March 2007 ISSUE
EDUCATION FOUNDATION
Let’s Get Behind the APEGGA Education Foundation
BY ANDY GILLILAND, P.ENG.
APEGGA Education Foundation
2006-2007
President
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The January PEGG featured a centre section with pictures and brief comments on all the APEGGA Education Foundation award recipients from 2006. What a distinguished group they all are.
You will also recall recent requests by APEGGA President Dave Chalcroft, P.Eng., that you make a donation to the foundation, and a January article by Dave Devenny, P.Eng., P.Geol. The column by Mr. Devenny, a past president and current foundation board member, made the case for sustaining the professions as “the responsible thing to do.”
Happily, some of you responded to the request to contribute, and we thank all those who did send us generous donations.
The case for sustaining the professions is something for us all to contemplate. In one of my earlier articles, I gave you the sobering fact that as a group of professionals, we collectively contribute about $2.50 each per year to support the foundation awards activities, as well as some outreach into high schools throughout the province.
I believe that to be a pretty small commitment from responsible people.
During the past year your foundation board has had many discussions with APEGGA Council about the road ahead. We have also spoken with the deans and heads of faculties at both universities about the relevance of our activities.
It is clear that there is a continuing and important role for the foundation to support efforts to attract young people to enter the professions. How this is best done is the subject of further discussion, but, in the meantime, enhanced awards activity continues to be important. Both the number of awards and their value require attention.
We would also like to undertake new activities in support of high school and other mentoring of aspiring students. There are special initiatives proposed in an attempt to reach out to underprivileged communities.
From the present base there are many opportunities to act with the universities and colleges to encourage bright young people to enter our professions.
Surely we can do more! We must find ways to increase contributions to the foundation to enable some of these initiatives to take root.
Council has advised the foundation to look to individual members of APEGGA for that increase. While expressing its support for the foundation and its activities, Council has put a new limit on the support which will be offered by APEGGA direct to the foundation.
By 2010, the foundation will be even more dependent on individual contributions and investment interest than it is now. Corporate matching of employee contributions will be encouraged.
That means that we must increase the contribution from each member by a factor of five. This is what it will take for your foundation to undertake some of the suggested activities and to remain relevant in the years ahead.
I hope that all members of APEGGA respond to this challenge and enable the continuation of activities worthy of the professions your education foundation represents.
As Mr. Devenny has said so well, we believe that this is a professional responsibility.