For the second year in a row, Durham College’s (DC) student-led newspaper, The Chronicle, took second place honours in the General Excellence category for Ontario college and university newspapers at the Ontario Community Newspaper Association’s (OCNA) Better Newspaper Awards gala.

Brian Legree, DC professor, program coordinator and editor-in-chief of The Chronicle, accepted the award at event, which was held on April 7 in Toronto, marking the 18th time The Chronicle has been awarded by the OCNA since its first nomination in 1986.

Entrants in the General Excellence category are judged on overall design, front page, quality of content and diversity. The award is in recognition of The Chronicle produced during the 2015-2016 academic year, a year in which the paper transitioned to its current format, complete with new logo and redesigned website.

The Chronicle is produced by students, under the guidance of the program’s faculty, in DC’s Journalism – Web and Print and Journalism – Broadcast and Electronic Media programs, which have recently been combined to form the Journalism – Mass Media program to provide students with the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience within all media.

Established in 1974, and The Chronicle continues to provide hard news, editorials, timely opinion pieces, features, sport stories and more to the DC campus community.

Durham College (DC) is proud to announce that Bistro ‘67, the college’s full-service, teaching-inspired restaurant, has been named one of the 150 Best Neighbourhood Gems in Canada. The accolade comes from OpenTable, the world’s leading provider of online restaurant reservations.

OpenTable compiled its list of unique local restaurants that define neighbourhoods across the country as a way to honour Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017. Drawing upon more than 480,000 reviews submitted to the website for more than 2,000 restaurants, OpenTable narrowed the field by looking at establishments with a minimum overall rating and number of reviews and then scoring them to determine which ones could be considered a neighbourhood gem.

The resulting list highlights unique establishments that include everything from quaint European-style cafés to sizzling Asian kitchens and everything in between, including DC’s field-to-fork-focused Bistro ‘67.

To complement their list, OpenTable also conducted a survey to gauge Canadians’ dining experience preferences. Based on the survey results, Bistro ‘67 is clearly hitting all the right notes with diners – 55 per cent of Canadians said they prefer their dining experience close to home, 89 per cent prefer Canadian cuisine and 87 per cent said they prefer when ingredients are locally grown.

Bistro ‘67 offers guests a memorable field-to-fork dining experience within DC’s award-winning W. Galen Weston Centre for Food (CFF) at the college’s Whitby campus, where community, local agriculture and learning come together. Meals are prepared and served by DC’s skilled staff and students who create flavourful dishes inspired by fresh ingredients from the CFF’s own gardens and other local suppliers across Durham Region. A 3 Star Certified Green Restaurant, Bistro ‘67 also holds a Feast ON designation in recognition of its use of local food and beverage, and is Ocean Wise approved and recognized by the Vancouver Aquarium for its ocean-friendly seafood choices.

Typically, we think of mac n’ cheese as a quick and easy meal prepared from boxed ingredients. But on April 8, eight teams of Grade 11 and 12 students whipped up their own creative concoctions based on the classic dish at Durham College’s (DC) third annual Epic Mac N’ Cheese competition hosted at the college’s W. Galen Weston Centre for Food (CFF).

Contestants’ family and friends, along with other community members, gathered to watch the event, taste test the entries and vote for their favourites to help decide the winners.

Among many unbelievably cheesy dishes, one clearly prevailed. The winning recipe belonged to Katelyn Gadajar and Griffin VanWinden, students at Father Leo J. Austin Catholic Secondary School in Whitby for their combination of goat cheese, Italian sausage, roasted red pepper and garlic over an exquisite cream-based sauce.

“I had a lot of fun, and the experience was great especially considering I am going to be attending DC for the Culinary Management program in the fall,” said VanWinden. “Being able to work alongside a DC mentor was really awesome, and it felt good to win as it gave me a lot more confidence in what I do and solidified my decision for my future career.”

Coming in a close second and third, were:

• Josh Simpson and Emma Whittington
  Peter Catholic Secondary School, Peterborough
  Epic combination: Cajun chicken, bacon, jalapeño and asiago cheese.
• Kacey Payne and Bailey Agnew
  Henry Street High School, Whitby
  Epic combination: Italian sausage, bacon, sautéed onions and peppers, and parmesan.

“It’s always exciting to see young chefs with incredible talent cooking up a storm in DC’s state-of-the-art kitchens, and the support from the community was outstanding,” said Peter Lee, professor and co-ordinator of DC’s culinary programs. “It’s an excellent opportunity for high school students to get a real taste of what they would learn in a post-secondary environment.”

DC extends its sincere thanks to all of this year’s participants and everyone who attended the event. The money raised from event ticket sales will be added to a bursary fund that helps support students pursuing a career in culinary arts, hospitality or special events planning at DC. All students who participated in the competition are eligible to apply for the bursary if accepted into a CFF program.

Three Durham College (DC) students took front row seats to the leadership race of the Conservative Party of Canada when they attended the 88th annual general meeting of the Greater Oshawa Chamber of Commerce on April 6.

The DC students, Nikolai Slepov in the Police Foundations program, Jenn Amaro in the Journalism – Web and Print program and Taylor Flood in the Marketing – Business – Transfer to UOIT Bachelor of Commerce program, had the opportunity to join DC president Don Lovisa and chief of staff Hélène Asselbergs at the event, which was held at the Ajax Convention Centre, thanks to Roughley Insurance Brokers Ltd., who sponsored the students’ table.

Canadian business magnate, TV personality and new found politician Kevin O’Leary delivered the keynote address, during which he spoke about his plans for Canada if he were to be elected the country’s next prime minister.

Of particular interest to the DC students in attendance were O’Leary’s concerns about the low employment opportunities for students upon graduation and how raising their prospects is one of his top priorities. He also spoke about his goal of a three-per-cent growth in Canada’s gross domestic product in his first four years in office and his intention to also focus on the country’s immigration policy.

“It is important that our students take an interest in politics and the various positions of candidates within all political parties,” said Lovisa. “I hope this opportunity to hear from one of the potential conservative leaders will see the students take a keen interest in the views of other political parties and politicians.”

Following O’Leary’s address, the floor was opened up to allow the students and other attendees the opportunity to pose questions to O’Leary about any topic.

 

Following the recent announcement from the provincial government, of their $50-million investment in colleges across Ontario, Durham College (DC) is pleased to share that it will receive $1.9 million of that legacy funding.

As DC celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2017, so too does the college system in Ontario. The funding for all 24 of the province’s colleges was awarded in celebration of this milestone year.

The idea of partnering with the provincial government, to establish a legacy fund of $50 million for 50 years, was proposed by chair of the Colleges Ontario 50th anniversary task force and DC President Don Lovisa, in order to benefit all Ontario colleges in a meaningful way.

“What a fantastic way to celebrate this milestone and truly start something amazing,” said Lovisa. “In making this generous funding commitment, the provincial government is recognizing the outstanding achievements of Ontario’s colleges over the past 50 years, while also creating a lasting impact on future generations of students across the province, including Durham College.”

Durham MPP Granville Anderson was onsite at DC’s Whitby campus where he revealed how much of the funding the college will receive, and what this means to students and the greater Durham Region community.

“Over the past 50 years, our colleges have done so much to build Ontario up,” said Durham MPP Granville Anderson. “They provide students with unique experiences and important skills which prepare them to be successful in the workforce. Durham College, specifically, plays a vital role in our community, so it was my pleasure to announce our government’s $1.9 million investment to help make this great school even better.”

During the announcement, DC shared that it will use its portion of the funds to construct a two-storey galleria at its Whitby campus, providing much needed touchdown space and collaboration zones for the more than 2,000 full-time students who call the Whitby campus home.

Construction on the galleria space is expected to begin shortly.

High school robotics teams from across Ontario converged at Durham College’s (DC) Oshawa campus from March 3 to 5 for the 2017 FIRST® Robotics Competition: Ontario District – Durham College event. FIRST is an acronym that means For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

This is the third year DC has sponsored the FIRST event, welcoming more than 1,000 students on 40 teams. Competitors demonstrated their engineering skills and knowledge playing FIRST Steamworks, a new game developed for the annual robotics battle. By the end, one alliance, comprising three teams working together, walked away victorious. Congratulations goes to teams 1285 (The Big Bang), 4939 (Allspark9) and 4946 (The Alpha Dogs), who all hail from the Peel District School board. They will be competing at the Ontario District Championships at the beginning of April and then, if successful, will head to the World Championships in St. Louis at end of that month.

The FIRST Robotics Competition: Ontario District – Durham College event was the first of nine qualifying competitions being held across Canada. FIRST is an international, not-for-profit organization dedicated to inspiring young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. In 2017, over 3,000 teams comprising more than 78,000 students from around the world will compete in FIRST Steamworks.