Education/training
Humber to offer new applied degreeA new applied degree program in Human Resources will get underway September 2008 at Humber College. The four-year program will accept 40 students in its first year, says Graeme Simpson, co-ordinator of the post-graduate HR certificate program at the college. |
|
 [ 2007-07-11 ] |
Human Resource Professionals Association
The program is one of three connected applied degrees at the school, nestling along side others in International Business and Fashion Arts. Those two programs also accept 40 students each.
As well as the demand for more HR professionals, Simpson also says that, starting in 2011, anyone who wants the Certified Human Resources Professional designation --Canada's highest HR management qualification -- will have to have a degree from one institution or another.
York University is one Toronto school that offers a degree with an HR specialization, and, further afield, the University of Guelph has started the process of setting up its own program.
At Humber, all students in HR, International Business and Fashion Arts take two common years to begin their studies. "They're pure business courses (to start)," Simpson says. "It's to give (students) the basic foundation."
Typical courses for students in those first two common years include accounting and labour economics. In the HR stream, students will have 20 HR courses to complete in their final two years.
Simpson expects most of the students in the inaugural HR Bachelor of Applied Business program will come straight from high school, although there could be transfer students and career changers who also enrol.
High school graduation is a must and applicants will need Grade 12 English and math, Simpson says. It's expected that the majority of applicants admitted to the HR program will be female, although Simpson says the number of males interested in the field is growing. In his one-year certificate program, he puts the class breakdown at 80% to 90% female.
There have already been lots of enquiries about the degree, Simpson says, and Humber plans an open house this fall, as well as visits to a number of high schools.
Claude Balthazard, director of HR excellence at the Human Resource Professionals Association of Ontario in Toronto, says many HR professionals already have degrees -- and the HRPAO doesn't distinguish between one degree and another -- but following consultations with the industry, it was decided that to obtain the CHRP designation a degree was necessary.
Esther Ahn is a 2006 graduate of Humber's HR certificate program. Now a management consultant on contract at Ontario's Ministry of Labour, Ahn says she graduated from the University of Toronto in 2001 with a degree in Art History.
She started working in the arts, but didn't see much room for advancement and decided to change careers. "I wanted to work with people, and I was no good at math, so finance and accounting were out," Ahn says. She began to investigate HR and went to Humber following word-of-mouth recommendations and the results of her own research.
Other aspects of the certificate program Ahn liked were instructors who were in tune with what was going on in the industry, and the one-month work placement requirement -- rather than the more lengthy periods required by some programs.
Does your employer subsidize your commute to work?