Medicine Hat College celebrates 60 years

“We had 18 faculty and staff. When I look now at 60 years later, we’re no longer a junior college. We’re proud to serve our community as a comprehensive community college.”

“We have two campuses, one in Medicine Hat and one in Brooks. In addition to university transfer, we offer academic upgrading, apprenticeship, certificate, diploma, and degree programs. We have four schools, trades and technology, health and community services, business, and arts, science, and education.”

Shufflebotham said the school has now grown to over 5,000 students enrolled in credit and non-credit programming.

“Our athletic teams are now obviously called the Rattlers. We have teams in volleyball, basketball, soccer, futsal, cross-country running, golf, and women’s hockey,” Shufflebotham said.

“We have well over 500 employees,” he added.

“60 years is a major milestone, and I’m just really looking forward to what the future will bring.”

The college will look to integrate the 60th anniversary into events throughout the year.

“We had the pancake breakfast, which we celebrated it at. We had College Day, we celebrated our 60th then and even had birthday cake there, which was absolutely fun,” Shufflebotham said.

“As we go throughout the year, we’ll just integrate it through all our events,” he added.

“It’s really an opportunity to celebrate with the community.”

Shufflebotham said the college is focused on continued success.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean growth, but it’s about being learner focused and regionally aligned. And if we focus on those two things, the college will continue to be successful,” Shufflebotham said.

“We want to make sure we meet the workforce needs of our region. Over the past number of years, we’ve offered five new programs. K-9, sport & event marketing and management, sustainable innovation. This year, we just started two new programs, pharmacy technician and addictions counseling. And we have two more programs submitted to government, an agribusiness certificate and a diploma program,” he added.

“Our other priorities, we want to offer our own degrees. Currently, we offer a B.Ed. with Mount Royal University and a Bachelor of Science with University of Calgary. And our hope is to offer our own degree in social work in the upcoming years.”

Shufflebotham said that building access to health care and wellness is another priority they have.

“The Yuill [Family] Foundation gifted us $5 million to support this priority. And to support all these, our number one capital priority is the Center for Community Wellness,” Shufflebotham said.

“It’ll provide space for our new degree and diploma programs. It’ll expand capacity in high demand health care programs. It’ll bring together all our services and provide an opportunity for external partners to be on campus.”

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READ: Medicine Hat College receives largest donation in its history

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College students in Medicine Hat will start heading to classes on Sept. 2.

by Jesse Gill

Medicine Hat College celebrates 60 years

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