Student experiences and student successes top North Island College’s five-year strategic plan—dubbed Plan 2020—released this month.
And the first step to achieving success with that mandate was to broaden the strategic planning process to include outreach to all NIC communities, president John Bowman said.
“We are a complex institution with many moving parts. It’s a longer list of priorities.”
The new plan outlines nine key priorities and 45 goals for the college between 2016–2020. Some of those goals include offering high-quality, relevant, responsive curriculum and programs, access to learning across the region, Aboriginal education, focus on people, resources, investment and sustainability as well as strenghtening community connections.
“It was a strong message in our consultations...that for us to be successful we need to be closely connected to the communities where we serve,” he said.
The provincial government requires every post-secondary institution to have a five-year capital plan, but NIC has doubled that. “We felt a 10-year time horizon is more realistic to accomplish what is on our list,” Bowman said.
The No. 1 priority is to consolidate their Campbell River campus from two locations to one. The same goes for Port Alberni, which rents its trades building on Tebo Avenue from the city on top of maintaining its Roger Street campus.
NIC is looking at whether it makes sense in the next 10 years to construct a new building at its Roger Street site. “We have a lot of land. We have 20 acres on the Port Alberni campus,” Bowman said.
“We’re fortunate our buildings in Port Alberni, Courtenay and Campbell River are relatively new compared to some colleges.”
Of course it takes money to build things. The college needs to become more “entrepreneurial” in its approach to revenue generation, says Bowman.
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