Durham College’s (DC) Photography and Video Production programs have partnered with the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (RMG) to produce a student-led exhibition of visual images captured throughout Durham Region. Currently on display at the RMG in the Thomas Bouckley Corridor, the collection is the cumulative work of 32 first-year students who were carefully selected from a pool of 79 submissions.

Spearheaded by K. Jennifer Bedford, professor, School of Media, Art and Design, planning for this partnership and resulting exhibition first began three years ago, well before the pandemic started.

“Images are such powerful communication tools that can help challenge our way of thinking and engage in emotional, meaningful conversations,” says Bedford. “I am so proud of what the students accomplished and how they applied their technical knowledge to create photographs that explore a personal connection to the community.”

In this work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunity, students were asked to explore photovoice, a process in which participants capture their lived experience to share perspectives with others. The results displayed similar shared themes, such as dealing with the effects of COVID, empty streets and paths, and the perspectives of newcomers to Durham Region.

“Our school went into the partnership with the Robert McLaughlin Gallery hoping the experience would teach our students new skills that would help them tell their stories,” says Greg Murphy, dean, School of Media, Art and Design. “When you look at the collection, it’s clear that this exercise has developed the students’ personal photography styles and helped them become leaders as future Canadian artists.”

Congratulations to the following DC student photographers whose work was included in the curated exhibition on display.

Jayde Duhn	Michael Mlynarczyk
Stuart Foster	Erik Smith
Jacqueline Woods	Emilie Maltais
Kayleigh Algar	Brooke Warner
Jaden Howson-Visser	Natasha Miles
Bryanna Fudge	Aaron McInnes
Jacey Boyer	Norbert Turoczi
Kyle Mercieca	Jay Kruetzmann
Rebecca Otto	Ekansh Yakhmi
Taylor Will	Montana Budd-Haynes
Jacobin Mathews	Sartaj Singh
Logan James	Patrick Chayer
Robyn McGrenere	Aaron Lagler
Jonathan Miller	David Dixon
Cameron McNeely	Eva Modica
Liam McManus	Dejah Wocker

 

DC would like to thank the RMG for its ongoing support of our aspiring artists, with special thanks to Sonya Jones, curator of collections, RMG, who helped bring the partnership to fruition. With community partners like the RMG, DC students are afforded every opportunity to flourish and grow into the leaders of tomorrow.

Please visit the onsite student display at the RMG, available for viewing until June 12. You are also welcome to view the exhibition online. It features photographs from all 79 students who participated in the project.

Durham College (DC) is proud to share that eight students achieved victory at the 2022 Virtual Skills Ontario Competition on May 4, bringing home seven medals, including five gold, one silver and one bronze. Virtual for the second year in a row, the competition and Career Exploration Showcase welcomed thousands of elementary, secondary and post-secondary attendees to discover new skilled trade and technology careers, while students competed against one another in categories from numerous fields.

The winning students include:

• Holly White – Silver – Aesthetics
• Yasmin Parhizi – Gold – Aesthetics
• Abigayle Hamilton and Emma Pace – Gold – Horticulture & Landscape
• Daniel Hinbest – Gold – Coding Programming
• Jared Toomey – Gold – IT Network Systems Administrations
• Christopher Santoli – Gold – Photography
• Owen Jackson – Bronze – Photography

“Our students continuously impress us with their talent, determination and commitment to their crafts, and this competition is no different,” said Dr. Elaine Popp, executive vice president, Academic. “From capturing moments in time as art, to writing complicated code for programming, these students are leading the way in their own right. We are proud of them for using the skills they’ve learned at Durham College to fuel their passion and find success.”

Good luck to the students who will represent DC and Ontario in the 27th Annual Skills Canada National Competition to be held in Vancouver from Thursday, May 26 to Friday, May 27.

Skills Ontario is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of skilled trades and technologies as viable, first-choice career options for Ontario youth through programs and initiatives such as provincial skills competitions.

Durham College’s (DC) Project Management students took home first place in the Ontario Project Management Competition (OPMC). Held in collaboration with the Project Management Institute, this annual event is an opportunity to develop and advance project management (PM) practices. Students must have an above-average understanding of best PM practices and methods, and the ability to apply their learnings in an innovative setting in order to compete.

“We are very proud of the work achieved by Durham College’s Project Management faculty and students,” says Reza Mofid, professor, School of Business, IT & Management. “We’ve competed twice in this event, and our students have won both times. This kind of success reaffirms the fact that our school is preparing exceptional leaders for the future of this industry.”

This year’s DC team consisted of PM students Lauren Breen, Diana Pena Orjuela, Andrea Zuluaga, Jaisleen Kaur and Roshan Kottary. The team created Project MEPHY Health, a combined mental and physical health application with a built-in algorithm to check measurement and placement of a person’s body while correcting posture issues. As part of the OPMC requirements, the application was evaluated on how well PM principles were used to plan and deliver the project. It also had to satisfy the Health UN Sustainability factor, which encourages students to consider protection of the environment and our planet.

“With the help of Durham College’s Project Management faculty serving as our mentors, our team started our application concept, which we had to submit in January for approval to compete,” says Jaisleen Kaur, Project Management student. “From there, we had to meet identified requirements and submit the complete application to a judges’ review panel. On the day of the competition, our team had twenty minutes to present our project and ten minutes to answer questions from the judges. It was an exciting experience to have as our first competition!”

In recognition of their win, the OPMC awarded the team a cash prize, which the students have generously donated to the Canadian Cancer Society.

DC congratulates the winning students on their success and thanks the PM faculty for leading our students to meet their fullest potential.

Last year, Durham College (DC) received funding from Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning (CEWIL) Canada and its Innovation Hub (iHub) for two unique work-integrated learning (WIL) projects. Funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Initiative (I-WIL), iHub is a program dedicated to developing career-ready students through quality WIL experiences.

The first project, led by Dr. Michael Williams-Bell, a professor in the School of Health & Community Services, provided four Fitness and Health Promotion students the opportunity to implement a unique assessment and training program for Ontario Tech University’s Varsity athletes to monitor their training, injury risk and recovery.

The DC students administered weekly and monthly fitness assessments that were approved by supervisors, team coaches, and the head strength and conditioning coach at Ontario Tech University and assisted with exercise prescription delivery. This provided a unique opportunity for DC students to learn from established professionals while interacting with the student-athletes to build relationships around trust and outcome goals. The project culminated in a final guest speaker event in November 2021 with professional athletes and strength and conditioning coaches sharing their experiences and answering questions.

In the second iHub project, co-led by Dr. Williams-Bell and Danielle Harder, a professor in the School of Media, Art & Design, three students from the Journalism – Mass Media program and two students from the Fitness and Health Promotion program collaborated to create six episodes of a new podcast called Research Remix.

The episodes provided a behind-the-scenes look at research projects underway at DC while also following a multi-year research project with the City of Oshawa Fire Services to give listeners a glimpse into the lifespan and impact of an applied research project. At the end of the project, students were invited to three intimate speaker series events. The first in December featured Sandra Appiah and Imman Adan from the Dishes and Dimes podcast, where they learned more about podcasting as a career and a way to support their own personal and professional brand. In February, Jordan Heath-Rawlings of The Big Story podcast spoke, while the March 16 event featured two popular climate change podcasters – Laura Lynch of CBC’s What on Earth and Shaghayegh Tajvidi of the National Observer’s Race Against Climate Change.

These two projects are significant examples of how WIL helps students develop hands-on skills in a supportive and educational environment. As part of DC’s commitment to providing unique experiential learning opportunities, WIL has been a vital part of DC’s framework for decades, embedded as a formal component in many of the college’s programs of study.

Durham College (DC) once again connected its students with the world through its Working Across Borders (WAB) course during the fall 2021 semester. Open to students studying in DC’s business programs, WAB allows learners to virtually engage and collaborate with other institutions globally, as teams collaborate to develop sustainable business solutions for real clients.

In its fifth year being offered at DC, 163 students from the college’s International Business Management and Project Management graduate certificate programs worked as part of multi-national teams with fellow participants from 14 other post-secondary institutions in countries such as Indonesia, Slovenia, Finland, Ghana and Belgium.

Following an opening ceremony in the early fall, each multinational group acted as consultants for Dutch fashion brand Garcia, where they were tasked with developing a sustainable value proposition, as well as a plan for how to effectively communicate with target audiences in one of the countries the company serves.

Because WAB encourages students to explore business opportunities to achieve the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals as part of their work, a special focus of the project was to enhance consumer perceptions of True Pricing, which reflects a product’s market price plus the social and environmental costs associated with that item.

Each team presented their final work via video pitch at the beginning of December 2021 and was assessed based on self-and-peer evaluation, as well as feedback provided by their team coach. Overall, the experience provided students with hands-on experiential learning, while developing their intercultural awareness and communication skills.

Congratulations to these DC students on their incredible success!

Durham College (DC) is proud to share that Dave Palachik, a part-time professor in the Electronics Engineering Technology program, was awarded with a gold medal in the Software Invention category at the 6th Annual International Invention Innovation Competition for his Quantum Resilient Encryption cybersecurity solution.

Organized by the Toronto International Society of Innovation & Advanced Skills, the competition saw 652 inventions submitted by competitors from more than 70 countries worldwide within a diverse selection of categories, from bicycle improvements and EEG brain wave detection, to diagnostic medical bandages and more. Gold medal winners were judged by a Board of Advisors and judges from organizations across the globe.

Palachik’s Quantum Resilient Encryption will have real-world application to help prevent super-machines and new Quantum computers from decoding transmitted data.

Congratulations to Palachik on this exemplary award!

For more information on the Electronics Engineering Technology program, please visit www.durhamcollege.ca/ELTY.

Over the course of the pandemic, FastStartDC has continued to support Durham College’s (DC) student entrepreneurs to find novel ways to bring their business ideas to life. Despite the challenges, our students have demonstrated innovative thinking, discovering inspiration within themselves, their personal experiences and from each other.

DC alumna Erin Malcolm is a graduate of the DC’s Entrepreneurship and Small Business program and a shining example of how our students have turned innovative ideas into viable businesses during uncertain times. Erin started her academic program knowing that she wanted to enhance her skillset while building a business that would allow her to leverage her creative energy for good in order to help others. What wasn’t quite as clear for Erin was what form her new enterprise would take.

“Entrepreneurship has always been a part of who I am and how I relate to the world,” says Erin. “I have always craved independence and I know that I am really creative and possess a wildly vivid imagination.”

What Erin didn’t know at the time was how the things she learned in her program at DC, combined with the free entrepreneurship supports available through FastStartDC and the inspiring faculty and staff she met along the way, would allow her to graduate with an incorporated business, She Wolf Inc., and launch two sub-businesses by the end of 2021 and a third slated for 2022.

The FastStartDC team provided Erin with the support to build a viable business model and long-term strategic plan and helped guide her through the launch process to tell her unique story through her branding and marketing.

“The mentorship I received was irreplaceable, and the connections I was able to make will be invaluable as I continue to grow my business. My only regret is that I didn’t start working with FastStart sooner.”

As a DC student, Erin was able to take advantage of the many services offered through FastStart. At no cost to her business, she received logo and branding support, website development, photography, videography, postcard and workbook design and social media strategies and templates.

“FastStart was instrumental in the development of the She Wolf Inc. brand and all that comes along with it.” says Erin. “FastStart helped bring my vision to life by listening to who I wanted to serve, and how I wanted to serve them, and then helping to express that through the many layers of my brand.”

In addition to She Wolf Inc., Erin’s experiences starting and running a small business helped her identify opportunities and address gaps in the market.

Erin’s Methodically Yours is a consulting business that provides small enterprises with a variety of services so owners can focus on growth. These services include bookkeeping, digital marketing (social media, email marketing, blog posts), graphic design, copy writing, customer relationship management and employee onboarding supports.

As a way to give back, Erin also launched Whole Hearted Coaching. As the creator and chief coach behind The Whole Hearted Coaching program, Erin is building on her first-hand experience with emotional healing and seeks to share this insight with women all over the world who are in need. The Whole Hearted Coaching program is designed for women who are feeling burned out, uninspired, anxious, depressed, or directionless. The program includes mindfulness, emotion regulation, finding your “spark”, connecting to your future self, cleaning house from the inside out, and learning how to set clear goals and a path for moving forward. To ensure every young woman in Canada that desires to participate in the program has access to it, Erin started the Whole Hearted Coaching Program Scholarship Fund that aims to help women facing financial barriers participate in the coaching program.

Without a doubt, Erin is a DC alumna to watch. Her passion to give back and support women in need is admirable. The team at FastStart wishes Erin well and is excited to watch her businesses flourish as she makes a meaningful impact in the world.

Students enrolled in Durham College’s (DC) Global Issues: Extremism and Trafficking course had an opportunity to address a real-life issue when they were asked to create an appeal poster to attract the attention of a human trafficking victim and provide vital contact information for immediate assistance.

The campaign was designed to encourage students to apply their newly developed skills in graphics software while considering the issue of human trafficking in their community. Led by Murray Rose, professor, School of Justice & Emergency Services (JES), and former investigator with the Durham Regional Police Services Human Trafficking Unit, the project’s final component asked students to present their posters to an expert panel of members of the college community and external partners, including:

• Joanne Spicer, associate dean, JES
• Yvonne Armstrong, program co-ordinator, Advanced Law Graduate Certificate program, JES
• Jeff Tucker, constable, Durham Regional Police Services and former investigator in the Human Trafficking Unit
• Laura Burch, manager, Bethesda House
• Darlene Rosa, chief operating officer, Timea’s Cause Inc.
• Jenna Peace, student chair person, Durham College Student Association and graduate, School of Media, Art & Design

“As a panelist, it was incredibly rewarding to witness the level of student engagement on this project,” said Joanne Spicer, associate dean, JES. “By fostering their creative voices, the students proved how innovation and analytical thinking can effectively be used in their future careers to make a positive impact in their community.”

After a difficult deliberation, the panel was able to narrow it down to two finalists, Robyn Leger and Julie Potapinski, both post-graduate certificate students in the Advanced Law Enforcement and Investigations program. As the finalists, Robyn and Julie collaborated to create a combined final poster.

“By working together with experts in the field of anti-trafficking, we can improve the experiential learning of Durham College students entering the field of law enforcement,” said Murray. “Collaborations like these continue to help bring awareness to this important cause, and strengthen the unique student experience offered at Durham College.”

After four years of teaching the course, Murray hopes to continue partnering with local organizations, such as Bethesda House, a shelter that facilitates care for domestic violence and human trafficking victims, and Timea’s Cause Inc., an organization dedicated to assisting survivors of human trafficking, to build on the momentum of the poster campaign and further enhance the course’s innovative training opportunities.

Artwork created by Durham College (DC) students was recently featured by the City of Oshawa during in its Culture Days, which took place virtually and in recreation centres across the city from September 24 to October 26.

Held annually each September, Culture Days is a national celebration of arts and culture, promoting and fostering meaningful connections between creators and the public, while highlighting the importance of artistic and cultural practices. This year’s theme, Re:Imagine, inspired creators to conceptualize a post-pandemic world and how we can each contribute to that picture being brighter.

Developed as part of the TeachingCity initiative – a collaboration between the City of Oshawa and its education and research partners to address urban issues – students from the Journalism – Mass Media and Personal Support Worker programs in the 2019-20 academic year collaborated to interview a selection of older adults from the Oshawa Senior Community Centres (OSCC55+). The interviews were then interpreted by Fine Arts students in DC’s Community Collaborations course, and recently installed throughout Oshawa as part of the city’s Culture Days.

Virtual exhibitions are available for viewing online. For more information about Oshawa’s Culture Days, visit oshawa.ca/culturedays. To learn more about Culture Days in Canada, visit culturedays.ca/en