Celebrity chef Michael Smith — star of Food Network Canada's "Chef Abroad" program had some words of advice for budding young culinary enthusiasts in today's Winnipeg Free Press:

"I guess good advice for any young person that's thinking about becoming a chef is definitely to consider cooking school, and you've got a great one right here in town, Red River College," he says. "That's certainly a good career move."

Learn more about RRC's award-winning Culinary Arts and Professional Baking programs.

Red River College’s enrolment figures have hit yet another record high, with 3.3% more full-time students on campus this fall compared to last year.
 
Growth has taken place across all student categories, including significant jumps in Advanced Diploma (+17.7%), Certificate (+9.9%) and Apprenticeship (+8.0%) enrolments.
 
Full-time enrolment is also up 16.8% at RRC’s five regional campuses, located in Steinbach, Portage la Prairie, Gimli, Winkler and Peguis/Fisher River.
 
While students are increasingly seeing the value of an applied education, College officials say finding somewhere to put them all is a growing challenge.
 
“For several years now we’ve been operating essentially full,” explained Dr. Jeff Zabudsky, President of Red River College. “Through creative scheduling and program delivery we’ve managed to make room, but the time has come to expand the College to meet student and industry demand.”
 
RRC is currently pursuing several projects to expand capacity for students and for applied research projects, including:

• Construction of a new Heavy Equipment Transportation Centre.
  
• Development of a modern skilled trades centre at the Notre Dame Campus.
  
• Restoration of the Union Bank Tower to become the Paterson GlobalFoods Institute, a student residence and a new home for RRC’s culinary and hospitality programs.
  
• Relocation of the Language Training Centre to the Massey Building in the Exchange District.
  

The College expects to release information about continuing and distance education enrolments later this week.

The Shocknife, a Winnipeg-based invention that was partly developed at Red River College, has won the 2009 Manning Innovation Award.

Developed by veteran police officer Jeff Quail, the Shocknife is a tool
used to train law enforcement officials how to deal with edged weapon
attacks.  Similar in appearance to a real knife, the device delivers an
electric charge that simulates the pain associated with a knife wound,
but leaves no permanent damage.

The Shocknife was one of the first products to emerge from RRC’s Applied Research and Commercialization program, which links industry with the College’s research expertise to create innovative, marketable technologies.

RRC electronics instructor Alex McIlraith worked with product designers to miniaturize the Shocknife’s electronics to fit inside a typical size knife casing.  He also re-engineered the product so it could be powered by a single nine-volt battery.

Since being launched in 2006, Shocknives have been sold to customers around the world, including the FBI, the Norwegian Military Academy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Special protection Group that guards India’s prime Minister.  The product has also been covered extensively in publications serving the law enforcement and military industries, and was featured on the Discovery Channel.

In appreciation of the role RRC played in developing the product, Shocknife, Inc. previously donated several pieces of equipment for use in the College’s electronics programs.