Written by Tara Garcia

A pillar in the Great Plains College community has announced he will be retiring and stepping down at the end of June.

President and CEO David Keast has been in the position for the past ten years.

Keast reflects on his time in the position.

"Overall, it has been a pretty good ten years in a nice town in Saskatchewan, that is very supportive of the college and what it does for the community. So the linkages between the city and college has been strong in terms of financial support and other forms of support."

Other achievements according to Keast include building up a strong scholarship program, and developing/expanding the programming in a number of areas most notably in Health. Keast also mentions the expansion of partnerships with both external stakeholders and industries such as SaskPower and 1st Nations committees. 

In addition, the college has also achieved the status of a designated learning institution that qualifies them to accept international students. Keast says the college has a healthy international student program which brings in on average 50/60 international students a year across all campuses. 

Another achievement during his time in office is the fact that the college achieved the ability to administer federal research grants which Keast says the next person to fill his role can use as a tool to further develop and expand programming and service interests through applied research which the college has never done before. 

During his tenure, the college’s four strategic directions – optimizing student success, delivering education to meet labor market demand, valuing employees, and building and enhancing partnerships – have been realized under Keast’s
direction and leadership

With respect to some of his proudest accomplishments, Keast says that the ability to pull the college together to create an effectively functioning multi-campus regional college along with managing to pool together the human resources of the college and get everyone on the same playing field and pointing the college in the right direction. In terms of the last couple of years specifically, Keast remarked that the college has been quite effective in creating policy to deal with the pandemic, he says he created a strong senior executive team that helped to keep the college safe. open and continuing to take students. 

In response to leaving the position, Keast says he will walk away with a modicum of satisfaction that he did the job in one of the most critical roles in a community college and he did it well. Keast had a particularly focused intent of getting into this field almost twenty years ago and says he will walk away satisfied. 

From his time spent in the role Keast says he will take away the sense that a lot has changed in the public post-secondary sector and colleges imparticular. In the future, he says colleges are going to have to be more nimble to change operations and strategic direction again in order to adapt to the future that is on the horizon. Additionally, he says he will also take away a good set of personal and professional relationships with the college staff. 

Keast says he isn't exactly sure what retirement will look like for him but plans to stay in Swift Current and get involved in community activities which he says he has not had the time to do enough of. 

In terms of his hopes for the future of Great Plains College, Keast says he hopes they are able to find a competent and effective replacement and he hopes they are prepared to change and adapt as he details. 

"That the college system is prepared to adapt and change enough to prepare itself for what is coming. There are new things on the horizon. Economic pressures will continue, pressure for more accessible and more innovative services and programming will continue."

Keast says those will be the challenges that the college will have to address in the future and he's sure they will. He adds that he hopes the college is around to continue to contribute to the Swift Current community and it's service region.