Parution le 9 février 2015
Culinary students at Red River College may lose the opportunity to study at a school in France as the college is reviewing the program and looking into alternative institutions.
RRC is in the second year of a three-year agreement with the Institut Paul Bocuse Worldwide Alliance. Each year, members of the alliance can send their top students to train at the Institut Paul Bocuse for four-months. Membership costs the college $ 11,515 annually, with the cost of each student’ s tuition and flight covered through fundraising.
“[ The college ] was just under review for a scandal about how they were misappropriating college funds, so I don’ t think they should be getting rid of this,” said culinary arts student Kelsey Fitzgerald, 21.“ They’ re cutting actual beneficial programs.”
The provincial government recently released a report on financial and human resource practices at RRC. The report questioned some of the previous RRC president’ s spending, including why the president and two other staff members were required to travel to France to set up membership in the alliance. The report also notes that RRC’ s membership in the alliance is unusual as it is the only Canadian member and there is only one American member.
Graham Thomson, interim dean of the school of hospitality and culinary arts, said the program review is not related to the report regarding the former president, but was based on an internal review of the program’ s validity.
“ The question for me is how much does this mean to potential graduates and employers in Manitoba,” said Thomson.“ There are alternatives, we probably don’ t need to spend that kind of money on an exchange.”
Thomson describes the institutions looked into by RRC as being equivalent to that of a community college, which is disappointing to some students.