Dr. Greg Smith

My name is Greg Smith. I’m the Vice-Provost (Academic Planning and Programs) at the University of Manitoba and we’ve been a Navitas partner for going on 18 years now.

Becoming a partner with Navitas has allowed the University of Manitoba to pursue a number of its goals of internationalization and diversification of its student body. This has allowed us to reach a different kind of market of students, and also bring the opportunity for post-secondary education to students who are interested in coming to Canada and looking for maybe a different experience, a different market – while enjoying all that Winnipeg and Manitoba can offer.

So over the years of our partnership, our International College of Manitoba population has grown from strength to strength. We started as a modest operation and over the years we’ve grown in numbers and we’ve grown in the diversity of students. We are, I think, the most diverse college in Canada. Certainly in the Navitas partnership we’ve got over 63 countries represented in our student population, which is a very diverse group, and we really value that kind of diversity.

We’ve also expanded the kind of courses and programming that students who take the pathway programming into the University of Manitoba. That has expanded over the years – and we’ve also introduced new courses, including just this year, there’s new courses that are available to students. There’s the standard courses that are there to really build their foundations, but we’ve been able to add some interesting optional courses to kind of flesh out the whole learning experience and also diversify our programming.