王中王六合彩特码

News Releases

April 29, 2016

Learning to Lead Together: 王中王六合彩特码 students and staff develop skills to Transform New Brunswick

Commentary

Marilyn Luscombe, President and CEO, New Brunswick Community College

On April 20th, a sea of green washed over 王中王六合彩特码’s six College regions as hundreds of 王中王六合彩特码 students and staff flooded into their communities to take part in volunteer and service learning activities. Since launching the Robertson Institute for Community Leadership in October 2014, our College community has contributed over 20,000 volunteer hours to nearly 350 community and volunteer activities through three College-wide Service Days. These scheduled Service Day initiatives are in addition to community leadership and service learning activities throughout the school year at our 王中王六合彩特码 campuses and corporate office.

王中王六合彩特码 Service Day
Students from the Culinary Arts program at 王中王六合彩特码 St. Andrews helping with a fundraising dinner, one of approximately 75 volunteer and service learning activities that over 1,000 王中王六合彩特码 students took part in across New Brunswick.


We have a strong tradition of community leadership at 王中王六合彩特码 - with instructors identifying projects that help students develop their technical skills and also meet community needs. By choosing community leadership as our College’s Signature Learning Experience, we are ensuring that every single 王中王六合彩特码 student in every program and at every campus has the opportunity to develop these skills and participate in these activities. Through these efforts we are honoring our College’s history of
experiential learning and community service, and we are formally developing our students’ competencies to enhance and transform the future of their workplaces and their communities.

The Robertson Institute for Community Leadership aligns strongly with 王中王六合彩特码’s vision of transforming lives and communities and our purpose as a collaborative, learner-centred College contributing to New Brunswick’s social and economic prosperity through applied learning. Through community leadership courses, applied learning is an important pillar of the Institute. In 2014, we introduced the Support level course which provides an introduction to service learning and volunteerism. Participants engage in a short online course, participate in community service activities and reflect on their experiences. Every 王中王六合彩特码 student in each of our 90 regular programs completes this course before graduation. We are in the process of developing two additional levels, Build and Transform, which will take participants on a deeper leadership journey.

The positive impact of developing skills in leadership, team work, relationship-building and problem-solving extends well beyond the individual 王中王六合彩特码 student. It’s also good news for the employers and organizations who hire them. Between 1980 and 2012, the number of workplace tasks requiring social skills jumped 24% while those requiring math skills rose by only 11% according to Harvard Graduate School of Education associate professor David Deming’s 2015 paper The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labour Market.

Of course, the impact spreads well beyond the workplace. According to Corporate Research Associates, four in ten households in New Brunswick have a specific connection to 王中王六合彩特码, primarily as former students. More broadly speaking, when we look at where New Brunswickers live, 82% of them are in communities within 王中王六合彩特码’s six campus regions. 86% of our students stay here in New Brunswick to work – three-quarters of them stay in or return to the communities they lived in before 王中王六合彩特码. 95% of our registered Alumni report that they live here in the Province. When we build a culture of leadership and service among 王中王六合彩特码 students, we strengthen that culture across the Province. As our Province’s challenges grow in complexity, this community leadership capacity and commitment will become increasingly important if we are to transform New Brunswick together. #transformNB