News

The creative efforts of two Red River College students are behind Manitoba Public Insurance’s newest campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of impaired driving.

MPI’s newly launched ‘Bright Future’ campaign graphically depicts how a person’s future can turn dark when the decision is made to drive after drinking. Second-year Creative Communications students Rhianna Saj (above, left) and Shannay Smith conceived the story line.

As part of an assignment for their Advertising class, Saj and Smith submitted a project that was reviewed by their instructor and MPI staff, who’d been invited to evaluate student presentations at RRC. The team’s made-in-Manitoba concept was so impressive, MPI determined it should be developed into the corporation’s next campaign in its fight against impaired driving.

MPI found the dual meaning behind the ‘Bright Future’ theme to be particularly clever, as it intertwined a young person’s bright future with the bright lights of arrest and incarceration. It was this outside-the-box thinking that made the theme so appealing to MPI’s advertising department.

“This campaign is about young people engaging their peers to change attitudes around impaired driving — not the typical approach of talking ‘at’ this group,” says Ward Keith, vice-president, Business Development & Communications and chief product officer at MPI. Read More →

Red River College Nursing instructor Kendra Rieger has been named the 2016 recipient of the Canadian Association for Nursing Research (CANR) Rising Star Graduate Student Award.

Presented every two years, the award recognizes Rieger’s doctoral research work at the University of Manitoba, where she’s part of the first cohort of Nursing PhD students in the province.

Her devotion to research is evident in her scholarly work: As primary author or co-author, she has nine articles either in-press of published, with two more publications currently under review. Among those she describes as pivotal: “Arts-based learning: An analysis of the concept of nursing education” (published in the International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship), and “The effectiveness and experience of arts-based pedagogy among undergraduate nursing students: A mixed methods systematic review” (currently under review).

Research work forms a core component of Rieger’s doctoral thesis, and she hopes to build on it even further as she continues exploring the fields of arts and health. She is also interested in systematic reviews, and hopes to develop a research program focused on arts and health initiatives, including creative approaches to teaching and learning.

Rieger’s interest in research work dates back to her childhood. She always wanted to be a scientist, and as she got older and continued her training as a nurse, she became even more convinced of the importance of research in nursing care and education.

She describes herself as a firm believer in evidence-informed practice, which integrates the best research evidence with patient preferences, clinical context and nurses’ expertise in order to provide the best patient care possible.

Rieger acknowledges her advisor, Dr. Wanda Chernomas, for nominating her for the award, which she will formally accept on May 2 at the College of Nursing Researcher in Residence event.

Learn more about her research career, and her award.

For the sixth year in a row, Red River College has been named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers, a designation that recognizes RRC’s environmentally friendly policies and programs that engage staff in their sustainability efforts.

The listing comes courtesy of Mediacorp Canada’s ongoing Top 100 Employers project, and coincides with Earth Day activities and events throughout the globe.

“Red River College continues to be a champion of sustainability,” says RRC President Paul Vogt. “We’re honoured to continue to receive this honour each year for the past six years. This is something every member of our College community can take pride in.”

“There’s a real culture of sustainability at Red River College,” adds Sara MacArthur, RRC’s Manager of Sustainability. “Our staff do more than just ‘know’ about sustainability — they also embrace the values of sustainability in their day-to-day actions.”

Over the years, RRC has taken a lead role in a number of sustainability-related initiatives, including: Read More →

Congratulations to the 47 Red River College students who scored medals in last week’s Skills Canada provincial competition.

Hosted by Skills Manitoba at RRC’s Notre Dame Campus, the Olympic-style competition drew more than 500 high school and post-secondary students from across Manitoba for an impressive display of hands-on expertise, talent and determination.

The April 14 event also showcased the diversity of skilled trades and technology in the province, not to mention the many promising futures that can be found in these occupations. Students competed in over 40 different categories; the gold medal winners from each will form Team Manitoba, and will go on to compete at the 21st annual Skills Canada National Competition, taking place in Moncton, N.B., from June 5-8.

A full list of RRC’s winners is below:

Read More →

A recent marketing campaign that gave Red River College grads the VIP treatment has been recognized by the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS).

Last week, the CPRS announced RRC’s 2015 billboard campaign had won the 2016 Manitoba Communicator of the Year (Large Campaign) Award.

Launched last spring by RRC’s Marketing and Web Presence team, the campaign built on the success of previous alumni-focused promotions, by inviting industry partners to collaborate with RRC in showcasing the range of organizations where graduates find employment.

Employers were invited to nominate VIPs from within their organization, then shared a portion of the costs to promote their employees’ success on billboards, bus benches, transit ads and a range of other print and digital media.

With help from RRC’s Alumni Relations office, the pool of respondents was narrowed down to 40 VIPs from a variety of fields, whose images were featured on a series of highly visible ads. In addition to achieving its primary goals (raising the College’s profile, strengthening connections with industry, positioning RRC as a solution to Manitoba’s skilled labour shortage, etc.), the new campaign also generated nearly $40,000 in new revenue.

The College and the winner in the Small Campaign category (the Canadian Museum for Human Rights) will be honoured at an awards presentation and gala on May 4 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Tickets to the gala are available here.

The upcoming provincial election takes place on Tuesday, April 19, and every vote counts.

You can vote in advance at Red River College’s Notre Dame Campus anytime from Monday, April 11 to Friday, April 15, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Voting takes place in the Library hallway on the lower level.

To be eligible to vote, you must be:

• a Canadian citizen;
• at least 18 years of age on election day; and
• a resident of Manitoba for at least six months before election day.

Voters are required to show one piece of government-issued photo identification (such as a driver’s licence) or two other documents with their name. Votes will be accepted for any electoral division in Manitoba.

For more information, visit electionsmanitoba.ca, or download Elections Manitoba’s new mobile app, Manitoba Votes 2016, available for Apple, Android or Blackberry.

Red River College students helped shine a light on the challenges faced by those living with disabilities recently, by assisting at the first provincial election debate in decades to focus specifically on disability-related issues.

Students from RRC’s Disability and Community Support program served as volunteers at the Disability Matters Great Debate, helping to ensure as many people as possible were able to gain access to the event, held March 31 at the Norwood Hotel.

The debate was hosted by Disability Matters, a non-partisan public awareness campaign dedicated to ensuring Manitobans with disabilities can participate fully in election activities, promoting priority attention to disability issues in the election, and supporting Manitobans with disabilities in making informed voting decisions.

Candidates from throughout the province took part, including James Beddome (Green Party leader and candidate for Fort Garry-Riverview), Vanessa Hamilton (Liberal candidate for Brandon East), Kerri Irvin-Ross (NDP candidate for Fort Richmond) and Ian Wishart (Conservative candidate for Portage la Prairie).

The debate was moderated by CBC Radio One’s Marcy Markusa (herself an RRC grad), and addressed the five key priorities of the Disability Matters campaign: accessibility, fair wages, access to services, employment, and dignified income.

More than 650 people attended the debate at the Norwood, while another 350 took part at satellite sites throughout the province where the proceedings were streamed online. The debate was a cross-disability event attended by those with physical, intellectual and mental health disabilities, as well as their friends, families and supports. Read More →

A Red River College student is providing support to those affected by an ongoing epidemic of violence in Canada, by creating an online community for families of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Brittany Hobson, a second-year Creative Communications student, recently launched the website Stolen Voices, which provides a platform for families of missing and murdered women and girls, allowing them to share their stories and connect with other families.

The website is comprised of a series of family profiles — which may include essays, poems, artwork or music — and other contributed work related to ending the cycle of violence against Indigenous women.

“There are more than 1,200 missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women throughout Canada, and each of them have family and friends that care for them,” says Hobson. “Those families deserve to have their voices heard.”

A journalism major, Hobson was born and raised in Winnipeg, but has roots in Long Plain First Nation and Sandy Bay First Nation. She first started exploring the issue of missing and murdered women while in university a few years back.

“I’m an Indigenous woman myself, but I didn’t grow up in a traditional household,” she explains. “In university, I started looking into issues surrounding Indigenous people, to get a better sense of where I was coming from.” Read More →

Red River College has joined forces with the Western Canadian Innovation Offices (WCIO) consortium as part of an effort to connect Western Canadian industry needs with the array of research and innovation resources that exist in WCIO’s nearly 40-member consortium of universities, colleges and polytechnics across the West.

The WCIO is a Western Economic Diversification (WD) Canada-funded pilot project that seeks to enhance collaboration between academic research institutions, and enhance access to these institutions by prospective industry partners. The overall goal is improved engagement between industry and academia, in order to address industry-driven needs and challenges.

“Increasing R&D investment by Canadian business enterprises is definitely an opportunity for Western Canada,” says Ray Hoemsen, Director of Applied Research & Commercialization (AR&C), and WCIO steering committee member. “The WCIO initiative is working to be part of the solution by increasing the research and innovation-related engagement between industry and the post-secondary sector.”

RRC will support the WCIO with boots on the ground. Brent Wennekes, Research Manager with AR&C, has been seconded part-time — with direct financial support from WCIO — to perform as a business development specialist working with post-secondary institutions in Manitoba. Brent’s is one of eight such positions being created across the West.

“Brent is not only connected to Manitoba’s business community, he is also recognized by many local researchers via his experience with both RRC and Innovate Manitoba, and has developed an excellent understanding of Canada’s innovation ecosystem,” says Hoemsen.

WCIO currently has funding available for energy-related projects that include more than one institutional research partner. Read More →

Congratulations to the inaugural recipients of Red River College’s Seven Generations Award, which provides the means to create seamless educational pathways for the next seven generations of learners.

Launched last fall by RRC’s Aboriginal Student Support & Community Relations team, the $500 awards are available to any Indigenous student who’s the descendant or dependent of an RRC alum. This year’s winners are:

Raven Boulanger, a first-year Community Development/Community Economic Development student. Raven is the daughter of Marcel Boulanger, who graduated from the Aboriginal Language Specialist program in 2003, and Jacqueline Anderson, who graduated from the Criminology and Child and Youth Care programs in 1996.

Raven is an Anishinabe from Berens River First Nation, who graduated from Winnipeg Collegiate in 2011. She attended the University of Winnipeg, where she played on the women’s basketball team — her love for the game led her to play for Team Manitoba in the North American Indigenous Games, where she later returned as a volunteer youth basketball coach.

Raven remains highly involved in the community as a volunteer; her first job was a team leader at the Winnipeg Aboriginal Sport Achievement Centre’s summer sports camps, where she developed a passion for coaching youth. She is now the coach for the Anishinabe Pride girls youth basketball team, and also plays for the RRC Rebels.

In addition, she’s a member of the Aboriginal Support Centre’s R-Crew, volunteering her time to take part in Aboriginal student-focused events and planning.

Tanya Vincent, a full-time student in RRC’s Applied Accounting program. Tanya s the daughter of Loraine Trudeau, who graduated from the College’s Library Technician program in 1992.

Tanya is a Métis Franco-Manitoban and the mother of three children; her efforts to continue her academic journey by returning to school are supported by her husband.

In her spare time, Tanya sews beadwork and creates beautiful mukluks, moccasins and gauntlets. She also volunteers at her community church, Paroisse des Saints-Martyrs-Canadiens, as an instructor for the catechism class.