EW 082 – How To Creatively Lead The Transformation Of A Growing Post-Secondary Institution – Winning With Carolyn Campbell, President and CEO of Norquest College

gord (00:00.716)
Carolyn, welcome to the show.

Carolyn Campbell (00:03.613)
Thank you for having me, Gord. This is so much fun and I'm really glad to speak with you today.

gord (00:08.31)
Well, we are so lucky to have you as someone who chooses to be a leader in many different places and times. There's something unique about your resume. If people had a chance to sort of review the whole thing, they would just see you consistently choosing leveling up leadership opportunities. And I'm really curious to actually learn about what it is in you that motivates you to do that kind of thing. Award-winning, recognized, multi-institutional, all kinds of different exposure in there too. And but a lot of people haven't met you just yet. So if you had to describe yourself, what would you say?

Carolyn Campbell (00:39.399)
First of all, thank you. That is such a warm introduction. I really appreciate that. For those who don't know me, I'm the president and CEO of Norquest College. I have had a very exciting career. I'm very fortunate. I was a deputy minister. I was a deputy city manager. I spent a long time at the University of Alberta, 15 years as the associate dean of the business school.

At the U of A, I ran executive education, which was a great spot to learn about leadership. So I I'm sure I'll be pulling examples from there. But you know where how my career got started? I actually have three degrees in art. I taught painting at the university. I know, and I worked at the at the art gallery as a I worked as a manager at the art gallery for years, like when I was just getting started. So to bring things together, I have been just working on a PhD.

at the University of Oxford part-time on weekends and that's on board governance of major art museums on big issues that are affecting the museums right now which is restitution. So I think that that just sort of it brings for me, it brings a lot of things together. I've handed in my final edits, so I'm just waiting to hear how how things wrap up.

gord (01:53.966)
Well, congratulations on that PhD work. That takes a few minutes in terms of of your time, like in terms of the commitment and how nice that again, if we had another podcast, we would explore the premise of that. I'm sure there's some unique things in there. Just to let you know, on my own background, I worked and trained as an actor. I went to acting school in New York City in 1990 and worked in the television business and then transitioned out of there through an MBA at the University of Alberta and walked across that stage 2013. And then somewhere in there, there was an inspiring sessional instructor.

Carolyn Campbell (02:15.597)
gord (02:22.327)
Who got me into this sort of mindset of saying, wait a second, you can help organizations as a consultant and you know, really work with leadership teams to make them better. And so now I love these combos of arts meets where you are today. And I can tell you Krista Rabidou was on. She's from Anderson Accounting. She's had a major impact for their firm, but she started out as a she was gonna be a roadie and that was what she was gonna do. And she has a whole arts management background and told a not a exact same arc, but a similar arc to what you're saying around this idea of

pulling those things together and the unique impact that she's having in the accounting world. So I can't imagine the rooms that you are in to bring not just a say a straight raw business perspective to things. You would be bringing this multifaceted approach. Isn't it must be exciting to be in rooms with that those perspectives.

Carolyn Campbell (03:09.093)
Y you know, there's so much to learn from like visual arts, performing arts. I I can really visualize things. Right? I mean, and so if you're very, very clear, and we'll talk about that. I think that has to do with the win that we're gonna discuss today. But when a person and a leader is very clear about what they see and can communicate that, I think that just bodes well for an organization and an institution and an environment. and I think there's a passion as well.

that you can that you bring to the sharing of that vision.

gord (03:42.158)
Well, and how lucky to hear you're at Norquest College at a neat time in Norquest College's evolution, bringing your skill set there, your PhD work, you've got unlimited runway. I can hear you're living to 120 and still working. That's what I'm I'm hearing in your sort of journey that you're going to be doing. let me just jump in then and say, you know, we always on this podcast say if you had to describe your biggest win in all this, what would that win be and how would you describe it?

Carolyn Campbell (03:54.373)
It probably

Carolyn Campbell (04:04.647)
Thank you for that. you know what I'm going to talk about is our Space Master Plan and how we've been manifesting the actual physical campus. But in order to do that, I want to come back to our strategy here at the college. And I want to start with the name of that strategy. We created it in twenty twenty-one. It has just gone through five years of like really building and growing, and we've accomplished a lot on that. And so we've just done a r a renew and a refresh of that strategic plan.

It's called NorQuest 2030, We Are Who We Include. And I think that phrase speaks so much to who we are at NorQuest, but also the direction that we're going in. It's attracted incredible folks to the college. It's kept incredible people at the college. but furthermore, it really attracts, I think, our students and has informed how we conceive of campus. So with our master space plan.

I think if folks I I think a lot of people are familiar with what we do at Norquest, but let me share more about like the four big the four big areas. Norquest is a massive healthcare provider in our region. In fact, we're one of the biggest healthcare providers in the country. So all the LPNs, the healthcare aides, the unit clerks, the pharmacy techs, I mean you name it in healthcare. You go into a a doctor's office in your frontline, yeah, it's it's it's probably in Norquest grad.

We are very big in community support. So whether it's mental health and addictions, whether it's childcare workers, social workers, community support workers, settlement studies workers, that's a a massive area for Northwest. Third, we do the foundational, the language training. the y and then fourth would be university transfer. So n Northwest has been has been growing. We've grown seventy nine percent

just in domestic students in ten years. We have a campus that has been built here, our downtown campus. We also have a campus in Wetascoin, which is great. But our campus here in downtown Edmonton has been built for five thousand full time students.

Carolyn Campbell (06:18.328)
We now have 10,000 full-time students. I know, it's huge. And we have like probably more like 17,000 all in students all in. And that includes like so anybody part-time or maybe they're taking a you know a short certificate program or something. So with that, we're like, we need a new master plan. We created that around, I think that was finalized around 2022 in concert with the original strategic plan.

And we have taken several steps to manifest that as I was saying. So the first is like really lifting it up. We were thinking of our campus plan as being situated in what we've called that coined the term the education district. And we use that very liberally with McEwen. We're so excited about all the students. Did you know 30,000 students come down every day between Norquest and McEwen? It's huge.

We have a downtown block par I'll put in a plug for our downtown block party which is coming up I think next week. where both schools all all our students take to the streets with vendors and such. It's really, really fun and everybody's welcome. But we have thirty thousand students within the education district and we conceive of our Northwest campus more like a campus and not like of the one of the first things I thought when I got here was I want people to think of us like a campus and not a building, because it's several buildings.

So to do that within the education district, we need to really think about the perimeter. And we created these beautiful colorful markers that are all around the perimeter of the campus to show people this is NorQuest. And I've heard from folks that they really enjoy that and it makes it more walkable, and I think that it just makes the streets more attractive too. The second thing we did, which was huge, was we took down

An old old building that was on the southeast corner of our campus took up a lot of visual space. It was it really had to go, and that was part of the building of the Singh current building, like one of the biggest newest buildings is the Singmore Building. So we took down this old building. We put up a beautiful park. The name is Meanouk Park.

Carolyn Campbell (08:36.656)
And it's just it's exquisite and we are able to have lots of different events out for the college in the park and it is a much more welcoming entry into our campus from that side of downtown. And then not satisfied with that, we did it again. So across the street, so Norquest is largely on 108th Street, and we thought we own a lot of the block between 108th Street is a whole city block and 109th.

But you would never have known it a few years ago. And so what we did is two things. We bought more buildings on that block. We bought the Champs Building, which is on the corner. We haven't started doing anything with that building yet, but we thought it was important to secure that property. That's right on the corner on 109th Street. And then we bought the Calder Bateman building. We did take the Calder Bateman building down. We've built another park there.

And on both those parks I spoke of, and this is a nod to all those years that I was at the U of A, of course, but we put giant welcome to N like Norquest College signs. So I think that really shows, you know, Edmontonians and our region and of course our students, like that there is a campus vibe. Okay, so then what's next? Well, we we were running out of space because we need to have this ca our new career skills center.

built over the next few years. So we've rented four floors of what we're calling Jasper Avenue Tower, which is at the south end of 108th. So our footprint is big. But it's the camp it's the Career Skills Center for which we've had four million dollars of planning and development money two years ago granted to us. And we're so pleased to receive that from the government of Alberta that we're actively working on right now.

in order to really see the campus through the vision. And maybe I can stop there if you have any questions before we talk more about the Career Skills Center.

gord (10:42.398)
I thanks for being so well prepared and and laying out all those good details for us and really getting us located in in when we think about downtowns, you know, Emmitton, which is where you are, you're a massive driver as one of the pieces, not only for your students and your campus, which I heard five thousand to ten thousand. I heard seventeen thousand all in. I heard let's throw them together with McEwen and all the e efforts that McEwen is making and working in cooperation. How nice.

That you know, you've got your lane in a sense, and McCue and would have their lane in terms of what you're doing. So it's not a competitive issue. It really is getting together to make it better for everybody. How nice when we think about I'm gonna say from the downtown revitalization or that type of point of view, but also from your student experience. So students who would have come through there in the past, that campus thing would simply not have been their experience. So you knew the importance of that. And I'm gonna go right back to we are who we include. Those phrases are hard to come up with.

Carolyn Campbell (11:07.59)
Mm.

Carolyn Campbell (11:33.542)
Mm.

gord (11:36.63)
But once you lock down, you can really hold things up against that. Is that fair?

Carolyn Campbell (11:38.684)
Yeah.

It's so fair and and it's broad, right? So it's broad and yet specific at the same time. It's clear. We know what we stand for. And our purpose is very clear at the college. That we transform lives and when we transform a life, we transform a whole family and that transforms a community and it transforms our whole region. And that's something that NorthQuest staff we really hold near and dear and it's what keeps us coming back every day. But when we were thinking about

Look, what does we are who we include mean? One of the things we thought about was it means more high school students. We want to see more high school students as well at the college. It means so many things, of course. We want to grow domestically. internationally we've we grew so much we retracted with that, of course, as everyone every college did across the country. But how do we want to want to grow? We want to see more 28-year-olds. That's our average age of per of student that comes to the college.

More twenty eight year olds that are changing careers or they're upskilling. but the high school portion is a bit of a key lever here because and and we did see a massive increase in high school students coming to our open house this year. It's been really exciting to see. I think eleven busloads of them came into the college for an afternoon. It was wonderful. we did.

gord (12:59.168)
And you've created that welcoming environment for them to walk into. So again, you know, you know from a branding perspective what you're pulling off here. You know all the little details. And it's funny you you gave me the high level. I can't imagine the day to day and what it takes to approve a font and do the things that it takes over years to kind of get that dialed in. But you've created this campus field. Let me just help out the audience here for just a second. If you had to get sort of one or two sentences for the win then, just do me a favor and summarize the win in in one or two sentences. Go ahead.

Carolyn Campbell (13:05.105)
Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Campbell (13:11.716)
Carolyn Campbell (13:27.356)
People, clarity of vision, and execution. So we have, yes, we have be wonderful people that work here at NorQuest. They're exquisitely clear on their purpose, as I said. The vision that is consistently tied back to the clarity with respect to the strategy shows up every single time someone comes to present to us at the executive committee. They talk about how the work that they're

gord (13:32.236)
People yep.

Carolyn Campbell (13:57.243)
working on or proposing or reporting on ties into our strategic plan. And then execution, we have very clear measurements. We do use net promoter score as well. But we have very clear measurements. We have a really clean line of reporting on that back to the board. And then I would say it's communication. So whether it's going on like our campus TV show to talk about like what's been happening at the college or you know

more with respect to town halls, lots of meetings with smaller teams. I really do enjoy like just rolling my sleeves up and, you know, running around with donuts even to drop them off to the frontline staff and and seeing the work in action but also being able to communicate, you know, and reinforce I always tell people I listen for patterns, but I think it's important that for myself and our executive team that we express patterns so that people

are continually presented with the strategy, the methodology, the operations, the delivery and then and then I'm always asking people too, okay, what do we need to do better? Right? and how do we how do we continue?

gord (15:11.724)
Boy, it sounds like you're the right person in the right seat with the right skill set and attitude at this time, right? You can hear the joy that you have for that big picture piece, the investments that you've made in your career for developing all aspects of what it takes to be in that mode. I love the management by walking around concept that you're talking about, which is getting out the donuts and making those connections go together. And thank you for that insight for executive leaders to say, no, wait, we need to communicate both ways. I need you also to be communicating out.

And that's often a miss I find if I'm in, say, doing alignment work with a leadership team. they'll sort of think people should know or we did the town hall and it's done. I can hear what you're doing is beating the drum and keeping that alive. Is that fair?

Carolyn Campbell (15:49.489)
Yeah. That is so fair and I think you know y and you do you also don't you think you do learn some of this in in art school environments as well? I mean, one of the things that you're presented with continually is the concept of critique, right? So I went into my bachelor of fine arts when I seventeen years old and then ended up doing my master's degree later and ended up teaching, you know, you teach quite a bit when you're

doing a master's degree in any kind of arts field and it's critique, critique, critique. So you need to get very used to being like imagining something. Like let's use a painting for example. You go into the studio, there's nothing there but blank walls. You have to imagine something. You have to pull from all your different sources, whether it's what you're reading, the other art you're seeing, where you're traveling, what you're learning about.

and so on and then you have to but you also have to execute. Like technically it has to be really, really good and continually better, right? And you're always searching for breakthroughs. So how do you then go from blank wall to something? But then how do you make sure that it starts existing on a higher and higher plane of like world relevance or like if you're gonna put art out in the world, it better bother because it's more stuff.

Right. And so I use that as an analogy for leadership too. I think it's really you you should be able to like almost use that same process or methodology. because it's all about eventually you've gotta show, you know, what you're doing and then you gotta be open to the critique, right? And then that's only gonna make everybody better.

gord (17:37.013)
Makes everybody better and you've got the discipline that's built in from those years. And we would have fun stories about the fun critiques and the tough critiques that you have to go through in the art setting for sure. What I see is if I can take a moment here just to extend the analogy, you've got a a canvas of sorts with Norquest College when you arrived. And then you started to say put in those pieces, the strategic plan. You said you talked about the space initiatives that you've had to make it a more welcoming campus type setting, and you know the foundational really legacy.

Carolyn Campbell (17:45.244)
Mm-hmm.

gord (18:04.018)
aspects of what you're talking about are going to lay in for 10, 20, 25 years. These are not sort of one year turnarounds, like buy the building, sit on the building, get ready for the next thing in a growth phase, because you would have also in your statistically, you would understand the need, especially in healthcare, for the place that you play in how that all goes together. Wow, it's really neat to hear all that good thinking come through and how lucky again to hear your perspective and you being in that leadership role at this time, which I'm sure

Tremendous support from other people. We know what the win is in a sense, and I'm gonna say people, vision, and execution, just to sort of leave it at that, because I think that's really powerful. And if we then get into what I call the anatomy of a win and we look at the strategy, work plan, people, operations, and results behind that. Strategically you've mentioned a few things already. You know, you've executed on the strategy that you have. Any highlights from the strategy that you think kind of make this work?

Carolyn Campbell (18:54.396)
Hmm. I think something that we're rallying around a lot right now, and we spend an a lot of time talking about it and certainly government advocacy and now more and more philanthropic conversations is the Career Skills Center, right? So I think when we when you talk about the strategy and like let's use the Career S Skills Center as an example, like really I think to hang our hat on for the discussion.

But there's no career skill center without growth in programs, right? So we need to be very, very clear about where we're going with our programming and the healthcare needs in this province are ever expanding. So I'm I'll I'll show you the picture. So the Singmore building that we're in right now, the vision is that that's already got a couple of floors that basically look like a hospital. If we move some programs out.

So let's say that in the new building we can have more university transfer, more there's so much work coming down the pipe on technology and defense. So there would be lots of opportunity there. a bunch of our frontline programs, whether it's like because we always say we power the front lines of the economy, but again those community support, the social work, those programs. And then our our like one of our other buildings, our Civic Employee Legacy Tower, that one

lots more focus on the foundational and the language and so on. so I think that there is like like people understand that we're like they can see it. It's like okay here's the programs that we're building. Our indigenous career center has been s been seeing so much growth over the past few years. Phenomenal. It's a it's a true success story. It used to be called the Indigenous Construction Career Center, but

we we found that we're growing so much outside of construction as well. so that's been really exciting. so yeah, like I think that that's something people can really picture.

gord (20:50.155)
Well, and and found yeah, foundationally foundationally what we can hear is the ability to move with the market as well. If indigenous needs indigenous needs to evolve, we evolve. If healthcare needs more demands, we meet the demands. If we need to get the stud so that's really interesting, but it gets back to your thoughtful strategy that's now in that whatever there was the version one that you've gone through or one of the versions and now you're on that next version, along with putting those pieces in place that make you sort of the most relevant in is in terms of what you're doing and power the front line. What an interesting

Carolyn Campbell (20:58.523)
Yeah.

gord (21:20.291)
an important role that you folks are playing in that sort of education landscape. So that's strategic sort of highlights in a sense that we're hearing a little bit about. Anytime we have a strategy, we need a work plan. So I heard you've been there for six years-ish. That's something I heard.

Carolyn Campbell (21:33.596)
Yeah, we have a business plan, like so yeah, and it's like it's all it's all very cyclical. So you've got the strategic plan and then we build out a business plan that goes with that. And then each one of the vice presidents is very clear on which what their teams are contributing towards that and they will take turns going in front of the board and reporting on that and then they will also be in front of the whole college, right, at town halls saying how things are going.

Right? And and and I find that like a very useful way to make sure that you're continually improving and staying on top of things. So yes, operationally we're a post secondary educational institution, but we do run it like a business. and we like we're on top of the finances at all times. We're continually making sure we're sustainable, efficient,

that our cost per student is amongst the finest, it's probably the lowest in the province right now. it's like we really like we do a good job, you know, of knowing our business and making sure that we're running as efficiently as we can because you can't let your foot off the gas for a minute around here. It's ever changing and I mean

It's exciting working in a postsecondary educational institution that is so tied to the labor market, but you can't like you have to stay stay so on top of things, right? So we're continually hearing from the deputy minister of jobs, for instance, or our our own deputy minister in advanced ed. and then we have program advisory committees and a workforce advisory committee that ensure that we're getting excellent external advice and checks and balances.

On manifesting our operations.

gord (23:30.037)
It sounds like the post secondary that's needed for now and in the future. And I love the word clear in there. There's some VPs that if we dug into your whatever you're calling them, KPIs, ki you know, whatever you whatever those indicators are, I'm glad to hear clear and low cost per you know, lowest cost per student, that meets the time, right? In turn in terms of when post secondaries go through what they're going through right now, depending on government support. This is around the world, it's not sort of just sort of your own issue.

Carolyn Campbell (23:41.691)
Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Campbell (23:49.819)
Mm-hmm.

gord (23:57.558)
That would be something as well. So glad to hear that we know the strategy in a sense. We've got some highlights out of there. There's a work plan that's in place. And I'm sure the business plan, people would, you know, if they needed to sort of learn more about it, they can do that. strategy work work plan, there's always people involved. I'm can I can hear we've learned a lot about you and your perspective. Who are some of the other key players? And I know I've said something unfair because I'm sure it's thousands in a sense, but who are some of the other key players in a sense that that make these win this win occur?

Carolyn Campbell (24:22.159)
Yeah, and it is. It's a it's a great operation. We have over a thousand staff, so it is like and each and every soul that works here at the college is doing great work. Like it's it's like it's an impressive place from a people standpoint. We have vice president of people, culture and equity who like so if you come back to We Are Who We Include, spends a lot of time making sure that we have like she's been doing a ton of work on our people strategy.

'Cause it needs it needs like it's it's something like culture is something everybody owns, right? But you do need to make sure as the CEO and the C suite team and the board that you prioritize it, and that you're talking about it and you're working on it. We we do regular engagement surveys, pulse surveys, as much as we can. We try to introduce fun things.

into the college too. But the la I mean the last year in particular though, I mean it was we just had so much on our plates. Like hey, we need to introduce more fun things again. It's been so so flat out. which is good, but like look at the needs of the province, right? So like what I think is fascinating about culture is that you have the purposeful things that you do to ensure you've got like really good performance plans. Like

real like sharpness and and so that people know like what's expected of them. and I think if people know what's expected of them and then what's expected of the people around them. Look, is this perfect all the time? It is not. This is the what we always strive for. then I think like things just it just seems to be smoother. But yeah, we've won we've won culture awards and we're really proud of that and you know best for

gord (26:16.809)
Absolutely. Yeah. And I I'll just jump in and say a couple things. There's a workshop I deliver. And at one point when I'm with senior leaders, I say, How do you celebrate? And that's the only time they go silent because often, like you said, just generally, leaders are flat out. So I'm glad to hear you're conscious in that area as you're kind of moving things forward. So good to hear about and and if I've interviewed 80 plus leaders on this podcast, no one said I made a million dollars. No one said it's always people and culture in terms of

Carolyn Campbell (26:42.235)
Mm-hmm.

gord (26:43.239)
strong leaders that have been on cer certainly that I've been meeting. And so that's interesting to hear again thematically that being so significant in the work that you do and inevitable in terms of, you know, what it can be for having an impact in the future and not getting dragged into, in a sense, the the mood in healthcare as an example. You know what I mean? Like if you can actually be a bastion of having, you know, those people, then they can get a chance when they get into some of those other cultures that are struggling.

Carolyn Campbell (27:01.381)
Mm.

gord (27:08.873)
Right now and be in the best possible position to be effective. Strategy, work plan, people operationally, we've been hearing it. You've op you're you guys operationalize, execute all the time. You're buying the building for the future. You are making things happen in so many different areas. Actually, it's funny. I your brain must be coming apart. There's so many things to keep in the CEO brain around these kind of things. Any operational highlights that you like to point out beyond the ones that you've already said in the interview?

Carolyn Campbell (27:33.594)
Yeah, I mean I think well I think there's several. What one of them is like so if we're thinking let's just look at the Career Skills Center, that team, the amount of work that they have had to do to build a business case, for the province. And that like to do it once and then you do it but you redo it every year. And I know there's I like this year I think was the finest one. I think that was really that was really, really good work. I think that was really pleased about that. you know what we like I mean

This is maybe not as exciting, but the the the the true leaders in the group will get this. Risk management, then the fiduciary responsibility side. When I think it was my first year or two on the job working with the board, one of the things that we did is build out a very robust risk management body well, body work really. So there was a strategy around it, of course, that tied into our strategic plan, but I mean you gotta

Like what are the pieces that need to be changed on a regular basis? Like 'cause your risks are changing. What like what's the through lines? What are you measuring like deep into the organization? Which is great because then you have like deans, directors, and then more frontline managers all paying attention to risk. So very proud of that work. I think that was you know, that was really, really well done. I think, you know, we have a group called

walking together. That is the executive and indigenous leaders at the college and we meet I think, well I mean maybe maybe once every six weeks or every two months to talk about ways that we can continually improve on learning outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous students.

When I first started the college I think we had about fifty indigenous students and today it depends on the term, but fourteen hundred. so we had a a dean and director years ago who made what seems like a very simple operational decision, but it was brilliant, which was to remove the application fee for indigenous students because that was the the barrier.

Carolyn Campbell (29:57.38)
And we talk about we are who we include. And that was one of the first things that was like, Okay, if we're we are who we include, and Indigenous students if that's if that's the thing and that worked. And you know what's beautiful is if if we see often see indigenous students come in and they will take academic upgrading. And then I was in our Mia Powatsuan Center, our Indigenous Student Center.

This was like a couple of years now. I'm th I mean I'm there frequently, but this one there was a particular time that will stand out in my whole career as just an just an amazing moment. And it was maybe a couple of years, two or three years after we had introduced that removal of that administ application fee. And I went around the circle asking all the students, there was probably fifteen of them there, what they were taking. Most of them were in scrubs, and it was like

L PN, LPN, unit clerk, healthcare aid, healthcare health care healthcare aid. And then I said, and what did you do first when you got to Northwest? Academic upgrading around the table. So that's wonderful because you're seeing more indigenous people going into healthcare.

gord (31:12.007)
Wow. So isn't that neat? And I'm just gonna pick up on a few things that you just said. One, sorry, walking together. we are who we include. Do you know what I mean? It takes time to get down to eloquence, to say, that's got my attention. and you're paying it off, right? 50 to 1400 or whatever. That's pretty crazy to have that kind of insight. And then thank you for the the risk readiness aspect. Because so if I went into, you know, whatever, enterprise type.

Carolyn Campbell (31:18.832)
Well.

Carolyn Campbell (31:30.245)
Yeah. Yeah.

Carolyn Campbell (31:35.939)
gord (31:40.416)
risks and we think, maybe you're ready for cyber incidents. Maybe you're ready for the next if I say meningitis or COVID or those you know what I mean? Like I I I'm fascinated now that I think a leader that's listening to this might want to, you know, buy you a coffee and say, what's that look like? 'Cause I'm gett I'm guessing again, it's another area where you've put in the work, not unlike your people in the leadership area getting your skill center work that it takes to get it together at that level. Wow.

We could talk all day long on the operational side. So we've heard strategy, work plan, people, operations. Finally, in terms of these win, what results do you like to kind of point out? I know you we've talked about buildings getting built. We've talked about things getting done. We've programs happening, risk, all these different things that you've talked about. Any sort of highlights maybe on the quantitative side that you'd like to point out?

Carolyn Campbell (32:27.269)
grown from when I started seven thousand say two hundred full load equivalents to ten thousand full load equivalents. I think, you know, that basically I think that kind of tells the story on a if you if you dive into that what that actually means for the college, that's a hu it's a huge win. Because it's that's just good for a region, right? That's like a huge percentage of increase of people, thousands of people every year.

They're going back to school. And some of them may never have otherwise, right? And some of them maybe like they're in a field that then they need to be retrained. So I think that like the huge success story for us, the the massive win, it always comes back to students. And I mean, we're just starting the year right now, so there's two very, very fun well, it's all fun, but like September and just really getting going with the school year, but comication, right? So

You can't not feel wonderful about what you're doing when you see all those student after student after student crossing the stage and this year, I don't know, it just felt extra joyful or something. It just I don't know. Feels like there has like just there's a real I think excitement. We're so well past COVID. There's like I think people are starting to feel like, wow, like we're really building something. Again, there's a momentum and you could feel it in our convocation.

gord (33:56.064)
Wonderful. Wow. So, you know, that's the quantitative aspect and you can see it, the convocation. How does this win overall? How's it feel for you as a leader?

Carolyn Campbell (34:05.423)
We're excited. You know, I mean the thing for me as a leader, like, I have to say I am someone who is constantly I I like I never count my chickens ever. Right? Every single day I get up what can I you know, what do I need to do better today? What's like what's gonna be fun today? You know, where where do I need to concentrate? Externally, internally. But it's it's so rewarding.

gord (34:34.581)
That's great. And so lucky again to be sort of pulling off your whole portfolio. You know, you take a couple of decades and you throw it all together at this moment in time to not only have impact for NorQuest, but there's another canvas you're painting with your PhD work. So that's, you know what I mean? It's just gonna get more rich and more rich, how neat to run into in a couple of years and even see how much deeper your own leadership journey has gone. And then this win with NorQuest, which just sort of will simply lair up over and over again with this strong foundational work that you've done. That's great. Anytime I get great leaders.

Like you on the show, I always have to say on the way out here, you know, if you were talking to that next leader, someone to give a few sentences of advice to, what do you like to say to other leaders to help them grow themselves?

Carolyn Campbell (35:08.163)
Mm.

Carolyn Campbell (35:16.859)
You know, I'm gonna come back to going to art school.

Do like do the thing you love. I know it's so hard sometimes, but do the thing you love. And then find out find a way to just even if you can keep it going on the side or whatever, but it will find its way into your leadership. Whether the thing you love is is your leadership job and it's every day and it should be. But if it's feeding you somehow, like just make sure you stay really, really connected to who you are as a person.

and your own values because I think as I think more and more in leadership, authenticity, being genuine, do the work. Like do the work every day without fail. and then you got this.

gord (36:10.227)
Authenticity, be yourself, do the work. Carolyn, thank you so much for being on the show.

Carolyn Campbell (36:16.483)
This was great fun. Thank you for having me.