And then he, along with everyone else on the College’s executive team, faculty and staff, were thrust into what may be a contender for the biggest challenge of their careers: running a post-secondary institution in a global pandemic. It was up to everyone, with Kennedy leading the way, to figure out how to continue delivering the quality of education for which NC was known before COVID-19 became part of our lexicon.
“I tell people I had a couple of weeks of normal and then all hell broke loose,” Kennedy said. “I’m grateful to have had those couple of weeks to walk the halls and meet with people in groups. I’m so looking forward to resuming those activities. They’re so critical to running a college.”
A familiar face
The good news is Kennedy was already well acquainted with NC and its staff and students before being selected to replace Dan Patterson, who helmed Niagara for a remarkable 25 years before retiring.
Kennedy arrived at NC 15 years ago from Red Deer College. He spent six years there serving as dean of students before taking over the role of associate vice-president, students and international.
That portfolio was, in many ways, a perfect fit for him. Kennedy was born in Colorado and lived in Lesotho in southern Africa as a young child. He grew up exposed to different cultures and perspectives that would eventually inform and shape his own leadership style.
He also brought years of experience training elite athletes as a cross-country ski coach. Kennedy knew how to mentor, develop people to their fullest potential, and be a role model.
When he arrived at Niagara in 2006, he came as vice-president of student services and community relations and CEO of the Niagara College Foundation, a post Kennedy held for eight years before moving into the senior vice-president, international role for the next six years.
He feels fortunate for those years at NC, he noted. Soon after he was named the College’s sixth president and the pandemic forced everyone to find new ways to work remotely, Kennedy came across a story about four American university presidents starting their tenures in new-to-them academic institutions. They knew no one and were forced to lead in rapport-stifling conditions.
“I’m so fortunate that having been at the College a number of years, I have those relationships. But it is challenging to build relationships right now, whether with government relations or the community,” Kennedy said. “I look forward to building them virtually and to building those relationships in person with everyone again.”
A focused career path
Kennedy knew he wanted to become a college president soon after he started working in post-secondary education. It won out over a career in law thanks, in part, to time as a student leader at the University of Alberta. A summer job in the office of U of A’s vice-president of student affairs, where he could observe the inner workings of the university’s executive team, sealed Kennedy’s fate.
“I never left post-secondary. I love it,” he said. “It’s dynamic work. It keeps you challenged. It’s more the work colleges and universities do, not just in training workers…but in developing young people to achieve their full potential.”
It wasn’t long after arriving at Niagara when Kennedy decided he wanted to be college president here. It helped that his family adapted so easily to life in Canada’s banana belt after life on the Prairies.
“When I arrived at the College, I fell in love with the College, our communities, Niagara. I realized early on that Niagara College has a way of capturing your heart. If I was going to become a college president, Niagara College was the place I wanted to pursue becoming president,” he recalled. “Niagara also quickly became home and we realized we didn’t want to leave.”
Kennedy didn’t take anything for granted, however, when the search for a new president began after Patterson announced his retirement in spring 2019. It was a job he wanted, but with a national search underway for Patterson’s replacement, it was likely to be coveted by others, too.
As he put his name forth, he thought about what his vision would be for a post-secondary institution that had grown from a small-town college with little profile to one of renown worldwide.
Niagara was home to many program firsts in Canada, including its teaching winery, brewmaster program, and most recently, its commercial cannabis production program.
NC was a repeat performer in student satisfaction surveys, landing repeatedly in the No. 1 spot among all Ontario colleges for turning out graduates who were not only happy with their education but getting good jobs for which they were well-prepared.
The College was also garnering serious profile internationally, either by helping to establish market-driven programming in South America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East, or by bringing the world to its Niagara-on-the-Lake and Welland campuses with in-demand programs among international students.
Kennedy knew it would be critical for the next president to build on those strengths of innovation, student success, and being a trusted partner to industries locally, provincially, nationally and beyond.
“I gave it a lot of thought. Niagara College was already a place I loved and a top-tier college,” Kennedy said. “Our challenge is to build on our strengths to stay at the top.”
Changing course
Still, there were other items on the to-do list. They weren’t overly pressing in February 2020 but definitely on Kennedy’s radar. Then along came COVID-19, and that to-do list required some editing.
Take Niagara’s online presence. Determining ways to better deliver online programming and services needed attention. Kennedy, like others, figured they had some time to get to that. Then everyone got a crash course in teaching and running a college over the Internet when the first state of emergency was declared in 2020.
“This clearly sped it up tremendously. It’s shown there’s more of a need for virtual program delivery and increasing the capacity to deliver services,” Kennedy said.
The College and its students adapted quickly. But not everything translates well in a virtual world. Some elements of education will never be replicated online, Kennedy explained, no matter how adept we’ve all become in the year since Microsoft Teams went from novelty to necessity.
“The warmth” that comes with meeting new colleagues or students in person on their first day — demonstrating the Niagara College DNA of shared welcoming, passionate and trailblazing characteristics — will forever be “hard to pick up on virtually,” he said.
“(The pandemic) has also shown me the limits of that and the need for balance and the face-to-face interaction in terms of team building, and community building. I don’t think we’ll ever return fully to the way we were doing things but I don’t think we want things the way they are now where everything is done virtually.”
Especially when you’ve spent most of your career working directly with students, which Kennedy has. That focus on student affairs that he honed early in his career is what guides and drives him now online and, he hopes, one day soon again in person — when normalcy returns.
“I always get a boost watching the energy and enthusiasm of students. If I’m having a long day of meetings, I’ll just walk the halls to see our students. Seeing them having fun, working hard, that will always be inspiring to me,” he said. “It’s putting students first and thinking about the impact of decisions on them. We’re in the human development business, the citizen development business. These are young people doing amazing things. The day I’m not inspired is the day I have to retire.”
