Keyano College is a post-secondary college located in

Fort McMurray Fort McMurray ( ) is an urban service area in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significa ...

, Alberta, Canada. It offers specialized training to more than 2,100 full-time students and over 4,000 part-time students. The main Clearwater Campus is located in downtown

with the Suncor Energy Industrial Campus located in the Gregoire Industrial Park and a new campus in

Fort Chipewyan Fort Chipewyan , commonly referred to as Fort Chip, is an unincorporated hamlet in northern Alberta, Canada, within the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo. History Fort Chipewyan is one of the oldest European settlements in the Provi ...

. Outreach campuses are located in

Anzac The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was originally a First World War army corps of the British Empire under the command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. It was formed in Egypt in December 1914, and operated during the ...

, and

Fort McKay Fort McKay ( ) or Fort MacKay is a community in northeast Alberta, Canada, located at the confluence of the Athabasca and MacKay rivers. It is approximately north of Fort McMurray via Highway 63 and Fort McKay Road. The community has an eleva ...

. The college is also a member of the Alberta Rural Development Network.

History

Keyano College opened in Fort McMurray in 1965 as the Alberta Vocational Centre (AVC). The official opening ceremonies were held on January 26, 1966. In 1975 the college was reopened under its current name, "Keyano", which is a

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

word which, roughly translated, means, "Sharing". The college's slogan was further adapted from that to be "Yours, Mine and Ours". In 1978 Keyano College went public and became a community college when the province appointed a Board of Governors to serve as the decision-making body for the institution. In 2013 and 2018, the Auditor General of Alberta recommended the college implement information technology systems to meet legislative compliance. In 2020, the college network was infected with malware after installing SolarWinds. 19 staff were laid off later that year. In 2022, the college was a victim of a data breach. In 2021 the college launched an eSports Management program, and later invested nearly $1 million in a new eSports arena. In 2024, police were called to the campus for two student protests. The students, who were protesting failing grades, were mainly in the early childhood education program, with one of the cheapest tuitions. Some students insisted they were entitled to a passing grade by paying tuition. President Jay Notay indicated that granting those students requests would be "compromising our academic integrity".

Programs offered

Students can choose from certificate and diploma programs in a wide variety of areas, such as aboriginal entrepreneurship, business administration, college & career preparation, childhood studies, Bachelor of Education, EMT, environmental technology, office administration, practical nurse, human resources management, social work, and university studies. A number of trades programs are also offered, such as heavy equipment technician and power and process engineering. There are one- and two-year university transfer programs in a variety of disciplines with collaborative degrees in nursing and elementary education. Apprenticeship programs are also offered in electrician, heavy equipment technician, millwright, steamfitter/pipefitter, and welding. To make entering the workforce an easier process, Keyano offers pre-employment programs as an alternative to traditional apprenticeship training. First-rate technology is also used, including a new oilsands power & process engineering laboratory. This facility was funded in part by industry leaders. Keyano also has an active Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) Program, which is funded by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, and that offers English language instruction to newcomers to Canada. The program numbers over 125 students, who represent more than 20 nations.

Scholarships and bursaries

Each Fall, Keyano hosts a Student Awards ceremony where sponsors give out their awards to deserving students. In November 2019, over $350,000 was awarded to 235 students.

Student life

Keyano's own theatre offers concerts (like

Jann Arden Jann Arden (born Jann Arden Anne Richards; March 27, 1962) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, author and actress. She is best known for her signature ballads, " Could I Be Your Girl" and " Insensitive", which is her biggest hit to date, as well ...

George Canyon George Canyon (born Frederick George Lays, August 22, 1970) is a Canadian country music singer. He was the runner up on the second season of ''Nashville Star'' in 2004. He grew up in Fox Brook, Pictou County, Nova Scotia before he moved west t ...

, and Ron James) and plays (

Calendar Girls ''Calendar Girls'' is a 2003 British comedy film directed by Nigel Cole. Produced by Harbour Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, based on a true story of a group of middle-aged Yorkshire women who produced a ...

, Mamma Mia!) as well as lectures and guest speakers (most recent being CTV's Seamus O’Regan and Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea).

Athletics

Sports teams include:

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

cheer Cheering involves the uttering or making of sounds and may be used to encourage, excite to action, indicate approval or welcome. The word cheer originally meant face, countenance, or expression, and came through Old French into Middle English" ...

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

and

futsal Futsal is a variant of association football played between two teams of five players each on a court smaller than a football pitch. Its rules are based on the Laws of the Game (association football), Laws of the Game of association football, and i ...

References

All facts, unless otherwise stated, are from Keyano College's web site:
Keyano CollegeAdvanced education and Technology - Institutional Mandates

External links

Keyano CollegePrograms @ Keyano College
{{authority control Buildings and structures in Fort McMurray Colleges in Alberta Vocational education in Canada Educational institutions established in 1965 1965 establishments in Alberta