Putting the community back in community college.
As Quinte News continues to look back on 2023, Loyalist College President and CEO Mark Kirkpatrick says the school really stepped up its engagement with the community this year.
Kirkpatrick says they’ve been involved with local businesses more than ever before.
“We’ve revamped a lot of our business initiatives and our applied research. So we sit down with a lot of local businesses and we try to find ways where we can initiate a research initiative that will make them and their processes more successful and more cost effective to actually make them more profitable and actually grow their businesses.”
Another recent example is the college’s announcement of a new Medical Radiation Technology program. The course was developed in response to needs brought forward by Quinte Health.
Kirkpatrick adds the college also inserted itself into the community this year hosting events like Family FunFest and their speaker series, as well as Indigenous and Diwali celebrations, and students participated in Belleville’s Santa Claus Parade.
The school’s continued growth is another highlight of 2023.
As enrolment continues to increase, Kirkpatrick says a lot of construction to improve the campus was completed with more spaces still evolving.
“This year we got to finish off the enhancement of all our sporting facilities, both indoor and outdoor. We’ve got a new health centre up and running. And hopefully that’s reducing some of the burden, you know, our students may have on local health care services. And then we’re developing a bunch of new academic spaces that have rolled out this year whether it’s the aesthetic space or culinary space and then a whole bunch of student spaces as well.”
Kirkpatrick says enrolment increases in Belleville are being driven primarily by domestic enrolment.
There are just under 4,000 students at the Belleville campus, almost 3,000 in Toronto.
Loyalist also opened its new Port Hope campus this year, welcoming more than 100 students for its first intake.
