COTR faculty made presentations on their recent trips to Ecuador & Africa

College of the Rockies’ Senior Instructional Officer Doug McLachlan is shown in a kanga (a traditional East African garment) with staff from Tanzania’s Mineral Resources Institute. McLachlan was one of five COTR staff who completed consultancies in Tanzania and Ecuador this summer.

Two presentations by College of the Rockies employees about their fascinating experiences in Ecuador and Tanzania will be held on Wednesday, September 22 and 29, 2010. Sponsored by COTR’s International Education and Development Department, these free presentations are open to the public and will take place in the Lecture Theatre (Room 250) at the Cranbrook main campus.

Faculty member Nathalie Lesage spent two weeks in Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, working with COTR’s partner institution the University of Espiritu Santo. Lesage was responsible for developing and delivering workshops and promoting a new jointly-developed program in sustainable community entrepreneurism.

Two other faculty members, Instructor Greg McCallum and Regional Transitions Coordinator Brian Conrad, spent two weeks in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, working with the National College of Tourism on a project entitled SAFARI: Sustainable Activities For A Rising Industry. McCallum and Conrad assisted with labour market analysis and implementing competency-based education techniques into the curriculum.

E-learning specialist/curriculum developer, Gina Bennett, and senior instructional officer, Doug McLachlan, spent two weeks in Dodoma, Tanzania, working with the Mineral Resources Institute on a variety of activities including teaching methodologies and industry advisory committees. This partnership project aims to enhance industry linkages to better prepare graduates for work in Tanzania’s growing mineral sector.

The report on the tourism-based projects in Tanzania and Ecuador will take place on September 22 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. and the mining-based partnership project in Tanzania on September 29 from 3:30 to 4:15 p.m., both in the Lecture Theatre.

These partnership projects in Tanzania and Ecuador are led by College of the Rockies with funding from the Canadian International Development Agency and are managed by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.