Excitement for a few new buildings being opened this year, and the potential upcoming announcement regarding their degree granting status, were a couple of the key messages delivered at the second annual State of the College Address at Red Deer College.

Chair of the RDC Board Morris Flewweling is confident the college will achieve that status, even though they have been turned down for it twice in the past.

“This whole idea of having an opportunity for students to remain in Red Deer to finish their education, and then to stay in Red Deer and serve and enrich the community is really key, and I think they get it this time. I’m not getting any negative vibrations at all. I remain hopeful that we will have another party this like this very soon.”

President and CEO of RDC Joel Ward says obtaining accreditation would benefit the entire province. 

“There’s an economic argument, there’s an argument for keeping kids closer to home if that’s their choice, it’s about opportunities to start businesses in our region and to attract business. Because as Amazon proved when they looked at Canada and looked at Calgary, they said we need a certain type of workforce, and we don’t know that you could provide it. We need to be able to be in any kind of game to attract the kinds of business and industry to Central Alberta, because we have a trained workforce that can support them.”

He says they hope to hear about accreditation sometime soon, as all the proper paperwork has been on the provinces desk since the end of 2017.

Between the new environmental lab, the new residence building, and the new Gary W. Harris Games Centre, RDC has over $118 million worth of construction projects opening this year, along with being the host village for the 2019 Canada Winter Games.