By IAN ROSS
An educator who’s a recognized human rights champion with a deep social conviction is the new president of Sault College.
Dr. Ronald Common was selected by the college’s board of directors in July. The former Nipissing University dean of education officially settled into the job Nov. 1.
Common replaces Tim Meyer who resigned last fall. Sault College CFO Max Liedke served as interim president.
Prior to his seven-year Nipissing tenure, he held administrative positions at Brandon, Memorial and Brock Universities.
An extensive world traveller, he’s researched and delivered on educational issues with Canada’s Aboriginal groups and has worked on international development projects in Malawi, Cameroon, Kenya, China and Jordan.
Last spring, Common was inducted into the Nipissing Human Rights Hall of Fame for his work with First Nations and disadvantaged people around the world.
So why does a human rights advocate from a liberal arts university take the top job at a technical trades college?
Over his career he’s been involved in building Aboriginal school systems and working with at-risk youth in Canada’s North for more than 20 years.
With Canada’s Natives being the fastest-growing population, he sees only the “fantastic potential” at Sault College for its Aboriginal programming.
At Nipissing, he sent students on teaching placements to Africa and other underdeveloped countries.
“It’s a life-altering experience and teaches them to work in culturally different places,” he says. “It certainly broadens their perspective and sets their personal priorities.”
For many that returned from Kenya and Cameroon, it became a career choice to work in First Nations communities, women’s shelters, food banks or to continue to stay overseas.
The same can be done with Sault College’s electricians, millwrights and other construction trades in building schools and digging water lines.
“A lot of students have a social conscience and we can provide a mechanism to do that.”
It’s an exciting time at Sault College. Queen’s Park and Sault MPP David Orazietti have been particularly good to the campus with more than $9.2 million in public investments for a multi media centre, wind energy training, apprenticeships, nursing equipment, endowment funding and water treatment technology.
But Common says both the federal and provincial governments can do better.
At a recent conference of Ontario college presidents, underfunding in skilled trades education was a prime topic.
With as many as a half-million new tradespeople needed in Ontario over the next 20-25 years, the shortfall in labour could dramatically slow the economy and threaten the province’s prosperity.
“There’s much talk about the knowledge economy,” says Common, “but the resource economy has come roaring back.”
College funding is 17 per cent lower than 1992 on a per capita basis. “Universities are much better funded than the colleges.”
To reach the national average, the government would have to give Ontario colleges $400 million annually just to keep pace.
Common says colleges must be able to provide flexible and multi-faceted kinds of qualifications in apprentice programming, certificates and applied degrees.
It means appealing to those on the “fringes of the economy” including Aboriginal people, the disabled, high school drop-outs, older workers, and immigrants who are all employable in some capacity. “That’s a great future market.”
Aboriginal programming is especially close to his heart.
The college has language immersion and educational bridging programming but there’s room to create Native-specific programs and build partnerships.
“It’s certainly part of my vision.”
As a consultant, Common helped build First Nation schools in Wikwemikong, Rama, Kettle and Stony Point, Long Lac and Nipissing, as well as setting up satellite university campuses in Labrador with travelling professors.
He says Native school systems are sometimes ill-equipped for students to seamlessly enter post-secondary institutions and high school drop-out rates remain unacceptable.
“That’s a human resource we can’t leave untapped. We need to create a pathway for them to succeed.”
