Funding shores up Kemptville's programming for the short term

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

The University of Guelph will be able to keep most of its apprenticeship and skills training programs going at its Kemptville campus for one more year, thanks to a one-time amount of $2 million from the Ontario government.

And at least one Ontario farm group expects the province will soon appoint a facilitator to determine a long-term solution to keep the eastern Ontario agricultural educational facility operating.

Brad Duguid, Ontario Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, made the funding announcement at the campus Tuesday.

Rob Gordon, dean of the university’s Ontario Agricultural College, says the announcement “was positive in that there is a number of other programs that we certainly weren’t expecting to deliver but we’re certainly prepared to fully move forward on delivering those.”

Among those are 10 of 17 trades, special skills and apprenticeship programs that the university had planned to axe for the 2014/15 school year because of low enrolment.

But the announcement doesn’t change the university’s plans to end its academic involvement at the campus as of next year. “The University of Guelph’s role in delivery of programs at the campus will be completed by the end of May 2015,” Gordon says.

Nevertheless, the one-time funding “will certainly allow for transition plans to take place with other institutions,” he says.

Mark Wales, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says the province will soon name a facilitator to help establish a long-term plan for the campus’s future.

Wales says the Kemptville College Renewal Task Force, has been seeking out other possible new service providers, such as public and private colleges, that could deliver programs at Kemptville. The task force comprises community and industry leaders, alumni, students, and the college foundation.

“Everybody is still working towards a long-term solution,” he notes.

Kemptville task force chair, Brian J. Carré, couldn’t be reached for comment.

In its Tuesday news release, the Ontario government also notes it has been working with Collége Boréal and La Cité collégiale to ensure students can continue to study at the university’s Alfred campus for the 2014/15 academic year. The university has also announced intentions to end academic programming there. The eastern Ontario campus is the only French agricultural educational facility in the province.

A provincially established implementation committee is leading the process to find a long-term solution that ensures the delivery of agricultural programming in French at Alfred, the release says.

Both Kemptville and Alfred campuses are owned by the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario, a provincial Crown corporation. The university has been operating the campuses since 1997 under the auspices of a partnership agreement with the provincial ministries of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. BF