COVID-19 presented many unknowns, but one thing that did not waver was NC’s commitment to its students.
Niagara College quickly adapted to the many new realities, including expanding its supports for students travelling to Canada and proved that no matter where students are studying from, the College is there to support students.
“I could not be prouder of the commitment Niagara College, as an institution, had to ensuring we never lost sight of our welcoming and trailblazing spirit even in the midst of a global pandemic and how our duty of care for our students and community only grew stronger,” said Maxine Semple, NC’s Manager of Cultural and Global Engagement.
Semple was responsible for launching the College’s comprehensive quarantine plan and was the first to manage the process, playing a key leadership role to NC’s Quarantine Team throughout COVID-19.
“It was a privilege to have overseen the development of the quarantine program, plan and incredible team,” she said.
In an effort to protect the health and safety of Canadians and minimize the spread of COVID-19, the Government of Canada introduced several measures in March of 2020, including restrictions on discretionary and optional travel, directly impacting international students travelling to Canada to study at Niagara College.
In July 2020, the College introduced a comprehensive COVID-19 readiness and quarantine plan that focused on student and community safety and aligned with the guidelines of public health authorities. The plan offered 14 days of quarantine support for international students arriving to Canada, including transportation from the airport, all accommodations and meals, daily check-ins and student support.
NC’s Comprehensive Quarantine Plan was offered for approximately 20 months to NC international students traveling to Canada. As of April 2022, the Government of Canada requires travellers to Canada that are 18 years of age and older to be vaccinated and, as such, Comprehensive Quarantine Plan is no longer operational.
The Cultural and Global Engagement team continues to support those under the age of 18 and who are unvaccinated, due to vaccination eligibility in their home country.
“The collective efforts of our entire quarantine team were critical to the successful transition of our students from their home country to Niagara,” said Director of International, Gary Torraville. “The intricate and multifaceted requirements for safe travel to Canada were constantly evolving yet the team managed the process extremely well and ensured that what could have been a very stressful time for our students was treated with that welcoming and collaborative spirit that NC is renown for.
“The quarantine process overall ensured that we were able to continue offering program delivery during the pandemic and enabled students to live and study safely while achieving their applied dreams.”
The passion of the Quarantine Team can be seen through its positive impact on students:
- More than 3,000 students received quarantine support from July 2020 to October 2021
- More than 225 vaccines were administered to students during their stay in quarantine. (August 2021 to January 2022)
- More than 9,100 nights of student accommodation in our Niagara quarantine hotel facilities from April 2021 to March 2022
- More than 900 nights of student accommodation in federal quarantine from April 2021 to August 2021
The people behind the team’s success
With the shift caused by the pandemic, the Cultural and Global Engagement team, led by Semple, shifted priorities from NC’s Be World Ready program to develop a quarantine plan and package and began managing the process to safely welcome international students to Canada.
“The Be World Ready team took their expertise of preparing students to travel abroad and their knowledge of global guidelines and applied them to the ever-changing regulations introduced by the Canadian federal government as it related to quarantine,” said Semple.
“The NC Quarantine Team had a special competency to quickly reverse engineer the Be World Ready program to create the gold standard quarantine program continuously building and modifying NC’s comprehensive quarantine plan in the summer of 2020 for all international students.”
The core NC Quarantine Team members were Semple, Rebecca Morrison, Danielle Jewer, Karan Salgotra and Shari Carpenter.
“There are no words to describe the tremendous individual efforts each team member went to for the duration of this program and our students,” said Semple. “The level of care and loving attention that was paid to each aspect of a student’s quarantine experience is another example of how this team’s remarkable efforts to send students abroad could be adapted to welcome our students safely to Canada during such a tenuous time.
“This team is the purest form of NC DNA in action, and we are so proud of the commitment they had to keeping our students, staff, and community safe during the pandemic.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Director of Marketing and Student Recruitment Dorita Pentesco was Acting Director of International and was integral in establishing the quarantine plan. Pentesco explained how when they were first tasked with developing a quarantine program, it was new territory for everyone on the original Quarantine Team.
“COVID has been a continuously evolving situation and was especially so in July 2020 as Canada was determining how it would open its borders again and do so safely,” said Pentesco. “There was so much that we had to interpret, figure out and plan for and it truly was a collective effort with students’ best interests at the heart of every decision.
“I was so fortunate to work with Maxine and her team during this time.”
Over time, the increase of students transitioning to Canada and the ever-evolving situation of COVID-19, coupled with Semple stepping in as NC’s Acting Associate Director of International Student Services, it became apparent that a dedicated person was needed to lead the Quarantine initiatives. NC International Student Advisor, Laura Fakla, stepped into the role until a more permanent replacement was found and provided excellent leadership to the team. When Fakla returned to her role as International Student Advisor, Canadian Food and Wine Institute’s Foodservice Operations Manager, Sarah Scott, took over the role of NC’s Manager, Cultural and Global Engagement – Quarantine, in July 2021.
Scott shared how she was extremely grateful for the opportunity to learn a new role at NC and the knowledge she gained from the experience, including how to support students in so many ways. She explained how she was continuously learning about the quarantine process and vaccine requirements for all international students.
“It was rewarding to learn about the many ways we support NC students as they travel to Canada,” said Scott. “The rules were ever-changing, and the Quarantine Team, and staff in the International Division, were so supportive each time we received a new Government update.”
Scott noted that the partnerships and relationships cultivated with staff and local partners quickly became the reason the quarantine plan was so successful.
“The pride in the commitment to help each student from all parties involved, truly shaped what it means to provide the students with the opportunity to be NC ready,” she said.
After spending the previous year in her seconded role as NC’s Acting Associate Director of International Student Services, Semple returned to her role as NC’s Manager, Cultural and Global Engagement with Scott also returning to her role with CFWI.
In addition to the dedicated core team members, many teams across the International Division and College played a role in ensuring that international students were welcomed safely and successfully throughout the pandemic. They included International Student Services, International Student Engagement, International Student Accounts, International Inquiry Response Team, International Admissions, International Communications, Global Business Development, International’s office Director, ITS, Marketing, as well as Health, Wellness and Accessibility Services.
A student’s experience
Originally from China, student MingChao Gan is completing the English for Academic Preparation program and plans to enter NC’s Hotel and Restaurant Operations in Fall 2022 and the Honours Bachelor of Business Administration (Hospitality) in Spring 2023. Gan expressed how he felt supported during the quarantine process and noted that three experiences stood out to him.
“The first is that Mr. Karan Salgotra contacted me at the airport using WhatsApp; he always kept an eye on us and reminded us of some precautions,” said Gan. “The second thing is that Ms. Sarah Scott received us very enthusiastically and warmly when we arrived at the quarantine hotel at 3 am, which made us feel very welcome even though we were far away from home.
“The third thing is that Mr. James Maur gave us moon cakes during the traditional Chinese festival, Mid-Autumn Festival. This is a festival that is celebrated in China with all family members, but we were not expecting such a surprise in quarantine, and it really meant a lot.”
Gan explained how receiving a quarantine package provided by the Quarantine Team prior to travelling to Canada enabled students to feel like everything was under control, despite travelling during a pandemic.
“The 14-day quarantine didn’t feel very hard for me because I knew that there would be someone to help us no matter what problems we encountered,” said Gan.
Supports for students
The Quarantine Team delivered a high degree of service around the clock to support students travelling to Canada from around the world. It involved comprehensive planning from start to finish, ranging from pre-departure support to daily check-ins upon arrival. The team was responsible for ensuring the College and its students complied with the everchanging federal and provincial guidelines, including adapting their services to offer support with testing, vaccination education and compliance.
Originally from India, Baking and Pastry Arts student Yankee Gajbhiye joined the College in September 2021 and is studying in the Culinary Skills program for Spring 2022. Gajbhiye noted how the Quarantine Team supported students with all the documents to travel prior to their arrival to Canada.
“Once I reached Canada, I had a personal cab pick me up from the airport and drop me to the quarantine facility,” said Gajbhiye. “I received so much comfort and help during my time in quarantine, from phone services to receiving a vaccination.”
He noted that he was pleased that he also had the option to choose his meal preference, which contributed to it being a positive experience.
“The quarantine was time for me to relax and get over the jetlag,” he said. “Overall, it was a relaxing experience for me.”
Committed to supporting students, the Quarantine Team prioritized providing individualized care and response for each student. This passion and commitment was evident in the countless examples of members of the team going to great lengths to ensure that students remained at the core of everything they did.
For example, Morrison personally delivered a colouring book to a student in quarantine to help the student manage their experience alongside the constant use of her expertise in travel logistics to support all students with their inbound travel questions and arrangements. Salgotra made trips to the airport to direct students safely to their transportation. Jewer generated more than 3,000 personal quarantine plans and packages required for student travel to Canada and coordinated and responded to urgent inquiries from students in transit. Carpenter spearheaded the packing of welcome packages for students during the first days of quarantine, and paid critical attention to updating all student arrival and stay details as changes were made.
The team also established and maintained community partnerships to support students. They worked with pharmacy partners to ensure students had the correct dosages to attend classes on-campus, abiding to guidelines provided by Niagara Region Public Health, Niagara Health Services and Public Health Agency of Canada.
In 2021, treats were delivered to students in quarantine for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. They were made by Pawan Lulla and Niti Ruparel, who are both NC alumni who graduated from CFWI programs – and came to NC as international students—and now own a successful bakery in Niagara Falls, Bittersweet Symphony.
“When I was a NC student, I never imagined I would be so successful but the knowledge I gained from all my professors and chefs was out of the box,” said Lulla and Ruparel. “Working with Sarah Scott to provide treats for NC students was a great pleasure and definitely rewarding because I understand what an international student goes through when they to come to Canada.
“We had the opportunity to brighten their day with a box of treats. What could be more rewarding during the holiday season than to see students smiling, enjoying, and talking to their families back home about how caring and thoughtful NC is.”
Beyond daily check-ins
In addition to daily check-ins with the Quarantine Team, the College’s Student Engagement Team hosted a daily quarantine social hour each day of a group’s quarantine period. During the Fall 2020 term daily sessions, August 12 to September 25, 569 students attended the daily sessions. Longer daily sessions were offered November 2020, to February 2021, which drew 866 students.
In addition to offering virtual games, the International team hosted Question and Answer sessions so students could ask about quarantine-related questions as well as academic, settlement and social questions. Each quarantine group also had a private chat channel on the Be NC Ready app, so that they were able to chat and get specific information about their quarantine time. NC also offered Mental Health First Aid training multiple times over quarantine periods and many of the students in quarantine took advantage of this virtual training.
Looking ahead
The Cultural and Global Engagement team will continue to support those under the age of 18 and who are unvaccinated, due to vaccination eligibility in their home country, however, the team looks forward to returning to offer studying and working abroad opportunities to prepare world-ready graduates.
“The Be World Ready team garnered many critical lessons during this experience, and we are beyond excited to use these great lessons as we look to have them influence the exciting re-launch of the Be World Ready program this fall,” said Semple. “We will finally get to see our students engaging in global virtual and physical cultural learning opportunities once again with over 70 international opportunities to be introduced in over 35 countries in the next three years.”
