(PHOTO: Dr. Tracy Edwards and Kara Flynn speak to the media Friday, February 12. Sarah Anderson. REPORTER. Copyright Rogers Media)
On the same day it confirmed the elimination of as many as 24 full-time jobs Keyano College announced it had selected an interim President and CEO to replace Kevin Nagel who resigned the position on February 2.
Dr. Tracy Edwards will take over as of February 22 and says she has experience dealing with the kinds of financial challenges currently facing the school.
“I’ve done that a number of times, particularly when I went to Lethbridge in 2005, a very similar situation, lots of issues around finances. I worked internally and externally with the community just to set a vision for the organization and make sure that it’s sustainable in terms of going forward and providing the kinds of services that our students and our community want,” Edwards said.
And that is exactly what the board is hoping Edwards can do at Keyano.
“The board’s goal is to have a very strong comprehensive institutional plan or strategy going forward that has Keyano really aligned with the community’s needs,” said Kara Flynn, Chair of the Keyano College Board of Governors. “Our role is to educate the people of this region on the things they want to be educated on.”
She said the college needs to do a lot of work over the next little while to really work with the community as it continues to change to understand what the plan might look like so they can develop a strategy to implement that plan.
Flynn said that could mean changes to the master plan but was clear that central to any plan for growth for the college there would have to be a consideration for expanding student residence capacity.
She said one of the main challenges the school is facing, and the reason they’ve had to eliminate full-time positions, is that the low price of oil is affecting their revenues in every stream and not just in one particular area. That means there is no simple fix to the problems they’re facing.
“There are a number of sources of revenue at the college. Some is government grants, which were reduced a couple years ago, other is business ventures like rentals, and then donations etc.,” Flynn said. There are also tuition fees as part of the revenues but if there isn’t enough interest in a program or course there also isn’t the cost to provide it because it may not be running.
“Quite frankly, all of the revenue streams are down across the board. There’s not one area that’s dramatically down, it’s across all the different revenue streams,” she said.
Flynn said the college was no more exposed to commodity prices than any other government facing institution in the region and said because they had diversified years ago when government grants were cut they were in some ways in a better position. She said the land trust investment made by Keyano will continue to bolster their stability over the long term, though the length of that term has extended.
Both Flynn and Edwards said they were confident the college would be able to make the necessary changes and adaptations to survive the difficult circumstances.
Edwards will be among the names that will be considered as a permanent President and Chief Executive Officer is selected for the college.
Flynn said the process will begin this spring and that the board intends to have decided on who will assume the role permanently before the start of the next academic year.
