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Durham College recognized for faculty leadership, sustainability efforts by Colleges and Institutes Canada

Durham College (DC) is a double winner in this year’s Colleges and Institutes Canada (CICan) Awards of Excellence after the organization recognized faculty member Laura Maybury and DC’s sustainability efforts both with bronze awards in their selected categories.


Laura Maybury, Leadership Excellence Award for Faculty

During her 10-year tenure at DC, Maybury, Program Coordinator for DC’s Occupational Therapist Assistant (OTA) and Physiotherapist Assistant (PTA) program has benefitted both students and the community by supporting health care training and bridging the gap between post-secondary education and industry.

“I am proud that Laura’s dedication and exemplary leadership is being recognized at the national level,” said Dr. Jean Choi, Vice President, Academic at Durham College. “She is passionate about helping her students succeed and she serves as an inspiration as an approachable, supportive and thought-provoking educator.”

Maybury said she feels honoured to be selected to receive the award.

“I have been so fortunate to work in the rehab field for almost 20 years and at Durham College for the past 10 years, working daily with an inspiring and dedicated team of faculty, leadership and community partners,” she said. “The work that rehabilitation professionals do to promote recovery, reduce the impact of health conditions and enable participation is so very important and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to share that passion with our students, and support them in becoming exceptional OTA and PTAs who contribute meaningfully to the lives of those in their communities.”

Durham College, Excellence in Sustainable Development Award

At DC sustainability is a way of life. We are supporting the advancement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by taking meaningful action within our own institution and drawing on our strengths in collaboration and innovation to help transform our local and global community.

Initiatives like The Barrett Centre of Innovation in Sustainable Urban Agriculture, the Vanhaverbeke Family EV Training Centre, the Energy Innovation Centre and the Social Impact Hub all drive applied research and hands-on learning aimed at improving health, creating education opportunities, reducing inequality and spurring economic growth all while tackling climate change.

“Sustainability is embedded in everything we do at Durham College,” said DC President Dr. Elaine Popp. “We believe it is our duty as an educational institution to foster stewardship of the resources and land on which we live. We want to lead by example, demonstrating environmental responsibility for our students so they can run the organizations of tomorrow with conservation front of mind. I am proud to be recognized for the work we do across our organization to prioritize sustainability and proud to lead by example in our community.”

OTA/PTA and Journalism students collaborate on annual newsletter

A quick hallway chat between two Durham College (DC) faculty members sparked an annual partnership, benefiting students from both the Occupational Therapist Assistant and Physiotherapist Assistant (OTA/PTA) program and the Journalism – Mass Media program.

The partnership produces the Rehab Matters Newsletter – which just published its sixth edition – where the OTA/PTA students focus on writing about a rehab matter in the Canadian context while the journalism students mentor them on writing and provided editorial support and leadership.

“The newsletter project was a nice opportunity to work on both student’s program requirements at the final stage of their of their academic careers and to achieve a number of different learning outcomes,” said Faculty member Teresa Avvampato. While the initial project was just a pilot, “we just kept going because we had such good feedback from the students involved,” she said.

Shun Naito, an OTA/PTA student really valued the opportunity to have experts help improve the quality of his work and was grateful for the support. “It’s a great opportunity as the role of an OTA/PTA needs to be advocated and the journalism students are the best at writing,” he said.

“An extra set of eyes was great to have for my project,” said Naito, who worked with Journalism student, Simran Deb, on his article. “She helped with structure and how I should persuade and inform the audience. The flow of paragraphs was way better after she gave me hints and ideas. Both parties were respectful about time and communicated effectively.”

Naito gained a significant confidence boost and did things he never imagined he would be able to do with the help of the Journalism students.

Clayton DeMaine, a Journalism student, said the opportunity to edit content he had limited knowledge of was beneficial.

“I might want to be an editor one day, so, it’s cool to be able to edit someone else’s work that we don’t know anything about,” said DeMaine. “It just gave us a really well-rounded experience overall to have editing to add to our portfolio.”