The University of Saskatchewan (USask) Prince Albert campus hosted its first-ever Open House on Friday evening.
Prospective undergraduate students, parents, student supporters, and school counsellors registered in advance to take part in a full evening of activities.
Rob Procyk Campus Lead for the USask Prince Albert Campus explained that it was time to host an open house for the campus.
“We moved during COVID. So we’ve so this will be our second full year where all programs are back on campus. So we thought what better time then to launch this because people still think it’s the Forestry Centre and still don’t understand that we’re here, which is another thing,” Procyk said.
“It’s our very first open house since we’ve been in the building and we’ve been we were in Sask Poly for 40 years and nursing was at First Nations University. We’ve been under the one roof for a couple of years now,” he added.
The university has extended its reach in Prince Albert as an essential step to demonstrating USask’s commitment to supporting Indigenous and northern education.
Procyk explained that the intent was to bring awareness to the campus and the programs. He explained that this time of year some students are under pressure to make decisions.
“They get a lot of pressure from I don’t know schools, the parents or whatever, but it’s almost November and they think they have got all their life decisions made and they get a little panicked,” he said.
The event included an info fair to meet college representatives, information sessions to learn about USask programs offered in Prince Albert, campus tours, and workshops on how to apply for admission.
The setup was very casual with Procyk speaking in a classroom before a tour of the building by Academic Advisors.
“It’s a good way to ease in for students, too, I think just especially those who well for two types, for those who are studious and don’t want outside distractions and they know that they have good support at home. But it’s also for those who might need a little time to grow up and a little time,” Procyk said.
One advantage of the campus is smaller class sizes according to Procyk and applying and being accepted guarantees acceptance to the Saskatoon campus in most cases.
“So we’re doing Campus tours, they can do apply on the spot right now so and then college reps are downstairs,” Procyk said.
College representatives were on hand from the Edwards School of Business, College of Nursing and other colleges.
Early in the day, Procyk was happy with the attendance for the first-ever event.
” I thought, well if we have 15 people show up and then we had just about 80 so far,” he said.
“People are just kind of wandering just here and there. So that’s kind of exciting that we’ve got this happening,” he added.
