page on the College website, creating a professional
PowerPoint presentation to be used for the upcoming trip
to India in which Director General Keith W. Henderson and
Director of ContEd Diane McGee will be part of an ACCC delegation,
designing promotional materials for IDS for the upcoming
‘ped day’ activities, revising promotional materials for the co-op
program in business administration, revamping the flyer for
staff & students on sexual harassment, amongst other projects.
CENTRE FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION
Two new AEC programs started recently and others are in the
wings. Computerized Financial Management began on November
10; day-time Real Estate on November 17. At the time of writing,
Network Administration was scheduled for November 24,
and both evening Real Estate and PC Technical Support for
December 1.
At the time of writing, we are still not sure which version of the
Real Estate program will be offered as of January 2009: the current
program or the new competency-based Residential Real
Estate Broker program. The Ministry has not yet responded to
the request of the consortium of colleges for a one-semester
extension of the old program so that all regulations and supporting
materials will be available.
The first meeting of the Advisory Group for the new Event
Planning and Management Program was held on November 18.
The program has been approved by the Ministry and will be
offered for the first time next semester.
Lisa Boyle has been working hard on Business Training. As a
result, we have acquired some new clients and welcomed back
some old ones. With Gary Whittaker, who has been assisting her
as a volunteer consultant, she has been meeting with representatives
from different sectors of the business community to
determine what their needs are in terms of training and development.
We have observed an increased demand for quotations
for language training, management and supervisory training, as
well as computer applications. There have also been a number
of requests for individualized one-on-one learning.
CAPLA CONFERENCE
In mid-October Alan Gaudet attended a conference of the
Canadian Association of Prior Learning and Assessment held in
Banff, Alberta. The conference was an excellent opportunity to
see what was happening in the rest of Canada and included presentations
from all the provinces and one international
(Norwegian) presentation. Guy Fortier from Compétence
Montréal also presented the new Montreal Centre and it was well
received by those who attended the workshop. The conference
served to confirm that our PLAR development both in Montreal
and in the province is on the right track. Many conference participants
were impressed with the level of Quebec government
resources being committed to PLAR in the province. There were
12-15 from Quebec attending the conference.
COMPÉTENCE MONTRÉAL
Alan Gaudet attended the opening of the new Centre
and the first meeting of the operational group on
October 30th. The meeting focused on the roles and responsibilities
of the colleges and the Centre. A series of future meetings
was set up to look at specific areas where procedures and modes
of operations will need to be established. The first of these
meetings is planned for December 4.
DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITIES TOOLS
Alan has begun work on the development of general education
PLAR tools for English colleges. At his first meeting on
November 11th, Magalie Robitaille from College Marie-Victorin
provided an overview of the process of developing the tools on
the French side. We will be following the same process. A
meeting was planned for November 18th with Andrée Bérubé
from MELS, as well as Andrée Langevin and Magalie from
Marie-Victorin to look at the roles and responsibilities of those
involved in the project, as well as other administrative issues.
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS
It was business as usual in the International Programs Office in
October and November:
Stephanie Hygate participated in the CONAHEC (Consortium for
North American Higher Education) conference in Monterrey,
Mexico.
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