Know Your Profs is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better.
If you have an instructor you’d like to see interviewed in the paper, but perhaps you’re too busy, or too shy, to ask them yourself, email editor@nexusnewspaper.com and we’ll add them to our list of teachers to talk to.
This issue we caught up with Camosun Criminal Justice prof Brian Young to talk about his pet turtle, his thoughts on students taking something new at school, and his previous life as an interpretive dancer.
1. What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?
Criminal Justice, and I’ve been here for 24 years. Freaky, but true.
2. What do you personally get out of teaching?
A small pittance.
3. What’s the one thing you wish your students knew about you?
Absolutely zero. I am simply the purveyor of all things criminal law. My past as an interpretive dancer drifting from lowly bar to lowly bar in Oregon is my business.
4. What’s the one thing you wish they didn’t know about you?
Damn it. That last answer.
5. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you as a teacher here?
I haven’t been fired yet.
6. What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you as a teacher here?
That they haven’t fired me yet.
7. What do you see in the future of post-secondary education?
It’s a booming business. I’m a huge fan. I don’t care what you take, but take something. Expand your mind and take an untravelled path to see where you end up. I wish Camosun made doing that a bit easier.
8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?
Track down where students work and harass them. Actually, not too far from the truth. It’s hard to get a cup of coffee or tube of caulking without bumping into one them. Which speaks volumes for job prospects in criminal justice.
9. What is your favourite meal?
Anything not cooked or served by a current or former student; I feel secure in dining and have no fears of food poisoning.
10. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
I don’t have any pets. The last one I had was a turtle and I thought he died so I flushed him down the toilet.