Red River College pursuing polytechnic status, not name

Aims to provide training universities can’t, following national trend

Magally Zelaya, staff

In the future, Winnipeg universities may not be the only institutions that provide degrees in the city. Red River College is building towards offering a polytechnic model of education wherein they would also provide degrees in certain disciplines.

Red River College’s (RRC) academic plan looking forward to 2020 states that “RRC will pursue a polytechnic model offering applied degrees within the broad array of its academic programs.”

The college is already on its way to achieving its goal. “The one thing that Red River doesn’t do at this point that a modern polytechnic does is we don’t grant our own degrees,” said vice-president (academics and research) Ken Webb.

There are currently seven polytechnic colleges that are members of Polytechnics Canada—none of which are in Manitoba. Several other institutes across Canada offer the polytechnic model of education with out labeling themselves a polytechnic.

Polytechnic institutes provide career-focused applied education and research and offer apprenticeship programs, diplomas, certificates, and four-year applied degrees.

The four-year applied degrees vary from baccalaureates in subjects ranging from forensic investigation to animation to radiation therapy.

Colin Fast, communications coordinator at RRC said, “It’s sort of a natural evolution of the college and the way that we’ve grown over the last several years. We’ve added dozens of new programs over the last few years and added the new campus downtown, and now we’ve added applied research, and added more joint degree programs, so the applied degrees would be the last piece of the puzzle.”

Fast said there has been a demonstrated need with employers indicating an interest in having people that have a higher degree of training.

“We’re just looking to satisfy that industry demand,” said Fast.

Enrolment at RRC has been increasing steadily over the last decade, according to Fast. “For this fall we’re at a record high again for full-time enrolment, we’re almost running at capacity in a lot of different areas,” he said.

Of the seven polytechnic colleges that created the alliance Polytechnics Canada, five are in Ontario, one is in British Columbia, and the other in Alberta.

According to Webb, there are no specific dates set for when the college will offer degrees. Webb said, “It’s something we’re looking at and we’re in discussion with the government.”

But, Webb noted that the term “polytechnic” is not widely understood in Canada and thus RRC is not seeking designation as a polytechnic as of yet.

“We want Manitoba to have all the benefits of a polytechnic education, but that doesn’t mean changing our name,” said Webb. “You might never see ‘Red River Polytechnic,’ Webb explained. “We don’t see ourselves changing our name so it’s more important what we do, not what we call ourselves.”

There is a growing need for polytechnic colleges in Canada, according to Sharon Maloney, executive director of Polytechnic Canada (an alliance representing seven existing polytechnics in the country including Seneca and Sheridan in Toronto and the British Columbia Institute of Technology).

Maloney said that the applied degree programs are designed through consultation with employers. “In other words, we have the workplace employers saying these are the kinds of skills we need,” she said, “especially right now with the kind of global marketplace pressures that we are facing and the demand for the types of highly skilled qualified people that we need.”

In September, controversy arose in New Brunswick when a plan to change three universities to polytechnics was proposed. Many opposed the proposal and the provincial government ruled against it, allowing the institutions to maintain their university designation.

The polytechnic model of education is not new in either Canada or the world. Webb pointed to the popularity of polytechnics around the world including countries such as New Zealand, Germany, and Finland.

He also noted that there has been a history of polytechnics becoming universities.

Ryerson in Toronto is one such institute that converted from a polytechnic college to a university in 1993. And in England, various polytechnics also converted to universities in the ’90s.

Webb emphasized that RRC does not have any plans to ever become a university.

“In the ideal world, you have colleges that do the certificates and diplomas. You have universities, which do degrees and masters and graduate studies and PhDs. And you have polytechnics, which do the applied highly focused, job-oriented programming up to diploma and past that into advanced diplomas, college degrees, or joint degrees.”

Fast agreed, “We don’t want to be a university. That’s not what our game plan is.”