The college’s new Community Engagement Program will act as a way to gather feedback to help construct the college’s new five-year strategic plan. “We’re excited to be engaging with communities, which will be one aspect of a multi-pronged approach in the development of our strategic planning process. The community public engagement will begin in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, on May 2 and May 3, 2023, at our Canoe Campus, and further dates in communities across northern Saskatchewan will be announced on our college website,” said Northlands College President and CEO Karsten Henriksen.
Henriksen said that along with the community engagement program, the college will also reach out for feedback from other groups. “We will also be reaching out to industry partners; we are already in the process of having extensive consultation with industry as well as communities and as well as our partners in the provincial government as well, so we are having those conversations, and we are very excited to be working as well in collaboration with our First Nations and Metis partners as well,” said Henriksen.
He said that Northland’s five-year strategic plan aims to address the lack of student enrollment. “Northlands college is engaged in a year of transformation to plot a new direction forward as we address the challenges and barriers that the institution has faced that have resulted in a dramatic decline in enrollment and we are very pleased to have just recently as well launched capable north and started expanding programming across northern Saskatchewan, so we are on a path for growth, we are on a path for investment in communities and we’re pleased to be out and about in communities and listening to people, communities know what their needs are, community members know what their needs are, their thoughts, their aspirations to the future and we’re honored to be given the privilege to hear them,” said Henriksen.
The planning process for the college’s five-year strategic plan is expected to be completed in June of this year.