Learners at Bow Valley College’s Chiu School of Business received some valuable support thanks to a $75,000 donation from Scotiabank.
The donation will be used to form the Scotiabank Business Student Support Network and was accepted by David Allwright, dean of the Chiu School of Business, during a ceremony at Bow Valley College on December 1, 2016.
“Scotiabank has had a long-standing commitment of being involved in the communities where we live and work,” says Matt Boudreau, manager, training centre at Scotiabank, who presented the cheque. “Our impetus is to fund the students who are going to drive our communities in the future.”
The Scotiabank Business Student Support Network is designed to provide one-on-one support for learners experiencing academic challenges by matching them with skilled learners in similar courses.
“We’re building on what we’ve been working on for the last several years,” says David Allwright, dean of the Chiu School of Business. “It’s part of a larger plan to make sure students have a more in-depth experience when in post-secondary. We have to be mindful of providing students with opportunities to get fully engaged in their educational experience and give them different options to do that.”
The network will bring learners together to support each other through activities like peer tutoring, study groups and a speaker series for networking and mentoring with Scotiabank staff. All the learners involved in the program will benefit from enhanced understanding of the subject matter, development of leadership skills, greater engagement with the institution and their instructors and development of communication skills.
“From the perspective of students, this allows us to expand the educational experience they receive when they come to Bow Valley College,” says Allwright. “Classroom instruction is great for certain types of learning and certain types of activities, but it is only part of the entire post-secondary experience…. There are all sorts of soft skills that come about from allowing students to do more things that are not necessarily in the classroom setting.”
The donation represents a five-year commitment to the Chiu School of Business and builds off a long-standing relationship between the college and Scotiabank.
“We will give them a portion of the funding every year and will continue our involvement by hosting opportunities for the students to network with current ‘Scotiabankers.’ We will bring back some Scotiabank employees who were previous Bow Valley College graduates – we have quite a few of them – and help them aid students through networking and other events.”
