I am writing to say how pleased I was to see so many of you at this year’s Day of Reflection, and to extend my thanks to all who made this year’s event such a success.
I am very grateful to our speaker, Norm Baillie-David of Talent Map, not only for providing such a clear and contextual overview of the results of our Employee Engagement Survey, but also for helping to start an important discussion within our college community.
As Norm indicated, our participation rate for this survey was exceptional, and well above the average rate for similar postsecondary institutions in Canada. We’re all very busy, and I’m grateful to everyone who took the time to complete the survey, as such a strong participation rate ensures high quality data to support our continuous improvement efforts.
The survey confirms that as a college community we are highly engaged; we share a strong student focus, sense of professional engagement and we live our college values. Just as importantly, the survey has identified areas where we can focus our attention to build an even stronger sense of engagement among our faculty and staff.
My thanks to the deans, directors and managers who met with their teams to begin the important dialogue around these results and next steps. Moving forward, each division will begin action planning based on these results – identifying areas to leverage and maintain, and opportunities for improvement, with the goal of having action plans in place by mid-year. I encourage you to participate fully in this process as we work to build on these positive results.
These results are also closely tied to the other major element of this year’s Day of Reflection – our NC DNA project. We have been so fortunate to have the contributions of Bonnie Rose to this project, as she brings a great balance of a Niagara College connection, as a former VP Academic, and broad based experience in postsecondary education in Canada and the United States. As the founder of Day of Reflection, it was also very special to have Bonnie return on the 20th Anniversary of this great Niagara College tradition.
The purpose of our NC DNA project was to identify the “secret” to our success, and ensure that we are able to maintain it as our college community – and our operations – grow and diversify.
Through a consultative process, we have identified the unique characteristics that set Niagara College apart as trailblazing, welcoming and passionate. A video that captures the discussion that went into this project can be viewed here.
I would like to thank Bonnie and her colleague, Janice Barton for their important contributions to this project, and senior VPs Pam Skinner (Corporate Services) and Sean Kennedy (International) for their leadership.
Also among the highlights of Day of Reflection was a video that was created for our Seafood Gala that told the stories of students who have found success thanks to the support they’ve received throughout their educational journey. That video is available here.
Finally, I would like to extend my thanks and congratulations to Julie Stitt and her team in the Centre for Organizational Excellence (COE) for the tireless behind-the-scenes work to provide us with such an exceptional Day of Reflection experience. My thanks also to Carolyn Triemstra, who did an outstanding job as emcee, Steve Hudson for his event wrap-up, and the individuals and departments college wide who contributed to this outstanding event.
