JULY 2013
H
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the building’s roof in February 2013, the pro-
posed 36,000-square-foot educational facility
will add about 900 additional students to the
college’s ever-growing full-time enrolment of
more than 9,600 students.
For Durham College, a hub of education that
is listening to the heartbeat of the local in-
dustries in the region and the Greater Toronto
Area, food is both an important part of the col-
lege’s economy and evolving. Tastes are evolv-
ing; science is breaking down conventional
thinking. Hence, matching that innovation and
addressing industry needs and challenges were
paramount when it began exploring expansion
several years ago.
“Industry needs a trained workforce to ex-
pand,” said Don Lovisa, president of Durham
College. “Through on-going discussions we’re
very in tune to what the community needs
across a variety of sectors – including food.”
“As our working population ages, in some sec-
tors, we have to replace those who are retiring
and bring in a new workforce with a different,
possibly more modern skill set [who is] look-
ing at the trends across the continuum of food
production, science and preparation.”
Springing from conversations with horticultur-
al, agricultural, and culinary industries, among
others, the expansion of its campus in Whitby
directly addresses a major concern, an oppor-
tunity that Durham Region has been building
upon many years.
“The other result that came out of [our conver-
sations], though, was really startling for us,”
Lovisa said, “and that was the amount of stu-
dents who were leaving the Durham Region
because the programs they wanted were not
available at Durham College.”
Addressing the brain drain, the multi-year
