Skip to content

Business Growth: Northern College

Northern College is a college of applied arts and technology with campuses in Timmins, Haileybury, and Moosonee.
northern_college_cropped

This year marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of Northern College and the Ontario college system. As we look back at our history, it is clear that Northern has changed a lot since 1967. However, we remain guided by an unwavering commitment to student success and providing high-quality programs. 

We continued to make significant strides in delivering our mission of excelling in quality, accessible education through innovative programs, services and partnerships for the benefit of our northern communities. 

In celebration of the 50th anniversary, the province made a $1.5 million investment in Northern College to enhance the experience of students. This funding has helped Northern stay in front of education trends and prepare students for rewarding careers in this new technology-driven economy.

The investment from the province helped the college provide new equipment, simulation and information technology, and enhanced learning infrastructure for students in the Paramedic, Paramedic Bridging, Police Foundations, and Pre-Service Firefighter Education and Training programs.

The new equipment and learning resources will be housed in the Integrated Emergency Services Complex at the Timmins Campus. The complex will feature state-of-the-art facilities, including mock courtroom and jail cell, interview and fingerprint rooms, fire tower, and fire, ambulance and police bays. Construction of the new complex commenced this year and is scheduled to be completed by September 2018.

Next year, Northern will look at investing in an Advanced Disaster Management Simulator (ADMS) to provide challenging, true-to-life virtual environments for students and local industry to learn decision-making skills needed to successfully resolve real-life incidents.

The legacy investment also supported other high demand programs by providing equipment and technology to modernize existing classrooms and labs throughout all of Northern’s four campus locations, such as a blood analyzer and thermal infrared camera for veterinary sciences programs and fiber optic equipment for electrical engineering programs. Some building improvements were also made at the Timmins Campus, which include new flooring in the cafeteria and soon to the gymnasium. 

In the upcoming years, we will be looking to adjust our Green House Gas emissions, retrofit buildings and introduce clean energy into programming. 

As technology changes, so must Northern’s approach to delivering quality, relevant programming. This year saw Northern expanding experiential learning opportunities that provided our students with virtual reality (VR) experiences coupled with increased use of simulators and an expanded applied research agenda that has evoked growth in innovation and entrepreneurship activities on all campus locations. In May, a Virtual Reality Training Centre was launched at the Timmins Campus.

Northern continuously expands educational offerings and opportunities throughout the region and beyond. A brand new one-year certificate program designed for those interested in gaining entrance to the mineral exploration job market was created. The Mineral Exploration Techniques program was developed with the history and expertise of Northern’s world-renowned Haileybury School of Mines (HSM). Based out of the Timmins campus, the modular format and distance delivery of this program provides flexibility and caters to remote northern communities. The first intake will begin in September 2018.

Northern’s programs prepare students with hands-on learning for their future career or lead them towards a path of turning a diploma into a degree with one of our 200+ articulation agreements with other Canadian and international colleges and universities. New articulation agreements that align with growth areas were created for our Environmental Technician, Instrumentation and Control Engineering Technician, Paramedic, Practical Nursing, as well as our Civil, Electrical, and Welding Engineering Technology programs.

Over the course of the year, we embraced many initiatives that have created new options and opportunities for our learners. These included changes in classroom delivery models and expansion in distance learning courses that provided flexibility to already busy student lifestyles. 

In aspiring to become the college of choice for Indigenous learners, we continue to expand educational offerings and services in response to an Indigenous coastal community’s choices and requirements. We offered the Literacy Basic Skills (LBS) program in Kashechewan to serve adult learners in developing and applying communication, numeracy, interpersonal and digital skills to achieve their goals. 

At Northern College, learning goes beyond post-secondary education. The college’s Northern Training Division works directly with industry to develop customized training solutions, which has led to visiting Peru, Nunavut and Ireland to discuss potential partnerships to deliver programs to the mining industry and communities in those countries. 

The forecasted decline in post-secondary direct enrolment in Ontario continues to drive Northern College to recruit additional students from new markets outside the traditional geographic catchment area with the goal of increasing overall enrolment. 

An increase in the number of international students promotes educational and cultural diversity within our campuses. This year, international numbers at Northern are higher than ever, with a record number of registered students.  

Over the past year, Northern College hosted delegations from Chinese colleges and universities to strengthen its partnerships with offshore institutions. Northern has been involved in joint programming in China now since 2010. Currently, there are about 650 students studying in China who are registered with Northern College.

Northern had another active and successful year in which we were able to make substantial progress in realizing our vision of success for all through learning and partnerships. These exciting developments provide only a sample of the many successful initiatives that revolved around improved opportunities, conditions and options for students that were undertaken at Northern College this year. In 2018, we will continue to diversify, innovate and respond to the needs of our students, employers and communities.