Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology

Intro for blurb: Lori Crosson is the Dean, Continuing Education, E-Learning, Culinary, Academic Upgrading and CICE at Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology with extensive experience in lifelong learning and workforce development. She focuses on making education more flexible and accessible through technology, online learning, employer collaboration and community partnerships. She also works to align programs with changing learner and workforce needs.

Learning on Own Terms

17 years in continuing education have taught me one fundamental truth: people want to learn. Traditional post-secondary education often fails not because learners lack willingness, but because it asks them to come on the institution’s terms, to a campus they may not be able to reach. My experience has led me to a clearer view: education must be flexible, fluid and centred on the learner.

Continuing education serves people whose lives rarely follow a conventional path. They may have taken a different route after school, spent 20 years in a job that no longer exists, or need academic upgrading before taking the next step. When online platforms replaced newspapers, we saw displaced workers come to us. When COVID accelerated the adoption of Microsoft 365, Teams, and SharePoint, we saw employees who needed more time and support to adapt.

The wider lesson is that technology and global change is constant. But the need to listen to learners and the need to listen to employers has not changed. What we deliver may change with the times, but the need to understand what people need does not. So, we moved our career-focused programs online, with offerings in human resources, bookkeeping, and health office administration. We still run in-person courses for personal growth, cooking, yoga, art, and first aid. For professional advancement, the online shift works better for many program areas.

The Geography of Access

Sault Ste. Marie is a city of 70,000 people, but that number says little about the geography that shapes it. The nearest city lies eight hours to the north and three hours to the east. The United States is to the south. Lake Superior is to the west. In practical terms, we are bound on every side by distance, and that distance defines access here.

Trends that move quickly through Toronto do not always arrive here, or arrive in the same form. Many of the communities we serve are smaller and more remote still, where access to technology remains uneven. Some have slower internet connections. Others are gradually gaining better access. Technology will continue to expand educational access for people in these communities, and the shift from older videoconferencing systems to Microsoft Teams and Zoom already shows that change.

“ The future of education is not about having all the answers. It is about preparing people to ask better questions. “

As technology makes distance less restrictive, it expands the possibility of remote learning for several learners. Our recently launched online Personal Support Worker program reflects that change. We partnered with another Northern Ontario college to deliver it, making Sault College the first in the province to offer the program fully online. The inquiries has been substantial. Most of those smaller communities have long-term care homes and assisted living facilities for the elderly, so there is real local employment waiting for graduates. That is the cause and effect we are trying to create: learners stay in their communities, get credentialed, and meet a workforce need that already exists right where they live.

An Organic Model Built on Listening

We do not build programs based on national trends or reports for urban centers. Students and employers are actively heard and voices are brought together to shape our programs. I sit on our local workforce labor board, which regularly surveys the labor market to identify gaps and emerging needs. Employers also reach out to tell us about the vacancies and the skills they need. We take those conversations seriously, and we build programs around feedback.

Meeting those needs, however, often requires us to look beyond our own institution. There are six relatively small colleges in Northern Ontario, and we work together because collaboration makes possible what none of us could achieve alone. Four of us are now jointly delivering the third year of a Mechanical Engineering program through Microsoft Teams and D2L. Individually, none of us could fill a viable cohort. Together, we can.

We also build pathways with our local university, allowing students to combine a college diploma with a degree. They stack the credentials and come out with both. That benefits the student enormously, and it is something we could not offer without the partnership. Curriculum development is a significant investment, so pooling resources makes what is possible much larger. In a region where resources are often limited, working together is not simply practical. It is how we expand what becomes possible, including a leadership approach that draws on the people closest to the work.

Empowering the People Closest to the Work

I lead from the bottom up rather than the top down. The people who speak to students and employers every day often hear things no executive briefing can capture. Their voices matter because they are the ones living with technological change as it unfolds, and that is where effective leadership begins.

A good example of that approach was when we overhauled the registration process using Microsoft Forms. Rather than handing the team a finished system and asking them to blindly follow it, I encouraged them to explore the technology and let the people closest to the process shape how it would work. In my experience, organic growth usually produces better outcomes than forcing a direction from above.

Technology will continue to test that approach, and AI is the next major shift. I do not know exactly what the landscape will look like, but its impact is already significant. I am less interested in using AI to provide direct answers or replace human judgment than in using it to strengthen critical thinking and problem-solving. Our job is not to shield learners from it. They will encounter it in the workplace. Our responsibility is to help them think alongside it and use it as a tool that enhances their capabilities rather than substitutes for what they already know.

The future of education, I believe, is not about having all the answers. It is about listening well, asking better questions, and preparing people to do the same.