AC Vision
Posted on Thursday, August 22nd, 2019
The prepared remarks of President Claude Brulé.
AC Vision
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, everyone. Bonjour. Kwe.
Let me first say a word of thanks to everyone from our Perth and Pembroke Campuses who made the trip to be with us today, as well as to those who are joining us online, including colleagues from around the world.
I’d like to extend a warm welcome-back to those of you who have been away, and give special thanks to those of you who have been here through the summer months.
I’d also like to offer my personal thanks to our special guest: Mayor Jim Watson, for joining us and providing remarks at the start of our event, and a personal welcome to representatives from our Board of Governors, our Students’ Association Board of Directors, and our Union representatives.
I also want to take a moment to welcome those who are joining us for the first time. In fact, since the last President’s Breakfast, we have had 140 full-time employees join us — 74 academic, 36 support staff, and 30 in administrative positions. We also have many more part-time staff who are new to the College. Could I please ask all our new employees — full-time and part-time — to stand as you are able and be recognized with a warm Algonquin College welcome?
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not thank someone who is not here with us today, but who was with us for five prosperous and groundbreaking years. Thank you to my predecessor, Cheryl Jensen, whose positive impact will be felt for years to come.
This is a new day for all of us — for you, and also for me.
And today’s event — and its format — is new to all of us, too, and it has been shaped by your feedback.
In the past, it was held early in the morning, making it more challenging for our colleagues from our Perth and Pembroke Campuses to drive to Ottawa for the event — we heard you, and decided to move the event to the afternoon.
You also told us that there was no opportunity to mingle and catch up with your colleagues because you had to return to your duties. Now, with today’s event finishing in the afternoon, you will have a chance to stay and chat with others if you wish to do so.
Your feedback indicated that the previous format was too long and you wanted to hear things about Algonquin that you didn’t already know — so, thanks to Sophia Bouris and our events team, we “picked up the pace” and asked each Vice President, our Students’ Association president and our Union partners to highlight an initiative that you may not have heard about, or that casts it in a new light. I think we can agree that they all did an excellent job today and I want to thank them for their efforts — especially keeping their respective updates to two minutes each…no small feat when we have so much to share with you!
Finally, in the past, this event was called the President’s Breakfast. But now, we are trying a new name — “AC Vision” — because this event is more than just my address today. It is about all of us, and that central connection we have to our learners.
It’s also about who we want to be in the year ahead — and beyond. Which is why we chose the name “AC Vision” — to be able to present you with information that may be new to you, regarding what we will undertake this year to continue to set the College on a path for a bright and sustained future.
Futurist Joel Barker has said that “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.”
Today, we are charting our course to do just that, by combining our Vision with the action that we need to get the job done. And that job must always revolve around continuously improving the ways that we, as faculty, support staff and administrators, serve our learners. After all, they are the reason we are here today, and they are the reason we care so deeply about our college.
I know that when it comes to your work, each of you has boundless energy and incredibly focused passion for your areas of expertise — the subjects you teach, the support you provide, the connections you foster. For more than 20 years, I have seen this passion shine at Algonquin College in outstanding and truly visionary ways.
As the College continues to evolve and grow in today’s fast-paced environment, the challenge for us is to channel that passion in ways that will allow you to fulfill your role in the most effective ways possible — both for you and for our learners.
One way we can channel that passion is by becoming the most inclusive and diverse institution possible. This is important to me, and I know it is important to you, too. Why? Because it speaks to our College values of Caring, Learning, Integrity and Respect. Those values can only exist in an environment that promotes inclusion and diversity. It is the richness of many voices that gives us strength, that provides new insight, and that helps us develop the awareness we need to build the Algonquin College of tomorrow — a College that is ready to embrace the future, and welcome people from around the world and all parts of society.
We cannot be passionate about our work, and we cannot channel that passion, if we feel alone or feel that our voice has not been heard. No matter who you are, where you come from, or whether you are a learner or an employee, there must be a place for you at Algonquin College. With Diane McCutcheon and the Human Resources team leading the way on this initiative, I challenge all of us to commit to an action that will make Algonquin a leader in diversity and inclusion, as part of our shared vision for the College. To quote author Verna Myers, if “Diversity is being asked to the party, Inclusion is being asked to dance.” And as Sarah Gauen, our Inclusion and Diversity Specialist, has added, “Belonging is knowing the words to the song.”
Inclusion also means that our path to Truth and Reconciliation is a key component of that vision — in fact, it should inform every step we take. Ron has said many times that “we are all Indigenous.” We all come from our Mother, the Earth. We drink the same water, we breathe the same air, and eat the same food. We are more connected than we are different. Connecting with Indigenous Knowledge will make us stronger as a community because it will allow us to seek out new perspectives, be open to new ways of knowing, and offer more opportunities for us to move forward in a Good Way.
And as we endeavor to connect and collaborate with each other in a Good Way, we must also extend that thinking to our external partners, too. Part of a successful vision must include close collaboration with our government and higher-ed partners to ensure alignment of our key priorities. Our current Strategic Mandate Agreement, SMA2, includes several collaborative initiatives, such as Education City/La Cité des Connaissances, in partnership with Carleton University, the University of Ottawa and La Cité. It also includes our Multi-College Collaborative Model with Northern, Sault and Lambton colleges, which will create a framework for collaboration in applied education and allow the colleges to work together on academic programming and administrative processes to provide new opportunities for learners and strengthen our college system.
And already, plans are underway to create our next Strategic Mandate Agreement, SMA3, which will be a five-year agreement that charts a new path forward, focused on institutional performance and outcomes, as key components of the Ontario government’s accountability framework for Colleges and Universities, and supporting transparency and accountability objectives through reporting metrics. Beginning in 2020-21, twenty-five per cent of our grant funding allocation will be associated with this new reporting and accountability framework, and it will gradually rise to sixty per cent over a five-year period. While this may appear daunting, I feel Algonquin is well positioned in this regard, because we have always made student success and learner outcomes a priority.
Measuring and reporting on skills and job outcomes, and on community and economic impact metrics should be viewed as a logical extension of our existing work, because this is in our “wheel-house” as a community college: delivering outstanding polytechnic applied education in partnership with industry and our employers.
Our vision will be unique to Algonquin because it will also be shaped through the prism of the AC Way – our unique adaptation of Lean methodology and continuous improvement informed by Indigenous Knowledge. It is an approach that is customized to meet our College’s needs, and the needs of our employees. We are not just improving our workplace today, we are becoming active architects of a foundation that will serve a new generation of employees — and learners. The AC Way is an integral part of my vision. Huddle boards are now ubiquitous across our campuses, and through employee engagement and collaboration, the AC Way is becoming part of our everyday lives. Together, I want us to expand that vision and stretch ourselves out of our comfort zone, in order to fully realize what it means to live the AC Way.
Finally, part of our vision for Algonquin must revolve around the future of work and how to best prepare our learners for it. As Patrick Devey has already outlined, there are many questions about that world and how we position ourselves to be relevant for the future. How do we prepare our learners for jobs that do not yet exist? How do we navigate through new frontiers in the application of emerging innovations such as artificial intelligence to education and increasing automation? As we heard at last year’s President’s breakfast, it is estimated that half of all jobs in Canada will be disrupted by technology and automation — and the pace of that disruption is accelerating. We need to prepare now so that our learners and our graduates are ready for this future world of work.
But in that preparation, we cannot lose sight of the biggest question of all — how we can keep pace with innovation, risks, and opportunities without losing what I consider to be the most essential part of our vision: our humanity.
Today we celebrate not only the value and importance of that human connection, but also the passion that makes our jobs worth getting up for each day. It is that passion for excellence that inspires our learners.
I hope that after today’s event, you will also be inspired. Ultimately, I hope that you will find ways that you can build on what we have heard this afternoon in your own way, so that you are guided by not only our collective vision, but also by the unique and important role you play in helping to achieve it.
As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, vision is hollow unless it can be combined with action. But action alone, without the benefit of direction and guidance from a vision, is not enough either.
If you look up the word “vision” in the dictionary, you will find two key definitions. The first is the obvious, “the state of being able to see.” The second one, however, is the one that defines today’s event more precisely: “the ability to think about, or plan the future with imagination … or wisdom.”
To me, it is not about choosing between imagination or wisdom, but rather, having a shared vision informed by both, propelled by the action required to set that vision in motion.
And today, this day of so many firsts, I encourage you to draw on your wisdom and your imagination in equal measure, so as to inform our shared vision and build our future while continuing to transform hopes and dreams into lifelong success.
And with that, I wish you all a happy and successful new academic year, and a wonderful start of term!
Thank you, Merci, Miigwetch.
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