Opening of the DARE District

Posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2018

Prepared Speaking notes for Cheryl Jensen

President and CEO, Algonquin College

Event: Opening of the DARE District (May 3, 2018)

Good morning, everyone. Bonjour. Kwe.

In the days leading up to this event, a number of people have been wondering why we chose today, May 3^rd, to mark this very special occasion.

The truth is, that in a year when we have been celebrating the birth of our College, we also wanted to recognize our history.

It was a little more than half a century ago, on May 3, 1965, that the Ontario Vocational Centre, Ottawa, — the precursor of Algonquin College — officially opened.

Just to put this in perspective, this was the same year that the Queen issued a royal proclamation to make the Maple Leaf our national flag. Trans-Canada Airlines became Air Canada. And the Montreal Canadiens won their thirteenth Stanley Cup (so you can see times have changed!).

Today, we are celebrating this history and, in opening our new DARE District, we are also celebrating a future that is filled with possibility. Here, in the present, we are ready to pursue those possibilities and dare to make them a reality.

You know, when I addressed everyone at our groundbreaking ceremony nearly two years ago, I quoted one of my favourite authors — Dr. Seuss.

So, in the interests of symmetry (and another excuse to work Dr. Suess into a speech!), I want to remind you of the line from the musical, Seussical:

Think

and wonder

and dream —
Far and wide

as you dare!

The DARE District is a place to wonder, to dream and, of course, to dare.

More than that, it is a place where the dreams of our learners will take flight.

Some of you, our guests, may be learning about DARE for the first time today, so let me assure you that you will be hearing lots more about it in the future, especially if you own or manage a business in the National Capital region.

That’s because many of our graduates will be working for and with you — and they will have acquired and honed their knowledge in this incredible facility that has been two years in the making.

Right now, you are standing in our beautiful new library — wired for the latest in high-tech learning — everything from digital-literacy labs and student-learning centres to help students with their math and computer skills, to studios for multimedia presentations. On the lower floors – including where the library used to be — we are also creating areas specifically geared toward exploration: a makerspace area that will allow students to get their hands on the latest technology and a business incubation centre that will be like no other.

So much of learning is about discovery, and our DARE District has created the space for that to happen.

With that in mind, let me introduce you to the acronym and the principles that make it meaningful.

DARE stands for Discovery, Applied Research, and Entrepreneurship.

In choosing the DARE District, we are saying something about what we hope this exciting new building will become. And, we are making a profound statement about who we are as a College.

DARE wonderfully captures the purpose of Algonquin College. Our mission. To transform hopes and dreams into lifelong success.

“Discovery” naturally implies “learning” and “innovation.”

“Applied research” is certainly a suitable description of the purpose of a polytechnic institution, which is what we are. And involves our learners with business and industry, working on real-world projects.

As for “entrepreneurship,” we are committed to instilling an entrepreneurial mindset throughout the College — in our students and our employees.

In a nutshell, the College is dedicated to educating learners in innovative research that has entrepreneurial applications in the real world — and around the world.

Now, words such as “innovation” and “entrepreneurship” have become buzzwords in the worlds of education, business, and politics.

Everybody — politicians, corporate leaders, school boards, and, yes, college presidents like myself — toss them out in response to questions about how best to create a prosperous society and help people lead a fulfilling life.

Part of my job is to champion the College’s innovation agenda and its efforts to embed entrepreneurial thinking in our learners and employees. And I accept this part of my job with great pride.

But what does this mean? Do we use concepts like “innovation” and “entrepreneurship” too readily without considering what they mean and why they are important to us?

The American technology consultant Michael O’Bryan wrote some years ago in WIRED magazine, “the overuse and generalization of the term ‘innovation’ has led to a loss of understanding of what it is we need when we say we need more innovation.”

If so, then we need “to be innovative about our use of the word innovation”— to borrow O’Bryan’s phrase.

I wanted to make sure that our centre means something to you. I wanted to make sure that Algonquin was contributing to the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ottawa — not trying to do what others were already doing. We needed to find our niche.

So, we started a President’s Advisory panel as this space was under construction, in the very early stages. I asked Terry Matthews — all of you here know that name — to co-chair the panel with me, and he did. He also helped to bring some thought leaders to the table — Peter Charbonneau, Michael Turner, Paul LaBarge, to name a few. And we recruited Blair Patacairk, and Valerie Fox — founder of the Digital Media Zone at Ryerson University and an Algonquin graduate. And Michael Turner, Vice President, System Strategies at Wesley Clover International, is here today.

What I learned from this group through the many sessions — and many iterations of our thoughts as we brought back to the group the suggestions and ideas they shared with us — was that leadership was really at the heart of entrepreneurship. Leadership was a critical component of successful startup companies to go to the next step and become a small- to medium-size enterprise — so needed in Canada. Our shortage is not in startups — it is in startups becoming sustainable businesses. And I want to take this opportunity to thank the Federal Government for the launch announced just last week of a new IP strategy removing barriers to innovation and protecting Canadian intellectual property.

Leadership is also a critical component of Algonquin’s journey along this new “thing” of our role in the city — city-building, I call it.

And so, we needed to be courageous and stand for something. That is when we knew — and the panel supported — that our role is to create an entrepreneurial mindset in each one of our learners — to give them the skills they need to start their own business — or to work for someone like they own the business — like the livelihood of their colleagues depends on them. That is what we plan on doing at Algonquin. Thanks, Terry, through Michael, for your thought leadership.

This brings me back to Algonquin College, which, as I mentioned is ending a year of 50^th anniversary celebrations, culminating in a grand gala later this evening.

Born in Canada’s centennial year, the College now boasts approximately 25,000 full-time and 41,000 part-time learners — all of them adventurous spirits encouraged from the moment they walk through our doors to achieve synergies of “innovation” and entrepreneurship.

Consider some of the daring efforts of our learners and employees:

• This past year, our students won gold, silver and bronze medals at skilled trade and technology competitions. They’re off to compete again this weekend and we know they will make Algonquin proud.
• One of our alumni won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for animation work he did as part of the Disney team that created the movie Zootopia.
• Last summer we partnered with a local tech company to help save the world’s honeybee population by developing a device that allows us to view the life of a productive hive.
• We recently started our first-ever clinical trial so our students could contribute to efforts to unlock the mysteries of dementia.
• Our learners have created 3D simulators that can transport you to other virtual dimensions — including a full tour of our new DARE District, long before the doors had even opened.
• Our New Data Analytics Centre will harness the power of big data. This new centre alone will be a crucial player in the growing innovation ecosystem in Ottawa and Eastern Ontario. Organizations seeking support with big-data technologies now have a new resource and a partner in the College.
• Just this past year, Algonquin expanded its relationship with the Ottawa Hospital, working together to facilitate the development of mutually beneficial linkages in digital health, clinical trials and biotherapeutics manufacturing. Just a few days ago, the Hospital opened its new mLab, right here on campus.
• Recently, Algonquin College was the only Canadian finalist for the prestigious U.S. National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship Award, which honours entrepreneurial thinkers and doers in order to highlight the role colleges play in fostering economic vitality in their communities. And I’m proud to say that, three days ago, we won. And earlier this week we also won the Experiential Learning Employer Excellence Award from the Council for Experiential Learning, a testament to our commitment and belief in hands-on learning.

And, not to be forgotten, there is this — our new DARE District, a state-of-the-art facility that will become the heart of our College.

Clearly, Algonquin College is a thriving, driving, innovating place.

And I hope the examples I’ve offered of that spirit lends some context to those abstract concepts of “innovation” and “entrepreneurship.”

But I would be remiss if I did not mention another area where the College is a serious innovator.

The College — which is located on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people — has made a commitment to make Indigenous traditions and culture an integral part of its institutional fabric.

We think of this as a matter of moral innovation, as well as moral obligation.

Indigenous culture will be a thread that runs through the DARE District, and also through all of our campuses. It will touch every learner, employee, and visitor to Algonquin College.

We must accept nothing less — Indigenization is something that we carry in our name, that we aspire to in our everyday work, and that we must honour as part of our unwavering promise to seek Truth and Reconciliation.

I cannot think of a worthier example of the continued relevance — and importance — of the concept of innovation.

But Indigenization, like the concept of innovation, reflects something that educators have come to recognize more and more — the need to “empower” learners as well as educators.

It is commonplace to acknowledge that when children begin school they are, more often than not, full of curiosity, bundles of questions, always wanting to know. All too often, though, this innate desire to know — this spiritedness — fades away during their school years.

The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says it well: “We go to school for twelve or more years during our childhoods and early adulthoods, and then we’re done,” he writes. “But when the pace of change gets this fast, the only way to retain a lifelong working capacity is to engage in lifelong learning.”

We at Algonquin College agree. Parents, teachers, the education system: We all need to keep the flame of curiosity — the source of innovation — burning.

You may have noticed that I have used the word “learners” rather than “students.”

Our reasoning on this is straightforward: In using the word “learners” we emphasize the notion that the best kind of education is one that involves all of us, not just “students.”

An education is not simply a matter of teachers imparting knowledge to students, but of empowering students to take ownership of their education — and to feed the spark that ignites their own passion for learning.

Not only are empowered learners less dependent on teachers to “hand over” knowledge, they learn to be innovative in seeking knowledge and skills that will give their lives meaning and purpose over the course of a lifetime.

Or, as our College’s mission statement has it, as we guide them, they learn to “transform hopes and dreams into lifelong success.”

We like to think it is a daring mission.

Thank you. Miigwetch.

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