After 50 years of being involved at Olds College in one way or another, Al Kemmere is honoured to be able to continue on with the local post-secondary institution.
This week Kemmere was appointed to the role of Chair of the Olds College Board of Governors by the Government of Alberta’s Ministry of Advanced Education.
Kemmere joined the Board as a public member in March of 2023 and he had been serving as the Interim Chair for the past year. He says “my history with Olds College goes back to when I was a student with Olds College and all my life in the community I’ve been involved at different levels with Olds College. The official appointment of the Chair role, I don’t think it will be much different then what I have been doing already as the Interim Chair because I did that work as if I was the Chair. I wasn’t holding back on anything in particular. It will just give us the gratification of knowing that that position is now a little bit more permanent until renewal next year.”
Kemmere explains what the Board of Olds College of Agriculture and Technology does. He says “the role of the board is primarily to give oversight to the operations of the college. The Board has one employee and that is the President, who is the CEO of the college. The Board’s role is to gather as much information as reasonably possible so that they can do an analysis to see how the college is being managed and being run according to the policies the Board has put in place. So that’s kind of an oversight of it. There is a lot more detail then that but that is a bit of a good glimpse.”
According to Kemmere, the Board is in the middle of about three different projects and they are projects that should come to fruition here within the later months of the school year. He says “we are in the final process of completing the strategic plan and we need to have a plan in place for the college to give guidance for the operations of the college. We are also in the early stages of a process of the recruitment for the President and that again is another very important process because the President is the manager of the college, the CEO of the college. So we are putting good efforts into that.” Kemmere notes they are also in the midst of rewriting a whole bunch of the policies. Olds College adopted a new governance model last year which means rewriting all of its policies and they are about two-thirds of the way through that. He hopes they can bring those projects to a close by the end of June.
Listen to 96.5 The Ranch’s conversation with Al Kemmere.
