Soon-to-be college president Jim Madder gets sneak peek of school

Jim Madder can’t imagine being in a better place and time than Confederation College right now.

“There’s a change in the economy and there’s optimism and there are great things going on,” said the incoming president of the Thunder Bay community college.

Madder was announced last month as the replacement for outgoing president Pat Lang. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Madder started as a frontline teacher at Fleming College in Lindsay, Ont.
After 17 years at Fleming, he took the position as vice-president of Red Deer College until landing the reins as the head of Confederation College.

While his first official day on the job is July 1, Madder is visiting the city and college Monday and Tuesday to get a feel for the college and community.

The visit is increasing his excitement for his future as college president.

“The opportunities that are here I think are absolutely fantastic,” he said. “Community’s a huge amount of what I’m about – how we best support the community, what are the community needs? How can we best support economic development in the region and what does that look like?”

Aside from building the community, supporting people and developing leadership are what Madder plans to focus on.

“I’m about people, really supporting the success of people whether that’s our faculty, our staff, our students, our communities,” he said. “It comes down to individual people and supporting them.”

“There’s never a boring day in terms of what we can do in supporting development of people and communities,” Madder added.