Grande Prairie Regional College is looking to better address the needs of both its students, as well as its stakeholders with a new administrative strategy addressing goals and areas of focus over the next five years. The 5GPRC plan defines five priorities of the college to be addressed during the given time frame.
GPRC President and CEO Robert Murray says the college has spent roughly the past year listening to its stakeholders, staff, students, and the surrounding community to determine the intended next steps for the institution.
“It’s meant to focus our attention where we think a 21st century GPRC is going to go and to provide the community and our internal stakeholders with a really clear, transparent view on what it is we’re up to.”
“Some of it is not necessarily stuff that we have to improve on, some of it is stuff that we know we’re already doing really well and we want to keep doing, some of it is stuff that, by virtue of changes to the post-secondary landscape, that we have to be thinking about things a little differently,” he adds.
The five points of focus include modernization and efficiency, academic excellence and degree-granting status, economic and community development, inclusion and student experience, as well as innovation and partnerships.
Murray says establishing the strategy became an opportunity for the college to speak to and be transparent about its plans for the future as opposed to directing attention backwards, with its stakeholders.
“Ultimately we want as many resources dedicated to our students and our frontline workers as possible to be able to focus on our core business which is being an educational institution.”
“We want to make sure that in a time of reduced reliance on government funding, we’re setting ourselves up for success, to forge partnerships with industry, create new advancements and philanthropic opportunities for the college to help offset those costs,” he notes.
Murray adds as GPRC’s Campus Alberta Grant continues to be reduced, and the college is having to be less and less reliant on government backup, he does not want to see the full impact of the shift downloaded onto students. Instead, he explains, the ongoing intention is to diversify funding sources, significantly through industry partnerships.