St. Lawrence College
PA-3: Inclusive and Participatory Governance

St. Lawrence College is committed to transparent and inclusive governance and to ensure that all members of the SLC community, including students, faculty, staff, and community partners, have access to share feedback, ideas, comments, and suggestions to improve college operations or ways of going to business to the senior leadership team . To ensure that all voices are heard, the college has in place, formal and informal groups, and accessible platforms, which are are available to collect such feedback. Some examples include:

·       The President’s Advisory College Council: 
As per the St. Lawrence College Board of Governors By-Law # 1, Section 10.3 and the Minister’s Binding Policy Directives, Governance and Accountability Framework, Section E, the board ensures that a President’s Advisory College Council (PACC) is established, the purpose of which is “to provide a means for all students and staff of the College to offer advice and feedback to the President on matters of importance”. At St. Lawrence College, we refer to this as the President’s Advisory College Council (or PACC). This council provides a vehicle for staff, faculty, and students to be consulted and provide input on the following matters related to St. Lawrence College:

·       Student life/services

·       College Services

·       Technology integration

·       Campus sustainability matters

·       Broad college system issues

·       College promotion

·       Educational services

Each year, SLC’s President & CEO hosts a minimum of three town hall events open to all employees and where ‘state of the union’ addresses are delivered to provide members of the SLC community important information, updates, and news pertinent to SLC and the college system. Events are recorded for those not able to join live or remotely. Participants are able to ask questions on any topic during these events or afterward where all answers are publicly posted to the weekly SLC employee newsletter. Similar events are hosted for students both in formal and informal settings via support from each SLC campus’ student government offices.

In addition, the President’s office manages the ourwayforward@sl.on.ca email address where any member of the SLC community is welcome to write in with ideas, comments, questions, and to share their experiences on any topic. Emails received to this email address are used to create college-wide communications and in the creation of town hall agendas to ensure that topics on the minds of community members are addressed in a timely fashion.

Please note that each June, the President delivers a summary to the Board of Governors outlining the ways that the college ensures compliance with the PACC mandates. More specific to students, please note that each of SLC’s three campuses (Kingston, Cornwall, and Brockville) have an independent student government body made up of students studying out of each campus, and that are supported by an independent Board of Directors, and by the college’s Student Success division. Each student government Board of Directors has a unique set of by-laws and policies in place to best support the unique needs of each of SLC’s campuses. These student government groups are in place to support each student studying at SLC where as needed, students can connect with their student government office to share ideas/comments, receive support or assistance, or and learn more about their rights and access to a variety of campus supports, activities, clubs, and resources.

The Program Advisory Committees (PACs) integrate community and College expertise to identify the local 
and larger community needs, as well as workplace and professional trends. At St. Lawrence College, we 
believe that listening to experienced professionals and local employers helps us to be more effective in 
program development and in delivering educational services. PACs also provide an opportunity for our 
communities to see the outcome of the learning opportunities we provide being put into practice every 
day. It is imperative for our PAC members to provide practical, meaningful suggestions and 
recommendations to inform continuous improvement of our programs. 

The College has established processes for the ongoing evaluation of program performance and 
comparison against key performance indicators and Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) metrics. 
Contributions and suggestions from PACs are critical to successfully achieving our goals of providing 
quality learning experiences for our learners and ensuring well-prepared graduates for workplaces in 
local and global communities. PACs assist the faculty and administration in monitoring the currency of and relevancy of existing programs and in establishing new programs in response to emerging industry and community priorities.  The PACs make recommendations on programs presented to the Board of Governors who have the ultimate responsibility for decision making.

In addition, college leaders participate in local community councils organized by the City of Kingston. These include an Anti-Racism Taskforce, Town and Gown committee (representing neighbourhood well-being, housing, economic development, experiential learning opportunities, community involvement, and off-campus student activities), and Climate Action working groups (please refer to EN-10, 3rd Partnership for additional information).