From the day the College of the Rockies (COTR), or East Kootenay Community College as it was then known, opened its doors, offering its own degrees was a dream. On June 16, 2010, the “dream” became a reality.

College CEO and President Dr. Nick Rubidge was beaming from ear from ear to ear Wednesday as he announced to an enthusiastic crowd that COTR will offer this fall a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree in Sustainable Business Practices.

The “BBA Degree” will be a four-year undergraduate degree combining arts and science courses with a diploma in accounting, marketing or aboriginal financial management. It will be followed by upper level business specialization courses at COTR and its accredited partner institutions.

The BBA degree will be uniquely a COTR degree and is not being offered anywhere else at this time. Of that, the entire community can be proud, Rubidge says. “This has taken some real innovative work by our faculty and the designers of the program. It was a challenge I threw them and they did a great job.”

Sustainability in all fields is becoming bigger every year including the mainstream business environment, Rubidge says. In light of this, it only makes sense for the college to make sustainability the focus of a business degree.

“I see the skills of our graduates being used in a whole variety of businesses, not just a niche in environmental business, but in all businesses. All business practices need to start by building a business model that includes sustainability and environmental issues.”

The degree will help prepare students for post-graduate education in management, accounting, law, public administration and others. They will also integrate economic, social and environmental goals that address the business challenges of their organizations within a sustainability framework.

“What we tried to do is provide a really solid base from which people can choose and tailor-make their programs,” Rubidge says.

The program includes an applied sustainability focus in the fourth-year, upper level courses at COTR, which will culminate in a Bachelor of Business Administration in Sustainable Business Practices degree.

Mike Adams CA, a former COTR student and a partner at Taylor Adams Chartered Accountants expressed enthusiasm for the new degree. “It’s absolutely wonderful that students from our region will be able to achieve a business degree without leaving the Kootenays. I’m sure if this opportunity had been available to me in the past, I would have jumped at the chance.”

Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett said COTR’s degree-granting status is a major step forward for the college. “It’s a major step for a post-secondary institution to be able to confer its own degree. And I’m hopeful this is just the first of many.”

Rubidge says other degrees are likely to come in the future, but it’s too early to say now. “We want to be able to walk before we run.” That’s why the program has been designed to work with a small number of students initially and then grow as the need develops, he says.

Students will take most of their BBA degree courses from COTR instructors, but they will also be able to take on-line courses from other institutions like Thompson River University and Athabasca College to complete their degree, Rubidge says

“All the other business programs require you to have a group of 50 students or 30 students to make it economically viable. We’ve found a way to do this by making use of technology and making use of partner institutions . . .”

Rubidge says the program will be a natural for COTR.

“The BBA in Sustainable Business Practices is a four-year program that integrates social, economic and environmental theories and applications for sustainable business practices in a wide variety of fields. Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of the future. It’s becoming the benchmark for businesses in the 21st century.”

Dave Butler, Director of Sustainability for Canadian Mountain Holidays agrees. “Sustainability is becoming mainstream in business around the globe. With 1,600 companies, in 60 countries, now issuing regular sustainability reports, and with billions of dollars in capital moving to businesses that have made commitments to becoming sustainable,

“I am very pleased to see College of the Rockies take this important and timely step by offering this new degree.”