Thursday, May 12, 2011

“United We Are Stronger”

I want to first and foremost say what an honor and pleasure it has been to serve as the President of the Ontario Association of Career Colleges this past year. Associations by definition are a group of people who voluntarily come together to solve common problems, meet common needs and accomplish common goals. This year’s actions and our conference theme exemplifies that definition by bringing the National & Ontario Associations together to share, celebrate and learn. We truly are “Stronger United.”

Private Colleges play a vital role by educating and training the workforce of tomorrow in Ontario and Nationally. PCC’s serve their local communities needs by providing students looking to pursue post secondary education with a high quality option of choice, and have done so for the past 140+ years. As the association we as well have a vital role to play supporting, advocating and servicing our Colleges so they may continue this great work. I sincerely commend both our member colleges and our association for their accomplishments throughout this past year.

I set out this year to continue to focus on “Strong Support…Strong Voice…Student Success”. As much as this has defined our past success… it’s even more critical in defining our future. During the year we established the five pillars of our association: Equality in Post Secondary Education, Quality and Capacity of the Sector, Advocacy and Government Relations, Member Services and Student Success. I remain committed to achieving success for our association in these areas so that we can continue to positively grow the sector. With that growth we gain the ability to continue to influence the beliefs and behaviors of government and the public about the key role Private Career Colleges play in Post Secondary Education.

Throughout 2010-2011we had consistent and organized focus on important issues of high value to our members such as: Accreditation, Communications, Employment Ontario, WSIB, International Students, Marketing & Media Relations, Online Programs, Program Standards, Professional Development, Quality Assurance, Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) Metro-pass and the Training Completion Assurance fund (TCAF) to name a few.

We also increased our focus on Governmental Relations & Advocacy and Knowledge to provide insight and influence on the things that matter to our members. The addition of consultants, John Nunziata and Serge Buy helped shape our strategies delivering success on a variety of projects of importance to our membership. A special thanks for their hard work and dedication. OACC participated on the Deputy Minister’s Private Career College Advisory Committee, Green Advisory Panel and held regular meetings with elected & ministry officials on areas of importance to our members.

Finally, we created many enjoyable shared experiences that allowed our membership to come together, connect and share on areas of importance to them as is the case with our 38th annual conference being held this week.

In closing, I would like to thank everyone who volunteered to serve on the board, committees and the entire staff at the office: Lorna, Dena, April, Laura, Jodi, Colleen, Sarah, Lisa, Allison, Shelley, Pam, and Wendy … without your hard work and dedication our success would not be possible. I also want to recognize the excellence of our Executive Director – Paul Kitchin. His commitment, dedication and respect for our sector is unmatched. Please take some time to review his report which outlines our activities in detail throughout this year.

Thank you all for a great 2010-2011 and much success for 2011–2012. If I can be so honored I will continue to support and serve as president in the coming year.

Yours in Education,

Peter J H Dykstra

President

Ontario Association of Career Colleges

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