Academic News

The 16th Annual Holiday Harvest came to an end on Friday, December 11, 2016.

We had a record breaking year with the donations, thanks to the time and commitment from all students and staff members. (Clap! Clap! Clap!) Your influence and support makes a tremendous difference. As students, you’ve gained more than just a chance of winning a free breakfast. You just helped to build a sense of responsibility to help your community, and you worked together for a collective cause. You should be proud of your amazing accomplishment!

As mentioned previously, the academic classes who bring in the most donated goods are awarded with a delicious breakfast, along with the chair and dean.
This year, the winning classes are:

First Year – C4
Second Year – Municipal
Third Year – ***CMD***
Fourth Year – CMD

***CMD Third Year Students earned a breakfast because of their ingenious strategy. They managed to collect over $1200.00 in donations.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU goes out to:

• All of the students who so generously donated hamper items
• Robin for calling the Salvation Army for the Holiday Harvest families,
• Louise for collecting and tabulating the donations,
• Cody, Dylan, Denis, Margaret, Val, Louise, Patricia and NIcky for organizing the food hamper donations,
• Louise and Patricia for purchasing last minute perishables and missing gifts,
• Margaret and Carrol for letting us use their office space to store gifts and food items during the first half of December,
• Denis and Dylan for delivering the baskets to the families on Wednesday, December 16, 2015. The hampers were well received, and the families showed great appreciation.

Denis and Dylan were also sent off with warm hugs and best wishes, and the families asked them to pass on their gratitude to everyone involved in this act of kindness.

THANK YOU ALL FOR ANOTHER GENEROUS YEAR OF DONATING TO THOSE THAT ARE LESS FORTUNATE.

Here’s wishing each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.”

– Maya Angelou

Manitoba Environmental Industries Association

The Annual School of Construction and Engineering Technologies’ Employer Appreciation Evening was held on Tuesday, November 17th, 2015 in the Voyageur Cafeteria at Red River College to acknowledge those employers that hired our co-op education students during the summer of 2015.
The evening was a smash success with over 150 in attendance. Nancy Wheatley, Dean of the School of Construction and Engineering Technologies was the Master of Ceremonies. Our President, Paul Vogt, gave an opening speech, our V.P. Academics & Research, Christine Crowe, presented the draws prizes and posed for pictures with the winners. Our Director – Development, Patti Johannesson, was also present along with Elizabeth Glaseman – Alumni Relations Manager.
All attendees enjoyed a Roast Beef Buffet and complimentary bar. To further display the College’s thank and appreciation, 19 special prizes were drawn and handed out to lucky employers. Draw prizes included a Rival Stainless Steel Roaster Oven, 30L Wet/Dry Shopvac, $100 Cabela’s Gift Card, Coleman Perfectflow Instastart Grill Stove, and Kitchenaid 10-Pc Stainless Steel Cookware Set, to name a few. All attendees also received a gorgeous Red River Ceramic coffee mug.

The excitement that the employers showed in sharing in the celebration of another successful year of the Co-operative Education Program was strongly evident. All look forward to continuing their relationship with the college and hiring more of our students in 2016. We hope to see you all again next year!

A special thanks goes out to the following coordinators who helped organize this event:
Cabinetry and Woodworking Technology (CWT)
Don Young
Electrical Engineering Technology (EET)
Hojat Norouzi
Greenspace Horticulture (GH)
Ruth Rob
Civil Engineering Technology (CET)
Denis Loiselle, Dylan Yanchynski, Patricia Oleksiew (CET)

Second design students are holding their annual poster fundraiser this year Thursday December 3 and Friday December 4 in the atrium of the Princess Street campus.

The objective of this project is to provide students with the opportunity to create a professional portfolio using an ePortfolio product called Mahara. We will pilot this in the BTM program with a group of 30 students starting in January 2016. Lead instructors will be trained in portfolio facilitation and development to provide guidance to students. Students will create ePortfolios based on the program outcomes, course outcomes, college wide learning outcomes and other skills and abilities they may have.

Benefits of an ePortfolio implementation in the college

• Portfolios are a great mode of assessment to determine knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA)
• Students will self-assess their learning and take ownership of their learning as they complete their ePortfolios and program
• Students will have an ePortfolio to show potential employers
  • During co-op placement
  • During Industry project placement
  • After graduation, as a lifelong learning resource
• Students are accountable for mastering content standards in subject areas
• Portfolios can help students who would like to continue their studies and receive RPL credits
• Assessment portfolios promote communication between teachers and students
• Faculty advising easier as students can show their learning progress through ePortfolio
• Helps students get interview as it shows more than just a resume and cover letter
• Help students reflection on KSA and develop skills in meaningful self-assessment
• More student instructor collaboration

Thursday, December 3, 2015  |  5 – 8 pm
Exchange District Campus, 160 Princess St.
William Building, Main floor, A104 Lecture Hall
Graphic Design is holding an information night for students, parents and high school staff who would like more information about admission to our program. No need to register. Presentations will be run at 5 pm and 6 pm. After the presentation we invite you to:

• tour the facilities,
• meet with instructors, enrolment staff and current students,
• ask questions about the entrance portfolio and see samples of work.

For more information contact:
Diane Livingston, Program Coordinator at dlivingston@rrc.ca

The Manitoba Chapter of the GDC (Graphic Designers Canada) brought in well known US designer Aaron Draplin (http://www.draplin.com/). As part of his visit to Winnipeg our students bid on, and won, a studio visit from Aaron on Thursday November 5. He was very gracious with his time visiting with and answering questions from students. A very dynamic speaker with a great sense of humour, he shared stories and perspectives on design. As part of our winning bid, we also received 5 tickets for our students to attend the GDC lecture the following evening.

The Solar Panels

Red River College solar panels

Designed and installed by Solar Solutions in 2002, the Red River College Exchange District Campus had a solar energy system installed on the side of the Princess building that was, at the time, the largest of its kind in Canada. These environmentally friendly solar panels were installed to provide the college with energy that could be collected from the sun and used by Red River College students and staff. As time passed, these solar panels were left to do their job and were otherwise forgotten about.

Laptop connected to control panel

This past summer (summer of 2015), a team consisting of Haider Al-Saidi, Miguel Guzman and Sylvia Froese set out to find out more about these solar panels. The team wanted to know how much energy was being produced by the panels at what times, what these panels were powering and how they could use this data for educational purposes throughout the college. Read More →

The 7th year (and 14th intake) of the Bridging Program is now past its halfway point of the 16 week program. Once the 16 week theory component is complete (referred to as Level 2), students will start Level 3 of the program, which is the 6 week clinical component. Students will be placed either at the Victoria General Hospital or Deer Lodge Centre.

New to this term is a two-day workshop on ‘Aboriginal Cultures Awareness’ provided by the WRHA Aboriginal Health Program: Health Education Department. This workshop focuses on providing “…relevant information about the contemporary, historical and cultural issues that influence stereotypical impressions of Aboriginal people.” The students participated in a Sharing Circle, after watching a video on residential schools, as well as a smudge at the end of the 2 days. Participants were very moved, some to tears, when sharing their thoughts after watching the video. Many felt that attending the workshop had changed their perspective and understanding of the Aboriginal culture and that the workshop had changed how they will interact with Aboriginal people in the future.

This year, the class chose a class representative, Carmelo LaGuardia, who gathered some comments from various class members on how they are feeling about this part of their long journey to become licensed as a RN in Canada. Here are some excerpts:

• “After I received my result of my CCA, I was so furious and depressed that I have to take the BPIEN program. The wait was almost a year just to get in to the program. But now, I can say that it was worth it. I didn’t realize that I have so many things that I do not know and this program will help me to bridge that gap to be a successful RN here in Canada.”

• “Before I entered the bridging program I was really scared. The truth is, I am petrified by it because I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know if like the others, I will just breeze through it or is it going to be tough for me. Like everybody else I’ve been given by the CRNM two years to finish the program and now I am at the last six months of it; meaning, there’s no more second chances for me. This is it, do or die. I am so scared because for the first time in my life I have no Plan B. But still, a part of me remains excited, because finally I have been given a chance to follow my heart, pursue my career and I am finally almost there. What I am trying to say is, the bridging program is what it says it is; a bridge. And last month I started crossing it. Just as I took the first step I discovered that I wasn’t alone; there are nineteen more like me. Nineteen more who also took risks and jumped hoops. Nineteen more brave souls who also laid everything down and halted their lives just to be able to have the chance to cross this bridge and most of them are like me, scared. And as I took small steps forward with them I discovered that our instructors are there on the bridge, and they are there to guide us, to push us forward and they are doing a fine job. Now I look at the bridging program differently, it’s not easy to trek but it keeps each of us moving forward. It is our link to our goal, to our careers, to our ambitions. I hope we all make it to the other end, because now as we are all inching our way across the bridge; we are not so scared anymore.”

• “Not only do we review what we learned during our Nursing School, but we also get to learn about the differences of practice from back home and Canada and how we can bridge that gap.”

• “The workshops (from Diversity) also add knowledge in terms of using helpful strategies in reading, taking exams and how to answer/ attack questions appropriately.”

We wish all of the students good luck in their final exams coming up in the second week of December!