During my time as president of Aurora College, as I was leading the transformation toward becoming a polytechnic university, I’d often have conversations with Northerners around two key questions: What exactly is a polytechnic university and how do polytechnic universities differ from ‘traditional’ universities in Canada?
These are two essential questions which need to be understood well as we proceed down the path toward developing an innovative institution designed for the North.
A polytechnic university in Canada can be thought of as a hybrid between a community college and a traditional university. Whereas a community college typically offers one-year certificate programs and two-year diploma programs (this has changed significantly in Canada over the past two decades, as many community colleges now also offer four-year degrees), a university tends to offer primarily four-year degrees and graduate degrees such as master and doctoral degrees.
And whereas college programs have historically been very applied, experiential, and hands-on in their approach, focusing on addressing ‘real world’ issues within the workforce, traditional universities tend to be primarily theoretical and less focused on applied learning.
So, when you think about college programs, they typically tend to be very applied and focused on the workforce: trades programs, computer technical programs, health programs such as nursing, health care attendant, and allied health etc. University degree programs are often much less career-focused in disciplines such as history, classics, English, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, history in art, and many others.
Now please don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying students can’t get good jobs with these degrees, as indeed, many students do. However, these degrees do not typically have applied, experiential learning focused to the job market which is highly characteristic of college programs.
I’m also quick to point out that this distinction between applied learning at the college level and theoretical learning at the university level is not so ‘black-and-white.’ In reality, universities offer a number of applied, experiential programs, particularly in the professions — for example, teaching, law, nursing, engineering, and medicine. Furthermore, through co-operative learning programs, universities also infuse a high level of ‘real-world learning’ into their programs.
The other big ‘learning piece’ which polytechnic universities typically retain are programs in adult upgrading (or ‘refresher training’), which is what many colleges refer to as Adult Basic Education (ABE). Whereas adult upgrading is a central component to community colleges, traditional universities rarely (if ever) have an upgrading component.
In fact, in my extensive experience with universities and colleges, I cannot think of a single traditional university which offers adult upgrading (Note: this point will become important in a future column as we discuss whether there will be enough qualified students in the North to sustain a polytechnic university).
On the other hand, every single public college of which I’m aware has an adult upgrading program (private colleges are an exception to this statement). So, the upgrading piece is very important to polytechnic universities and is not as relevant to traditional universities.
One of the reasons adult upgrading is important to polytechnic universities, at least in Canada, is that many polytechnic institutions in Canada evolved from community colleges. For example, on Vancouver Island, Malaspina College in Nanaimo became Malaspina University-College in 1989. Almost 20 years later, on Sept. 1, 2008, Malaspina University-College then became Vancouver Island University (VIU).
So as Malaspina College evolved to VIU over a number of decades, it retained its essential college programs, including adult upgrading. Now, as a full-fledged polytechnic university, VIU offers a range of programs including adult upgrading, trades and apprenticeship, technical diplomas, health programs, and degrees (including masters degrees). Similarly, Kwantlen College in the suburbs of Vancouver transitioned to Kwantlen University-College in 1981 and in 2008, became Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), the first formal polytechnic university in Canada.
So polytechnic universities are a hybrid between community colleges and traditional universities in Canada. As a result, they offer a wider array of programing than traditional universities including certificate, diploma, advanced diploma, apprenticeship and trades, degree, and adult upgrading programs. In my next column, I will highlight the distinctive features of polytechnic institutions in Canada and outline which institutions are members of Polytechnics Canada.
If you have any questions or comments about this column, please feel free to email me at nwtpostsecondary@yahoo.com. I’d be happy to have a conversation with you about it.
—Tom Weegar is a post-secondary educational leader who has served six years as president of two colleges in Canada.