From the Registrar | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

by Sharon Kinasz, Registrar

in the June 2021 issue

The warmer weather has given us a bit of an early start to summer, even though the summer term started a little later than usual. Once again, we were able to meet or exceed our overall Day 10 enrolment targets for new, returning, domestic, and international students.

A special Personal Support Worker (PSW) accelerated program sponsored through the Provincial government has contributed significantly towards those targets by adding 388 new students to the summer term. A huge thanks to all involved to ensure the success of this important effort to provide support to the most vulnerable in our society. The goal of the provincial initiative is to have over 8,000 personal support workers enter the workforce by the end of 2021.

As noted in the last update, the Visual Schedule Builder upgrade was successful and by all accounts provided a much-improved registration process for the summer term. Of course, we all know the true test will come in August when registration opens for the fall term.

Following up on another system initiative, our move to launch a digital transcript last fall has been quite successful, generation over 10,000 digital transcripts for Seneca students. As noted at the time we went live with our Digitary partner, I indicated we would be moving to a newly established Canadian network which happened this past March. Seneca was the first College in Ontario to move to the MyCreds Canadian network which has now provisioned over 30,000 earners with personalized and portable learner credential wallets. To learn more about this exciting and growing initiative please check out the MyCreds.ca homepage.

Looking forward to the fall and the eventual return to campus, much work is currently underway to create a more virtual service model for the Registrar’s Office along with some major renovations at the Newnham campus. Domestic confirmations for fall programs across the province are about 5 percent lower than last year. Seneca is only showing a decrease of 1 percent and our international confirmations continue to be strong.

Looking forward to higher vaccine rates, a gradual lifting of restrictions, and some lovely warm summer weather. Hoping everyone has a great summer. Stay Safe!

View the June 2021 issue of the Academic Newsletter.