Students taking interest in electronic sports

In an academic year of firsts due to the pandemic, some Sault College students have turned on to electronic sports, or ‘esports.’

The college has joined Ontario Post-Secondary Esports (OPSE). 

“They’re kind of like video games,” explained Janice Beatty, vice president of corporate and student services during the most recent Sault College board of governors meeting held Thursday.

“We do have students on campus who are varsity athletes...we actually have a team which sits at number five out of 13 teams (competing against other post-secondary schools across Ontario).”

“We’re doing very well and our students are loving it. We also have some tournaments through video and digital, such as NHL, NBA and Super Mario,” Beatty said.

College administrators, Beatty stated, are pleased the school has been able to retain approximately 75 per cent of its varsity athletes (85 students) despite the pandemic.

“They’ve been highly successful academically. Their cumulative GPA is 3.25 and they’re really thriving,” Beatty said.

The college, despite the pandemic, is still trying to recruit international students through its sports programming, reporting interest from Russian and Swedish hockey players for its American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) teams, interest from Mexican and Brazilian students for its soccer program and Americans for its basketball program.

The topic of attracting international students, in general, was the focus of much of Thursday’s board meeting.

“Our international is dramatically up for fall 2021 (1,267 applications from international students compared to 634 for fall of 2020, a difference of almost 100 per cent),” said Ron Common, Sault College president, in a report to the board.

“Obviously, all of this (international applications and enrolment) is going to be impacted by travel restrictions and quarantine regulations, but right now there’s a great deal of interest from international students.”

“The main concern students have is their ability to get a visa and a study permit on a timely basis,” said Richard Peters, vice-president of international student services, addressing the board.

“The students really want to come. They want to come to Canada, they want to come to Sault Ste. Marie.”

The federal government has extended the opportunity for international students to study overseas online right up until the end of December 2021 and have their academic work qualify toward a post graduation work permit in Canada.        

A big problem lies within a lack of visa processing offices in some countries, Peters said.

“Places like the Philippines, China, have the visa rates up but places like Brazil and India are still slow. We’re still processing visa apps from last September’s intake, barely biting into the winter intake, let alone the May intake that’s coming up. Everything’s lagging on the visa side, that’s the principal risk,” Peters said.      

Sault College, Common said, has a total of 3,004 full-time students, with another thousand students enrolled in part-time studies, apprenticeship programs, continuing education, dual credit programs and third party contract learning through OntarioLearn (online learning).

“If you compare this year’s winter enrolment to last year’s winter enrolment you see that overall we are up 4.67 per cent. Given the (pandemic) climate that we’re in, I think that’s a very good result.”

“There are still a lot of unknowns in terms of the vaccination and quarantines. Certainly, Sault College, right now, is planning for both scenarios (remote or in-person learning) but we’re planning for face-to-face instruction in September, God willing, that we’ll be back and we’re also looking at a hybrid model (involving) some face-to-face classes and some remote learning combination as well,” Common said.