As a new Fall term begins, I am pleased to share important organizational updates following up on my previous messages over the past few months. You will recall earlier this year, I shared the retirement plans of three members of the Executive Team: Vice President, Academic Fiona Allan will retire at the end of December, and Vice President, International Sean Coote and Vice President, Research, Innovation and Strategic Enterprises (RISE) Dr. Marc Nantel will retire in spring, 2026.
Since that time, we’ve been working to review and consider the best administrative structures to ensure the College is well-positioned to seize opportunities and grow enrolments at a time of significant change and renewal. We are also guided by our commitment in the 2025-2026 Business Plan and Budget to reduce administrative salary and benefit costs by 14% over the course of this budget year — the largest salary reduction among Niagara College’s three full-time employee groups.
While being mindful of budget constraints, it is also important to be nimble and make key investments to bolster our core strategies to successfully navigate the current turbulence of the postsecondary sector.
We continue to feel the impacts of sweeping government changes on our international enrolments, even while we experience significant growth and momentum in domestic demand. Enrolment growth is the single most important objective for us given the challenges we face.
As we sharpen this enrolment focus further, we have established a new portfolio that brings all domestic and international marketing, recruitment and enrolment functions together under the leadership of Dorita Pentesco, who joins the Executive Team in the role of Vice President, Enrolment. Dorita takes on leadership responsibilities for all domestic and international marketing, recruitment, enrolment, admissions, inquiry response, data analysis and institutional research functions. These teams will transition to the new Enrolment portfolio over the course of the Fall term. Dorita’s Senior Director role will not be replaced at this time.
The focus of the new Enrolment division will be on the college’s strategic positioning through brand management, strengthening student recruitment, advancing enrolment services and using data and analytics to optimize enrolment. The integration of domestic and international marketing, recruitment, enrolment services and institutional analytics will allow for greater synergies and joint efforts to achieve our enrolment goals.
This change also creates more capacity within the Students portfolio, led by Vice-President, Dr. Chris McGrath, to implement key strategies aimed at wholistic student success and student retention, and for the International portfolio, led by Vice President Sean Coote, to continue to pursue opportunities for revenue diversification, including project and contract training initiatives.
With Dr. Marc Nantel’s retirement in Spring 2026, the departments within the Research, Innovation and Strategic Enterprises division will be redistributed among existing portfolios. Research and Government Relations will move to a re-named External Division under Vice President Gord Arbeau upon Marc’s retirement.
We continue work to finalize long-term plans for the existing Vice President, International portfolio and to situate the Niagara College Learning Enterprise Corporation (NCLEC) within an updated Executive Team structure, and I will provide further updates as these plans are finalized in the coming months.
As was shared over the summer, the search for a new Vice President, Academic is well underway and has attracted high-quality candidates from across Canada. This recruitment remains on track and we expect to have a new academic leader in place late this Fall.
The year ahead will be one of continued transformation, as we adjust to renewal and changes in staffing due to retirements and other departures, new organizational structures, new programs, on-campus construction and enrolment shifts. As we forge our own path within a rapidly shifting postsecondary landscape, I have unwavering confidence in our collective ability to support one another and our students, while leveraging our student-focused, welcoming, passionate and trailblazing characteristics.
