Camosun College president Kathryn Laurin is poised and welcoming as we shake hands and settle at a comfortable table near the window in her office.
I take stock of kind but guarded grey eyes and short auburn hair styled into place. She is dressed in a neat, grey pantsuit, with a touch of whimsy in the black curled edges and polka dots on her peach-coloured blouse.
She laughs easily, and her accent is still mostly from her hometown of Montreal, with few contractions and soft, unstressed vowels.
Her past isn’t what people might think: she was at the University of Regina for 21 years as chair of music and dean of fine arts, and she is also a musician who has conducted symphonies and choirs.
So what would Laurin find appealing, even sustaining, on a career path as president of two universities and now a college? For an artist, there had to be more than ambition involved to offset a job where controversy and stress are common.
I went into the interview expecting to find some arrogance, and instead was charmed by the abundance of personality in the shy woman seated across from me.
You seem to be a very private person; at least, information about your personal life is hard to find online. Will you be able to tell me something about Kathryn? Or does that come with the job?
I don’t think I’m intentionally private. I’m married; my husband occasionally comes to events at Camosun. And we are what I call permanent empty nesters; we have no children of our own but we have many nieces we enjoy immensely. I don’t have a problem with people knowing those things about me.
So what brought you out to Victoria from Halifax?
I was working as president of a small university at the time. I had only been there three years and wasn’t really looking for a new opportunity. A colleague gave my name to a headhunter, and I came out to meet the search committee.
What made you decide to take the job?
I would not have left the university world to go to just any college. I left there for Camosun. I was really taken with the tremendous sense of community and pride of place, which was quite unique.
Do you like working here?
I do enjoy working for Camosun. This is my fourth year. What I really like is that colleges impact people every day and can be quite transformative on a daily basis. Universities are a few steps removed from community and do great things in their own way. I know, as I’ve invested a lot of time at universities. Colleges are quite different.
What frustrates you most about running Camosun?
The money, sure; that’s the greatest frustration, not having the resources we would like to have. We could do so much more if we were properly resourced. So that’s a source of huge frustration.
The college received a lot of criticism when the applied communications program was cancelled. Is there room for something like the ACP in some other form, perhaps under the trades funding?
Arts and music programs are expensive to run. ACP in its form has gone away, but we can look at partnering; we can’t do it all on our own. In the hopper right now are some conversations about a new, leading-edge media studies program. And, no, the funding for trades comes to us from a different ministry with set criteria, which we have no control over. They would never go for it.
I was surprised at the size of your budget; it’s pretty small. How do you decide what to keep and what to let go?
What we need to do is ask ourselves, “We have $100,000,000. Are we allocating that money in the best possible way?” When you figure we are serving 20,000 students, and are probably the most comprehensive college in the province, we do a lot in terms of dollars.
Who helps you decide?
We have advisory committees from every program. Those committees are comprised of people from community, from industry, from the various disciplines, who say to us, “This is what students need today, here are the leading practices.”
A recent successful addition to the English program has been the new publishing and promotion course. Are more changes coming like this, that better prepare students for finding jobs?
I depend on the deans to encourage that kind of renewal, and come to natural conclusions. To say to their faculty, look, we need to lift our heads and say what is needed, that students need another step. We need to be relevant and nimble in our response. By the very nature of what we offer, students must finish with a set of skill sets they can employ.
How do you deal with changing old habits?
One of the messages I’ve quietly signalled, I think, over the last four years is that we cannot be complacent; it is not good enough. Students are growing up with handheld devices so to faculty we say, “Okay, standing up and lecturing, we can’t do just that anymore.” We’re making them change, so some fear of change is understandable.
What changes would you implement if your budget doubled for a year?
If only for a year we’d tackle the capital expenses. We did some improvements over the summertime. It was looking so shabby and we know that, so we took a little bit of money to do a few little things, which a lot of people noticed. We are fully aware all of our students’ areas need refurbishing. The Library Learning Commons, before we finished them, were empty. Now when you walk in there in the middle of the day it’s full. It’s been a nexus point for students. We try to strike at the core.
Are there plans to minimize the use of the word “disability” on campus, perhaps change the name of the Disability Resource Centre?
That name has been a best-practice name, but I think a lot of institutions are changing it. If someone came to me from the DRC and said “We want to change the name,” I would say, “Yes.”
Another area of concern for many students is the cost of textbooks, and better rental options. Did you know we are also beginning to buy textbooks that are not needed? Sometimes the teacher has books we can use in class or has everything on screen for us to see in class, so we just end up returning the textbook.
I was not aware of this. I will look into it.
At the end of the day, how do you decompress from this job?
I try to exercise and stay healthy. We don’t discuss our day at home; it doesn’t help and just makes us tired. My husband and I love to cook. And I love to golf. I’m not a great golfer; I don’t carry a handicap because I don’t want to be restricted by a number.
No letter grades for Kathryn?
That’s right, no letter grades for me. I go out, I have a good time, I whack the ball. And I love cars; at one time, I could have told you the specs on any car in the market. Now, there’s no time. My father loves cars too. You know, I appreciate vintage cars, but I love knowing the latest stats on the new cars that come out.
Uh oh, there’s the knock on the door. Our time is up?
(Laughing) Not quite, five minutes.
Look at all this information about you online. Lots here, some criticism, coverage of your career…
After all that, you still thought of me as private?
I do. I wasn’t able to find anything about how you feel about things.
No, I’d never say that… In these kinds of jobs you have to keep a little slice of yourself to yourself, because they are all consuming. That’s how I stay sane, by having a little bit of Kathryn that just stays in my personal life, that nobody can chip away at. That’s really important.