Mayor Keith Hobbs said students attending university today have a much different experience than he did more years ago than he cares to remember.
Hobbs, joined nine other dignitaries on Thursday to take part in Lakehead University’s Back to Class event, which saw the Thunder Bay school invite community leaders to learn a little bit more about how the school operates.
Hobbs, who was joined by Coun. Rebecca Johnson for much of the day, attended a pair of undergraduate classes, was taught the meaning of community service learning and took part in a roundtable discussion with some of the school’s more well-credentialed professors.
“They’ve done so much with the Internet and technology. What I really liked today was the community service learning. It kind of mirrors what we at city council are doing with my Walkabout Wednesdays, getting out into the community and getting these students prepared and ready for the workforce by getting them out into co-operative programs,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs added the more educated the population is, the better off Thunder Bay will be.
“You can never stop learning about your community,” he said.
He called a good use of his time, saying Lakehead produces a good chunk of the city’s workforce, calling them the future of Thunder Bay.
“We’re trying to keep our young students here in Thunder Bay and create our workforce. Lakehead University is a big pillar of this community, as is Confederation College and other institutions, like Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute and the Thunder Bay regional hospital.
“We’re all working together and we’re all trying to work together to build this big core and it’s great,” he said.
Rod Hanley, the provost and vice-president academic at Lakehead, said the idea of inviting community leaders into the classroom originated with the Council of Ontario Universities.
“The idea was to draw public attention to the work that universities do and the high quality instruction and professors we have working at our university,” Provost said.
“We always look for an opportunity to kind of brag up what we do here at Lakehead University, and this was an opportunity to do that.”
“It went great. We have a lot of great professors and instructors here at Lakehead Univerity and a few of them got a chance to kind of show off their passion for teaching.”
Follow Leith Dunick on Twitter: @LeithDunick
