Nipissing University is celebrating results from its recent Economic Impact Study.
But this year, the celebration is different. Instead of doing it in a theatre at Nipissing University, the University held the event at City Hall Friday afternoon.
“This has been a long time coming. Our economic impact study took the better part of a year to complete so when the two of them came together we thought, 'why not have an event at city hall that reaches out to our community because after all, that is where we make our impact,'” said Dr. Mike DeGagné, President at Nipissing University.
“We had a lot of good news that was piling up after the results of the Maclean's survey which we were really proud of especially around student services and residence life."
The study indicates that Nipissing University is one of the top three employers in the region, and brings in $130.9 million in annual expenditures to North Bay. DeGagne believes connecting the University to the community through partnerships is a key.
“I know our faculty and certainly our administration is much more involved in the community now, whether it is Nipissing First Nation or the City of North Bay, so the relationship is much stronger,” said DeGagne.
“We have 350 partnerships across the region with different agencies and entities so things have changed and that hill is getting smaller and smaller.”
DeGagne believes the university has done a fine job evolving from a school that was primarily known for its Teachers College.
“There was a time where we had 40 per cent of all of our operations invested in the Teachers College so that was very close to all eggs in one basket. So what we have done is building on the outstanding reputation of the Teachers College. We built on that, added graduate programs, added programs such as social work and other marquis programs such as our outstanding nursing program,” continued DeGagne.
