Campaign News

Support floods in to help SAIT students succeed

SAIT student callers have been working hard since October to gather support to buy an important new high-tech piece of equipment for the students in the MacPhail School of Energy.

They called and you answered.

According to Jorge Torres, Student Caller Supervisor at SAIT, when the student callers begin a campaign like this they usually get about a 15 per cent positive response rate. This particular campaign began only a couple short months ago and already 40 per cent of the people they asked responded positively and they are already very close to having enough money to buy one machine.

The money will go towards the purchase of a gas porosimeter. They are used in the oil and gas industry to test the percentage of pore volume or void space in a rock that may contain fluids. One of these machines costs about $20,000. With the help of alumni and industry partners in the oil and gas industry, the student calling program has raised nearly $19,000 and will continue to fundraise to buy one and maybe two more porosimeters.

“SAIT already has one,” says Torres. “But it is kind of outdated and once the Trades and Technology Complex opens and we have more students enrolling in these programs, more equipment will be needed.”

One gas porosimeter is just the beginning. The Trades and Technology Complex will increase the learning space on SAIT’s main campus by 740,000 square feet, making room for an additional 8,100 full and part time students. To ensure these students have the most up-to-date technology and equipment that will prepare them to enter the workforce hundreds of pieces of specialized equipment will be required.

This is why SAIT has set a new target for the Promising Futures™ Campaign to raise an additional $25 million to ensure all SAIT students have the best study tools and the financial resources required for them to meet their personal goals.