Academic News

As we complete our academic year for 2013/2014, the Civil staff are realizing all that has been accomplished over the past year. Plenty of hard work, devotion to student success, and drive to provide opportunities for the students’ careers has always been the norm for the Civil staff. This year, however, we see many more rewards for our efforts.

• With the support of many students, the instructors and administration worked to change the name of two of the Civil programs to better describe the education and skill set they provided.
  • The Environmental Protection Technology program has now been renamed Environmental Technology.
  • The Building Design CAD Technology program has now been renamed Building Design Technology.
• June, 2013 saw the first graduating class of the Bachelor of Technology, Construction Management (CMD). These students were Civil diploma graduates who entered in Year 3 of the program.
• June, 2014 will see the inaugural class of students graduate in the Bachelor of Technology, Construction Management (CMD). These students entered Year 1 four years ago when the program first began.
•  A team of third year CMD students tied for first place in the Construction Institute of Canada’s 2014 Student Bid Competition in the “Most Professional” category.
• The Civil First Year class known as January Intake will be no longer. This seventh class (C7) will now join the other six classes of Civil First Years beginning this fall.
• Two Environmental Technology students completed an applied research project which evaluated two innovative wastewater treatment technologies on a Manitoba First Nation community. This was part of a feasibility study for establishing a Water Education and Technology Center at RRC.
• Water and Wastewater school:  2014 marked the transfer of responsibility for running the annual school from the Continuing Education Department to the Civil Engineering Technology Department.

This is only a glimpse of the activities, accomplishments, and changes that are happening in the Civil Engineering Department. Over time we will be sharing even more through future posts. We would  like to invite graduates and industry to offer articles and items to share.

Today! Feed your body and mind!

Come by the Library hallway from 12:00 to 1:00 TODAY (Monday May 12th and Friday May 16th) for a pizza lunch and poster display as we celebrate National Nursing Week.

See what it is nursing faculty and students do in the preparation of knowledgeable, competent and caring health professionals!

Come check out the booths, information, and displays reflecting the positive impacts nurses make on the lives and well-being of Canadians.

Scholarly writing is a crucial component in the advancement of scholarship in the nursing profession. The grading process for scholarly papers can be one of the most time consuming roles of nursing instruction, creating a wide range of frustrations and rewards. In assigning scholarly papers, students are asked to juggle multiple domains of learning at various levels of thinking: research skills, interpretation and understanding of facts and knowledge, analysis and synthesis, writing competence, creativity, acknowledgement of sources, and correct application of a style guide such as APA format. The role of grader demands an instructor then places a value on the students’ implementation of these multifaceted skills in the form of a percentage and/or letter grade, and provide narrative feedback to promote further development of the student’s writing skills. Receiving this feedback can be an emotional experience for the student.

This presentation was shared among Nursing educators from all over Western Canada at the WNRCASN conference, held at the Fort Garry Hotel, Winnipeg MB on Feb 19-21st, 2014. It was hosted by Red River College, Nursing Department.

The demonstration utilized examples from student work to illustrate the quickest method of evaluating student writing and providing meaningful, concise feedback.

A Presentation from WNRCASN

By Kim Mitchell RN MN

Nursing Instructor

Annual Cooperating Teacher Appreciation Dinner

Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Registration and pre-dinner mingle
Time: 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Place: Selkirk Lounge (located across from the Voyageur)

Program begins: 5:00 p.m.
Dinner to follow.
Place: Voyageur Dining Room
Building A – Notre Dame Campus

By invitation, R.S.V.P. Monique Pishak, mlpishak@rrc.ca, to receive a parking pass.

Provincial Teaching Excellence Award 2013-14

Donald Nikkel Industrial Arts Teacher Education Alumni 2007 recently received the Teaching Excellence Award- Senior Years 2013-14.

To read further of Donald’s accomplishments follow the links below.

Minister’s Award Recipients 2013-2014
News article Interlake Enterprise
Interlake Today article
Timber Frame Outdoor Education Classroom

Welcome to Journey North

In collaboration with eTV and Health Canada, members of River College Faculty of Nursing produced Journey North: A Virtual Nursing Experience. Journey North is an interactive tour of a Health Canada nursing station located on Bloodvein First Nation in northern Manitoba. The project, initially supported by a Program Innovation Fund (PIF) authored by Nancy Ball and Kim Fraser, was developed “to create a virtual community that will invite the millennial nursing student to explore, discover and understand the role of a Community Health Nurse in a remote/rural health care setting that is not geographically available to students in the RRC Nursing program” (PIF application, 2012/2013).

The Faculty of Nursing, eTV and Health Canada are all excited for the potential of this project as well as future endeavors and partnerships in interactive learning environments. Please click on the image below to view the project.

Please join us for Nursing Week Celebrations in the Library Hallway 

Monday May 12th and Friday May 16th from 12:00 to 1:00 

for a Pizza Fundraiser Lunch and displays

as we celebrate National Nursing Week

plus                                                               

Lunch Hour Friday May 2nd

Students and faculty are invited to come practice your painting/art skills! Please stop by from 12:00-1:00 Friday, May 2nd in the library hallway to help paint 3 or 4 Large Banners and sandwich boards to put up across doorways in Mall level halls and to distribute around the campus.

Karen Wall, the Chair of the Nursing Department, is set to retire at the end of the month. A college-wide retirement reception was held in her honour on April 4th with many past and present co-workers, friends and family in attendance. Colleagues from near and far were in attendance from the WRHA, University of Manitoba, St. Boniface University, The Advisory Committee, CRNM, and David Gregory, the past Dean of the Nursing Department at the University of Manitoba. Karen has led the nursing department at Red River College for over 15 years, although she has been a part of the department for over 35 years. She will be sadly missed by all who had the pleasure of working with and for Karen, as she demonstrated grace, compassion and professionalism in her role as the head of the nursing department. Karen will leave a legacy in her departure, including seeing the first-ever Nursing Degree class graduate from Red River College this past year.

Everyone at the college wishes Karen a wonderful retirement, including taking much deserved time for herself and pursuing personal opportunities. Enjoy Karen! You will be missed.

( Pictures by Leslie Walsh)

Bernie Taronno along with his Intro to Construction Class 2014 take a break from building garden sheds.

Red River College, Nursing Department staff and students participated in a Mock disaster.

In September 2013, the Manitoba Health, Office of Disaster Management conducted a mock evacuation of a 75 bed acute care hospital, as well as a 30 bed personal care home from a Northern Health Region in MB.

This was a large, cooperative exercise involving 189 individuals from 62 separate stakeholder groups. Third year RRC nursing students (seen in grey uniforms) and faculty; Lillian Mugweni and Alison Fyfe-Carlson, had an opportunity to practice skills of triage, disaster management and communication with other health departments in the development of an Interim Medical Treatment Facility (IMTF).

An IMTF is a temporary facility that is created to receive a large amount of patients, triage them and provide care while they wait to be placed in an appropriate facility within the health care system.

MB Health considered all of the feedback from stakeholders and developed an “After Action Report/Improvement Plan”.  MB Health plans to look at other collaborative IMTF exercises such as a Trauma Event Scenario in the future.

This was an excellent learning opportunity for RRC Nursing students and faculty.

Active triage