Niagara College is looking forward to welcoming prospective students back to its campuses this March for Spring Open House.

The College will host students at both the Welland Campus and the Daniel J. Patterson Campus in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Saturday, March 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It’s the first time in two years that NC has been able to invite prospective students on-campus for the event; the last in-person Open House took place in the Fall of 2019 before the onset of the pandemic.

“We are thrilled to be opening our campus doors to future students at our Spring Open House,” said Niagara College President Sean Kennedy, who will split his time interacting with guests at both campuses. “The event gives students a window into our world-class learning environments, a feel for our highly sought-after programs and a chance to experience the welcoming nature of our college community.”

Students who register and attend Spring Open House will be eligible for a chance to win a $3,000 NC tuition credit for Fall 2022, January 2023 or May 2023. Visa gift cards will also be up for grabs for students who attend program information sessions, scheduled throughout the day and hosted by academic representatives from NC’s Schools of Study.

“Open House is the centrepiece of our annual recruitment activities,” said Dorita Pentesco, NC’s Director of Marketing and Student Recruitment. “Niagara College has so much to offer and we’re excited to welcome prospective students on campus so that they can envision their future in one of our 130 quality programs.”

For guests with questions about student life and supports, staff from the College’s comprehensive student service areas will be present to provide information. Participating areas will include Residence, Enrolment Services, Admissions and Financial Aid, Health Wellness and Accessibility Services, Career Services and more. Representatives from NC’s Student Administrative Council, including President Sam Jemison, will also be on hand to answer questions and help provide a warm welcome to future NC Knights.

During the event, the NC experience will be on full display. Campus tours will offer attendees a first-hand look at the College’s innovative labs and award-winning student spaces, while interactive displays and demonstrations from program areas will highlight the hands-on learning that NC is known for. Visitors will be able to sample culinary treats created by the Canadian Food and Wine Institute, experience welding and automotive demonstrations from the School of Trades, see video production in action from students in the School of Media and so much more.

In Niagara-on-the-Lake, NC’s Learning Enterprises will also be represented. The Teaching Greenhouse will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the Wine Visitor and Education Centre, featuring student-made products from the Teaching Brewery, Teaching Distillery and Teaching Winery, is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays. Both campus bookstores will also open for the duration of the event.

Advance registration is required for those interested in attending NC’s Spring Open House on Mar. 26. With the health and safety of visitors and the College community as a top priority, prospective students are limited to registering one additional guest from the same household who may join them at the event.

At the door, attendees will be required to show their registration ticket, proof of COVID-19 vaccination and government-issued ID. Medical-grade masks must also be worn inside campuses at all times. These measures align with NC’s continued COVID-19 protocols, which the College announced earlier this month will remain in effect until at least the end of the Winter Term that wraps up late April.

Visit openhouse.niagaracollege.ca to register and for more information. Program information session schedules are also available on the Open House website and free parking will be available for visitors.

NC’s on-campus Spring Open House follows on the heels of its virtual Open House event, which was held on March 19 for prospective students logging in from the comfort of home. The online offering featured virtual campus tours, recorded program information sessions, customized sessions for International students joining from around the world, and more.

Recorded program sessions are available at openhouse.niagaracollege.ca for students and their families to view at any time.

Niagara College offers more than 130 diploma, bachelor degree and advanced level programs; as well as more than 600 credit, vocational and general interest Part-Time Studies courses. Areas of specialization include food and wine sciences, advanced technology, media, applied health and community safety, supported by unique learning enterprises in food, wine, beer, distilling, horticulture and esthetics. For more information, visit niagaracollege.ca.

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Media inquiries, please contact:

Michael Wales
Director, Communications
Cell: 905-328-4101
[email protected]

Julie Greco
Communications Consultant
Cell: 905-328-2532
[email protected]

The Niagara College Teaching Brewery marked International Women’s Day with an outpouring of support for women in the beer industry.

On March 8, students in NC’s Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program began working on the College’s Pink Boots collaboration beer for 2022. Their efforts are part of a global initiative launched by Pink Boots Society: an international non-profit that aims to assist, inspire and encourage women in the fermentable beverage industry through education in a supportive environment.

This is the third consecutive year that NC Brewmaster students have hopped up support for the Pink Boots initiative. For the first time, brewing for Pink Boots will take place over a two-day period at the Teaching Brewery, giving students from several different classes an opportunity to participate.

“We are always excited when our students can take part in the Pink Boots initiative and shine a spotlight on gender equality in the brewing industry,” said Craig Youdale, Dean of the Canadian Food and Wine Institute. “Niagara College is keenly aware there is work to be done in support of equality, diversity and inclusion in the brewing workforce, and we look forward to supporting that growth in the future.”

“It is an honour and privilege for us to once again participate in Pink Boots,” said Maija Saari, Associate Dean of the Canadian Food and Wine Institute. “As educators of the next generation of brewers and fermenters, we must continue to support and encourage more women and non-binary people to enter the field.”

First-term Brewmaster students Oanh Tran Thi Kieu (from Vietnam) and Alanna Scully (Blyth, Ontario) work together on the Pink Boots brew on March 8.

NC’s 2022 Pink Boots Brew will be a 6.5 % ABV Double IPA, using the special Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day hops blend from Yakima Chief Hops – a partner of the Pink Boots. Yakima Chief Hops donates $3 from every pound sold to Pink Boots Society for education and programming.

“It is important to keep up initiatives that encourage women to think of brewing as a career, and to continue to support and help those that are already brewers, owners and suppliers,” said Brewmaster Professor Jon Downing.

This year, NC’s Pink Boots brew follows closely on the heels of its inaugural Brave Noise Collaboration beer. In mid-February, a group of Brewmaster students crafted a Brave Noise Pale Ale at the Teaching Brewery. The Brave Noise global collaborative effort aims to make the beer industry safe and free from discrimination for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ people.

“Opportunities to highlight and celebrate our students through events like Pink Boots and Brave Noise build our collective understanding and mutual respect of the additional challenges faced by those who are forging new ground as under-represented individuals,” said Saari.

Fourth-term student Angela McCallum, who coordinated the College’s involvement in Brave Noise, participated in Pink Boots for the first time this year.

“Championing women in brewing is always a worthwhile cause,” she said.

First-term Brewmaster student Jui-Tzu (Rita) Yang from Taiwan is pictured working on the College’s Pink Boots Brew on March 8 at the Teaching Brewery.

By working toward gender equality, McCallum noted that Pink Boots supports and facilitates the important goals of Brave Noise.

“Ultimately, we want to normalize female participation in the brewing industry. However, this is no small task,” said McCallum. “The Pink Boots Society plays a foundational role by assisting, inspiring, and encouraging female beer professionals through education.

“When inspired and encouraged, we – as female brewers – are in a better position to tackle the goal of normalization.”

NC Teaching Brewery’s Pink Boots Double IPA is expected to be released in April.

NC’s Brewmaster and Brewery Operations Management program was launched in 2010 as the first of its kind in Canada. The award-winning, two-year program offers extensive hands-on training at an on-site, state-of-the-art Teaching Brewery to prepare students for employment in the expanding brewery, microbrewery and brewpub industries. Located at the College’s Daniel J. Patterson in Niagara-on-the-Lake, students learn from award-winning faculty and have access to on-site hop yard and local farm products to brew a full range of beer styles. Visit ncteachingbrewery.ca.

Niagara College offers more than 130 diploma, bachelor degree and advanced level programs; as well as more than 600 credit, vocational and general interest Part-Time Studies courses. Areas of specialization include food and wine sciences, advanced technology, media, applied health and community safety, supported by unique learning enterprises in food, wine, beer, distilling, horticulture and esthetics. For more information visit niagaracollege.ca.

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Media inquiries please contact:

Julie Greco

Corporate Communications Consultant

Cell: 905-328-2532

[email protected]

Michael Wales

Director, Communications

Cell: 905-328-4101

[email protected]

Angela Seng knows that good foot care is essential to good health.

But the second-year Paramedic student also knows it’s easy to overlook the body part that pounds countless kilometres of pavement every day, especially when someone has more pressing priorities, such as securing food and shelter.

That lesson is reinforced regularly for Seng. She was hired during Spring term 2021 to help establish a foot care pilot program at Southridge Shelter in St. Catharines, which will serve to develop the skills of students from various NC health-care programs while helping shelter residents.

It’s at Southridge, meeting people dealing with issues of homelessness, that Seng sees the effects of ill-fitting shoes, worn-out footwear, and callouses or toenails in need of care and trimming.

And it’s there during weekly visits that Seng, along with four other Paramedic students, has assessed, triaged and provided referrals for more in-depth foot care by doctors and nurses when shelter residents need it.

“Foot health gets overlooked,” Seng said. “Most people don’t have knowledge of foot care health. It’s education. Good foot care is good health.”

The assistance Seng provides at Southridge was made possible by a grant of $209,576 spread over two years from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) College and Community Social Innovation Fund (CCSIF).

The money, awarded in 2020, enables Niagara College and its academic and community partners to address access to health care for those needing essential foot care, and improve implementation by health-care professionals at homeless shelters.

It’s the first grant of its kind for NC. So far, the money has been used by the College’s Research & Innovation division to hire students from the Personal Support Worker; Paramedic; Advanced Care Paramedic; Occupational Therapist Assistant and Physiotherapist Assistant; and Practical Nursing programs to establish the pilot at Southridge.

Using a train-the-trainer model, students will also mentor their peers to administer the program going forward and earn program placement hours in the process.

The project, which is a collaboration with the Michener Institute of Education at the University Health Network Chiropody program, is managed by the Centre for Health, Wellness and Aging within NC’s Community and Health Studies division.
“It’s a matter of making it a primarily experiential learning opportunity for students,” said Carolyn Triemstra, dean of Community and Health Studies. “It’s been a lot of work but the success we’ve seen each week as students go into the shelter has been amazing.”

Annie Froese, shelter director at Southridge, said residents are coming to the clinic with a wide range of issues, from needing new shoes, a single treatment, such as nail trimming, or ongoing therapy, which is provided by REACH, a primary care provider for homeless and marginalized populations in Niagara.

To help with footwear issues, students in the College’s Social Service Worker program secured shoe donations to help solve footwear issues, underscoring the interdisciplinary approach of the program.

“A lot of our guys wouldn’t self-assess where their feet are at,” Froese said. “It’s one of those aspects of health that comes from a place of privilege. Other things are going well in life so you can pay attention to that.”

Paramedicine, like what’s offered at the Southridge foot care clinic, is increasingly becoming part of a paramedic’s job description and Niagara is a leader in it with EMTs part of mobile health teams that provide targeted services to lessen the volume of 911 calls and alleviate emergency triage pressures.

“It’s helping students understand the scope of the role as paramedics,” Triemstra said.

Still, the care provided in the pilot is critical, explained Catharine Gray, the Michener Institute’s academic chair and discipline head of Chiropody. The rate of lower-limb amputation in Ontario, particularly related diabetes, is one every four hours, taxing the health-care system once hospitalization and rehabilitation are considered.

Programs like this one can help to change that statistic.

“For the most part, people don’t think of feet until there’s a problem and at that point, it may be too late,” said Gray, who spearheaded the project.

The Michener Institute, which offers a three-year postgraduate Chiropody program focused on the assessment and management of foot and lower-limb conditions, is collaborating with the College to co-develop the educational model and resources required to educate and train NC students.

Gray, who hails from Niagara Falls, hopes to see the program expand beyond Southridge, to reach others needing similar care.

“There’s lots of opportunities for foot screening to increase across all populations,” she said. “This is a population that really needs care and support.”

Niagara College’s School of Allied Health provides a hands-on learning environment that includes a state-of-the-art, fully operational dental clinic, and community and hospital lab facilities. It offers a wide variety of field and clinical placements for students to gain critical industry experience and a unique interprofessional education that integrates several health-care professionals into a single team to provide the best possible patient care.

About the Michener Institute of Education at the University Health Network

For more than 60 years, Michener has educated generations of Canadian health-care professionals. It is the only post-secondary institution in Canada that focuses exclusively on the applied health professions, and it sustains a vibrant School of Continuing Education that supports lifelong learning and professional development. Michener programs are fully funded by the provincial Ministry of Health. This ensures that our programming is aligned to the needs of the health-care system.

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Media inquiries, please contact:

Michael Wales
Director, Corporate Communications
Cell: 905-328-4101
[email protected]

Julie Greco
Corporate Communications Consultant
Cell: 905-328-2532
[email protected]