At Lethbridge College, you could say that we are our own self-contained small city.
If we count credit and non-credit students, faculty and staff, our little metropolis exceeds 15,000 people. . . to give you a sense of size, we’re pretty much twice as big as Taber!
We are not, however, an insular constituency. Although we removed “community” from our name a number of years ago, I can attest that we are probably more active than ever in building bridges and creating partnerships with our local stakeholders. We all reap the benefits of working together to help our vibrant economy continue to grow and evolve.
And the reach of Lethbridge College is well beyond southern Alberta. You will find our alumni throughout the province and across Canada; we have grads all around the world making significant contributions in many different fields of study. This issue of Wider Horizons has a number of stories about our contributions to various communities. Instructor Vicki Charge is a respected member of the National Fashion Board.
Our Environmental Science faculty hosted the first Canadian conference on forensics for North American conservation enforcement officers. We are proud of the accomplishments of alumna Billy Jo Woitte (Early Childhood Education ‘99), a local First Nations, Métis and Inuit educator. There are just so many great stories we could tell about community contributions of our faculty, staff, students and alumni!
My grandmother used to say, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” As our people give to multiple communities, our contributions are recognized in many wonderful ways.
As you’ll read in this edition, the Lethbridge Auto Dealers Associations (LADA) pledged $1 million in support of the new Trades and Technology Renewal and Innovation Project so we can continue to use a state-of-the-art facility to train the technicians they hire.
The Lethbridge Regional Police Service (LRPS) is a valued member of our Centre for the Advancement of Community Justice (CACJ); Lethbridge College’s partnership with CACJ offers recruit training to LRPS, Medicine Hat and Taber police departments, supporting law enforcement needs in southern Alberta.
Chief Tom McKenzie (Criminal Justice ‘76) is a Distinguished Alumnus of Lethbridge College and one of our finest cheerleaders. Under his leadership, LRPS donated over $6,600 in support of Kodiak House, our newest student residence. The people of Lethbridge College understand service to community. . . locally, provincially, nationally and internationally.
We give without expectation of return and are honoured when our partners recognize us and show appreciation for our contributions. Community is about collaboration . . . we all benefit through win-win partnerships and working together.
