After consultation with faculty, staff and industry partners, NAIT has introduced a new academic structural organization, moving from four schools to seven. This is their first major restructuring since 2016. The change ensures that NAIT’s programs are still closely linked to industry, while also allowing for greater collaboration between programs.
The new model sees schools organized around their correlated industries—a change that NAIT said in a press release “creates more opportunities for collaboration and allows leaders to strengthen connections across a broad range of industries.” Students in related programs that may interact on job sites, such as Engineering Design Technology students and Carpentry students, are now grouped together in one school. NAIT’s VP Academic Peter Leclaire explained that “by mimicking the collaboration that happens on a worksite, we get a better outcome overall.”
The new structure has been launched, but NAIT considers it an “ongoing project that will continue to evolve.”
The new schools are:
- JR Shaw School of Business
- offers programs in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Finance and more
- Dean: Dennis Sheppard
- School of Construction and Building Sciences
- focuses on apprenticeship training and diplomas that “reflect the latest tools, technologies and best practices”
- Dean: Matthew Lindberg
- School of Energy and Natural Resources
- programs offered in this school focus on sustainability and “hands-on training in the energy and natural resource sectors.”
- Dean: Dr. Agatha Ojimelukwe, a new hire from University of Port-Harcourt
- School of Health and Life Sciences
- contains programs like Advanced Care Paramedic, Disaster and Emergency Management and Optical Sciences
- Dean: Denise MacIver
- School of Manufacturing and Automation
- focuses on “[meeting] the demands of the manufacturing and automation sectors.”
- Dean: another new hire, Stephen McMillan, who was formerly the Associate Dean of Mechanical Engineering at British Columbia Institute of Technology
- School of Media and Information Technology
- this school “prepares students for careers in Digital Content, Network Security, Data Analysis and Communications.”
- Interim Dean: Dennis Sheppard
- School of Transportation
- includes the Crane and Hoist Equipment Operator program at Spruce Grove campus, Industrial Heavy Equipment Technology and Auto Body Technician
- Dean: Stephen McMillan