Forty years. Four decades. Fourteen thousand six hundred days. No matter how you look at it, a lot can happen in forty years. In 1975, Saturday Night Live debuted on NBC, the “Thriller in Manilla” epic battle took place between Mohammad Ali and Joe Fraser, Motorola obtained a patent for the first portable mobile phone, and Jimmy Hoffa disappeared.
Also forty years ago, a couple of young men named Bill and Paul created a company called Microsoft. Oh! And a little College named East Kootenay Community College also formed. Perhaps our little College hasn’t made it big the way Microsoft has – but really, we wouldn’t want it any other way.
East Kootenay Community College started out small as a way to provide post-secondary educational opportunities to residents of the East Kootenay. Now, as College of the Rockies, we want to continue to do what we’ve done well for the past four decades – provide a positive experience along with a great education. We believe this type of experience can only be found in a small College.
Sure, we may have had a few minor growing pains from time to time (nothing on the level of Windows Vista!) but we have consistently provided small class sizes that allow our students to form real relationships with their instructors. Science and computer students have access to far more lab time than you could dream of having when competing with a larger pool of students over equipment and space. And a smaller student to faculty ratio means students can have access to learning that they may not get until third or fourth year at a big university.
I’m proud of the College we have become over the past forty years – and I hope we do our community proud as well. If you’re a former student of the College (or EKCC) and would like to show your pride in your community College, we invite you to help us celebrate our first 40 years at the Sam Steele Days parade. Additional celebrations will take place later in the year. To take part in the parade or to stay informed of upcoming events, contact Darryl at dschmidt@cotr.bc.ca