Fanshawe College
EN-14: Participation in Public Policy

A Community Engagement Strategy to Advance Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Impact
With support from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), Fanshawe College started a new two-year initiative through a collaborative, community-focused approach to advancing the SDG impact. 

The initiative prioritizes amplifying the voices of equity-deserving groups and fostering partnerships among local municipalities, educational institutions, nonprofits, and businesses. Through a co-created community engagement strategy, it aims to showcase the transformative power of collaboration in driving progress toward the 2030 Agenda.

The City of London, City of St. Thomas, and The Elgin, Middlesex, and Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board (EMOWPDB) are the main partners and will play an essential role in this project.

Key Objectives and Expected Outcomes:

Support and Enhance Canada’s Progress on the 2030 Agenda

Output: Develop a partnership plan uniting representatives from municipalities, equity-deserving groups, planning boards, and educational institutions.

Outcome: Increased representation and active participation from diverse key players in a regional SDG-focused working group.

Foster Cross-Sectoral Partnerships for SDG Advancement
Output: Co-create a community engagement strategy with input from various sectors and equity-deserving groups.
Outcome: Drive local collective action with measurable impacts aligned with the SDGs.

Raise Public Awareness and Share Best Practices Nationwide
Output: Develop a comprehensive knowledge transfer and dissemination plan.
Outcome: Enhance national awareness and foster scalable actions to advance SDGs across 
communities.

Fanshawe's President Peter Devlin is on the board of the London Economic Development Corporation. The London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC) is the economic development agency for London, Canada. Established in 1998, LEDC is a not-for-profit organization that is funded by the City of London through a Purchase of Service Agreement.

Working with business, government, academic institutions, and industry partners, LEDC supports the growth of existing businesses, attracts new businesses to London, and strives to ensure companies have the talent, resources, and business conditions they need to continue scaling.

Peter Devlin is part of the Colleges Ontario Committee of Presidents (COPEX), an executive committee of Colleges Ontario's board of directors. It is a group of the 24 college presidents in Ontario that is part of Colleges Ontario, the association that represents the province's public colleges.

Colleges Ontario’s activities include:

• Developing new research and policy proposals.
• Implementing provincewide marketing and communications campaigns.
• Advocating for legislation and policy measures to strengthen post-secondary education.
• Providing professional development programs for college leaders.
• Organizing conferences, symposia and other events.

In 2020, COPEX advocated the Ontario Provincial Government to:

• Establish incentive grants to drive creation and adoption of OERs with the aim of reducing commercial textbook costs to students.
• Take a cross-ministry approach to expand broadband access to northern and rural areas to ensure the benefits of advanced technology are universally available
• Additional funding to support students with disabilities to adapt to the more self-directed environment of online learning.
  • Funding for accessibility services
  • Optimizing learning for students by making course material fully accessible in alignment with the principles of universal design for learning
  • Financial support for assistive technologies beyond the basic technology required by most students (e.g. audio boosters as well as transcription services or closed captioning for virtual lectures).  

Fanshawe College's President Peter Devlin was Chair of CICan 2022-2023. Part of his mandate was to advocate for the CICan SDGs Accord. During his time as Chair, Peter worked on the Green Pathways for Small Communities program; The ImpAct-Climate Challenge; and the production of a guide that provides resources for members interested in promoting sustainable transportation on campuses and inspires them to implement successful initiatives from other Canadian campuses.

In 2022, CICan submitted the following recommendations to Natural Resources Canada:

• Support the development of national training on green skills at Canada’s colleges that can 
  easily be shared for rapid expansion around the country and adapted to meet each region’s labour market needs, the government can turbocharge green skills adoption
• Support short-form training options at colleges which can create clear pathways into 
  sustainable jobs and minimize the loss of talent in the labour market as mid-career workers quickly gain competencies and skills to succeed in the green economy
• Provide additional funding to applied research at colleges in green economy products and 
  services, ensuring Canadian enterprises and workers are world leaders and experts in the green economy

In 2023, included in CICan's Recommendations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance – Pre-budget Consultations in Advance of Budget 2023 submission were the following recommendations:

• Accelerate the achievement of Canada’s net zero goals by creating a new Green 
  Postsecondary Infrastructure Fund, with a minimum of $500 million a year over 5 years being dedicated to helping colleges achieve net zero emission campuses
• Accelerate net zero initiatives in communities by investing $100M over 5 years in a new 
  network of 50 College Sustainability Centres across Canada to leverage college assets including campus infrastructure, industry, and community partnerships to meet Canada’s net zero goals
• Commit to fully supporting Indigenous peoples’ right to postsecondary education by working 
  with national Indigenous organizations, Indigenous institutes, colleges and universities to address ongoing barriers to access and success and to integrate land-based learning and Indigenous ways of knowing in postsecondary programs.
• Increase support to developing countries to build capacity in their skills development systems, recognizing the critical role education and skills training play in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

President Devlin is also a Director on the Polytechnics Canada board. Polytechnics Canada is the voice of leading, research-intensive, publicly funded polytechnics, colleges and institutes of technology. Our mission is policy advocacy for federal action on innovation and skills.

Joseph Pazzano, Director, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Fanshawe, is part of the CICan National Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee. The committee provides input to CICan on EDI related to its strategic priorities and activities in advocacy, building capacity and driving knowledge. It also serves as a forum to support and guide college and institute leaders and professional practitioners to better serve under-represented learners and communities across Canada.