Business sings the blues over Vogt’s release

Opinion

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This article was published 31/07/2019 (1877 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Collaborations between the business community and post-secondary institutions may not be the most important element of a college’s connection to a region, in the minds of many.

But in a city such as Winnipeg — where the only way growth and economic development occur in any kind of normalized way is when as many of the players as possible work together — it is a big deal.

In recent years, there have been stepped-up efforts from several different directions in the business community in Manitoba to establish partnerships with Red River College (RRC) in particular. And by all accounts, it was going very well.

But the news this week of the decision by RRC’s board to not renew president Paul Vogt’s contract when it expires in a year was met with surprise, shock and disappointment in the business community.

Vogt may not have been solely responsible for breakthroughs that have been achieved in aligning the college’s curriculum more closely to Manitoba employers’ desperate need for workers with particular skills, but his presence at the table was widely appreciated.

Don Leitch, the CEO of the Business Council of Manitoba — who, like Vogt, was also a former clerk of the executive council for the province of Manitoba — called the move “perplexing.”

Since neither Vogt nor the board are shedding light on why the decision has been made, it is left to people such as Alex Usher of Toronto-based Higher Education Strategy Associates to call it the “worst personnel decision at a Canadian college, maybe ever.”

Even if you give the board the benefit of the doubt — noting, however, that its chair, Loren Cisyk, is the only one with more than two years’ tenure on the board — the decision to not renew Vogt’s contract in a year seems counterproductive.

“Paul did some positive things and provided good leadership inside Red River College,” Leitch said. “He moved the dial and the business community has had a good relationship with Red River for a number of years. In the view of a lot of members in the business community, he has made great efforts to reach out and make sure the college is in line with the needs of the business community.”

That’s not to say someone else might also be able to engage in that same kind of dialogue. Kathy Knight, a former RRC board member and the executive director of the Information and Communications Technology Association of Manitoba (ICTAM), said Vogt was “a champion of the tech sector and good friend and ally to us.”

She said she does not believe his departure was politically motivated, but she also said the prospect of having to build a relationship with someone new in a year from now means “we have to start all over again.”

The RRC board is obviously not beholden to the business community, but one can imagine there is some responsibility to be sensitive to the greater good of the community at large.

Ron Koslowsky, the longtime head of the Manitoba chapter of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters and another former RRC board member, was on the search committee that hired Vogt. (He wasn’t even Koslowsky’s first choice.)

“I knew he was somebody who would rise above politics, and so I had no problem, even though I was not ideologically an NDP supporter,” he said. “He did not disappoint.”

But more than that, Koslowsky said that because of Vogt, Red River College was “by far the most supportive post-secondary institution” involved in a coalition on advanced manufacturing that was struck in anticipation of the development of the National Research Council’s $60-million Factory of the Future, an important new asset for Winnipeg now under construction.

“I think Paul had done a marvellous job of building a strategy of growing the organization and attracting federal funds for projects — including applied research,” Koslowsky said. “This was a shock.”

In the vacuum of information as to why his contract is not being renewed, speculation abounds that there was some political angle to the board’s decision.

But when it gets down to it, the business community can overlook political considerations if it means improving prospects for economic development. Manitoba is relatively isolated and businesses are always searching for ways to improve the production, recruitment and retention of talent for all their operations. That has to include better collaboration with post-secondary institutions.

In light of the decision to not renew Vogt’s contract in a year, Leitch said, “The last thing the business community would want to do is to jeopardize the ongoing operations at Red River College, let alone see it falter and stall. It was going so well in the right direction.

“It is critical to this community. It provides the kind of talent we need to drive the economy.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca