RBC donates $50,000 to Arctic College
Donation is final instalment
of $150,000 toward accounting program
by Candace Thomson
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, July 30, 2014
RANKIN INLET
Nunavut Arctic College got its last financial boost from RBC Royal Bank on July 17 with a $50,000 donation toward the college's accounting programs.
Mike Shouldice, president of the college, accepted the cheque from Stan Anderson, Rankin Inlet's RBC branch manager and senior executive from the bank's operations in the North during a very brief stopover by the senior staff.
A group of senior staff from RBC Royal Bank were in Rankin Inlet July 17 and presented Arctic College with $50,000. This was the final instalment of a $150,000 donation toward the college's accounting program. In the photo is Jennifer Tory, group head of the RBC Commercial and Personal bank, left, Rankin Inlet branch manager Stan Anderson, Sheena Woodford, customer service representative, Jeff Boyd, regional president of RBC for Alberta and the NWT, Rachel Morrison, account manager for RBC Cambridge Bay, Zellie Roy, customer service representative, Jeff Fowler, Michael Shouldice, president of Nunavut Arctic College and Jason Brown. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo |
"This is a three-year project that the bank initially started with us in discussion," Shouldice said. "We've partnered with the (Government of Nunavut's) municipal training organization and found a university partner, Grant MacEwan University. With them we're changing our two-year diploma in management studies, putting a financial focus on it and transferring that into Grant McEwan's co-op program."
The $50,0000 donation was the final instalment in a three-year commitment by RBC to donate $150,000 toward the pilot program, a three-year applied bachelor of business administration (in accounting), which will allow students to get a degree in accounting while staying in their community or at the very least in Nunavut.
"We can run that in any community literally because the wherewithal is easy," Shouldice said. "They take one year of coursework with Grant MacEwan and one year of a co-op and they gain that degree from the university. So we've used that to build capacity within the college and it's a great investment on the part of the RBC and the municipal training organization."
Shouldice said the program will contribute to building financial management capacity and resources by training Nunavummiut for management and professional occupations within the public and private sectors. The courses will provide the management studies students the necessary requisites for accounting leading to the course work at Grant MacEwan.
"There's well over 100 jobs in the GN, for people in accounting positions, finance officers and the way up so with the degree it allows us the root into the CGA certification," Shouldice said. "It's another avenue and we've built capacity in the college because of this so we have a certificate that's post-diploma and then that's just the accounting focus. There's some accounting in our management studies program but this really gives us the focus of 10 full-credit courses that we need."
So far the pilot project is putting nine students through the program, and once it breaks out of the pilot stage it will be offered in other communities.
Jeff Fowler, regional manager for the bank's operations in the North, said the partnership with the college was a fine one.
"RBC is very proud to be part of the community and support the people who live here and our staff as well," he said.
Anderson said the local branch was proud to contribute to the project.
"We like to partner with the college specifically on this accounting program, that was kind of the specifics of that, but we do a lot of other things with Arctic College too," he said. "We visit them in the fall and throughout the year give presentations to incoming students to talk about banking, or their business management class to talk about different things so we have a lot of interaction with them."
"They have good people on the ground and they've been a good resource for us back and forth, they've wanted to support this project," Shouldice said.
"They have a number of funding levels, and training money they're investing back into the communities. It's been a great partnership."
