Members of Red Deer College's Students' Association are calling for an answer soon as to whether the College will have greater degree-granting abilities in the future. (Supplied)

By Sheldon Spackman and Troy Gillard

Students Seeking Answers

RDC students push province for answers on degrees

Mar 24, 2021 | 4:18 PM

Red Deer College students took to campus on Wednesday to voice their concerns over how long it’s taking for RDC to be given further degree-granting abilities.

Students’ Association President Brittany Lausen says the point of Wednesday’s rally was to bring visibility to an issue RDC students are very passionate about.

“I don’t want government and opposition to get caught up in fighting over whether we should be a university or polytechnic, because at the end of the day RDC students need degrees,” she stressed. “Degree-granting status is what’s going to keep students in central Alberta, keep students at home close to their support systems, their friends. That’s what it’s all about.”

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Lausen says it’s especially tough not knowing when to expect a decision to be announced.

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“If you know how long you’re going to be waiting for, you can do it. Had they given a clear deadline, students would’ve been able to deal with that,” she suggests.

“Students are either having to makes plans to move away or having to change what they’re taking, which becomes a waste of time and money and potentially disappointing when it comes to what they want to do with their lives.”

“Red Deer College’s proposed degrees are currently being reviewed by the Campus Alberta Quality Council, an independent body which examines all proposed degrees and makes a formal recommendation to the Minister of Advanced Education on the proposals,” Taylor Hides, Advanced Education press secretary, said in a statement.

“Minister (Demetrios) Nicolaides has not yet received recommendations from CAQC for RDC’s proposed programs. Pending these approvals, we look forward to working with RDC to see an expansion of their program offerings.”

“People were expecting to have an education degree, especially, here at the college for the fall,” says NDP Advanced Education Critic David Eggen, who attended Wednesday’s rally. “People had made plans for it, and still there’s nothing. So we’re advocating to the minister to get the job done, sign the papers and get the degrees for Red Deer College.”

“I think it’s good that the community hear from the students, as well as the minister and the government. They’ve got an important message that needs to be heard,” said RDC Board Chair Guy Pelletier.

“My sense of it is red tape and some bureaucratic hold-ups. We certainly have had lots of support from the minister and from our local MLAs, so we don’t have any reason to believe that it’s any sort of a permanent change to the plan to have more degrees at the college.”

Pelletier says the timeframe is the college’s biggest challenge and is hopeful a decision will be made ahead of the fall semester.

“The ability to control, design and deliver our own degrees is important to the future of the polytechnic. We can do that now to some degree under the college banner, but it will become a bigger part of our mandate going forward and the five degrees that we have in front of the CAQC at the moment.”