A lot can happen in 47 years.
The grounds I walk each day at Camosun College’s Lansdowne campus have come a long way and seen a lot of use since they were, in part, a hospital during World War II. It makes sense that Camosun is changing: the whole world is changing, at a pace only comparable, I think, to the pace in 1911, when the invention of the uniflow steam engine changed things forever. But even that doesn’t really come up to snuff with the incredible changes we’ve seen since the mid-to-late 2000s with regard to technology—and I don’t just mean your smartphone.
Since I started going to school here a few years ago, the Fisher building has been revamped, Interurban has become something out of a modern-day science-fiction novel, and the quality of technology in the school’s classrooms has consistenly risen.
In a world where values have changed immensely since 1971, when Camosun was founded, what exactly does the future hold for the college? Camosun is currently working on a long-term master plan, which made us think it was time to look at some of the major current developments at the college.
NOWHERE TO LIVE
Students are starving, now more than ever. Those attending Camosun are often overworked, under-rested, and up to their kneecaps in debt after graduation. I’ve spoken with students who are living out of their cars, commuting from Duncan at 2 am for an 8:30 am class at Lansdowne; I’ll never forget the time a student told me about how he brought $1,000 cash to a showing of a dingy apartment building just so he could pounce on it if he had to. The problem of meeting some of the most basic human needs we learn about in entry-level Psychology classes is a legitimate problem for more students than one may initially think.
The college wants to bring student housing on campus in the future, says Camosun vice president of student experience Joan Yates.
“It’s real,” says Yates about the housing crisis. “How can you concentrate on your studies and do well in building your career or your future plans when you don’t know where you’re going to stay the night?”
Yates says about a third of students who filled out a recent survey that Camosun conducted found it very difficult to find housing. She says that if the college can put housing on or near campus—the latter of which she says many students indicated in the survey that they wanted—it will free up housing to more of those who need it.
“We are also very aware that Victoria’s a tough marketplace,” she says. “The other thing that concerns us is that if students can’t find good places to live it impacts their experience here, but it also impacts whether or not they stay here when they graduate. Young people leaving this community and taking their skills and their careers to other communities doesn’t serve Victoria at all. If we can look at a good residence program, then we’re in a position whereby we can relieve the Greater Victoria area and open up affordable housing for other people who need it. We know that a number of our students are renting and taking up that space because they have to.”
Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) executive director Michel Turcotte says the CCSS always supports student housing.
“There’s currently a government that’s willing to put a little bit of money into student housing,” he says. “They’re more open to allowing institutions to borrow money to create student housing.”
The college’s master campus plan will be ready next spring, according to April 9, 2018 Camosun College board of governors meeting minutes. According to those minutes, Camosun is in a good position to apply for money the government has allocated for loan funding for student housing, and the next steps include finance analysis, site analysis, and positioning with the government. The master plan as a whole, of which student housing is a part, is a long-term plan. The minutes say the board will make a decision on moving forward based on the business case, which Iverleith Consulting is working on. The Scion Group developed a demand analysis for types of housing and student preferences.
CREATING SYNERGY
In my talk with Yates, she brings up the “energy and synergy” of the Lansdowne library. She says that it’s needed in other places at the college, too, pointing to Lansdowne’s Dawson building as an example.
“If you go into Dawson, it’s not the most beautiful and welcoming spot, right?” she says. “So how do we look at services in a way that welcomes students from the very first moment they set foot on the college and feel that they actually are really a part of this place?”
Camosun College vice president of education John Boraas says Camosun is really focusing on creating an inhabitable environment that is purpose-built and suitable for what it’s used for.
“I don’t know if you’ve been through some of the learning spaces at the Lansdowne campus for the Nursing program—it’s pretty underwhelming,” says Boraas. “The space is old and very, I would say, shabby. We really are determined that all of the new buildings at Camosun are, for inhabitancy, pleasant to live in, but also inspirational in terms of being beautiful. That’s part of learning, in my mind.”
Because of the nature of the new spaces being built, Boraas says the college is going to be able to focus more on cross-disciplinary education.
“We’ll have Early Learning and Care students who are able to participate in other programs, so that Nursing students can learn from health care assistants and so on,” he says. “We believe a big part of the future of health care in Canada is going to be having more professionals who are trained across disciplines; we think we have the vehicle to be able to do that much more effectively.”
The range of high- and low-fidelity simulation labs, for example, will allow technology to be used in many different ways to deliver lectures, resulting in many learning outcomes, says Boraas. He also mentions “the technology to re-create health care assistant spaces for in-home care” and says there are “just so many more elements for what the future of health care looks like.”
Yates says part of enhancing the student experience comes down to coming up with more collaboration spaces for students on campus, as that has a direct impact on how they do in the classroom.
“We don’t have a lot of that at Camosun; in fact, we have very little of it,” she says. “The cafeterias become collaboration space, but they’re really for meals, and people sort of feel like they’re eating and in a space that’s not really designed to have them spend hours and hours there, so how do we redefine that?”
Yates says the college does that with breakout rooms around classrooms, the library, and other areas where students can work together. Indigenization, says Yates, also lends some key aspects.
“When classrooms are set up in a traditional row-by-row way, it can isolate students, but put them in a circle and watch what happens,” she says. “It’s having space lend itself to what we want to do as human beings.”
A QUEST FOR WELLNESS
Nothing worth having is easy. Construction crews have been hard at work on Interurban’s Centre For Health And Wellness since May of 2017. The building was projected at a cost of roughly $48.5 million; once it’s built, over 1,000 students will be transferred from Lansdowne to Interurban, a number that concerns Turcotte.
“Infrastructure for absorbing more is not there,” he says, talking about transit issues specifically. “Even if BC Transit had the buses to provide tons of extra service—which they don’t, at the moment—the road infrastructure going to Interurban doesn’t necessarily allow for that. If you were going to set up a transportation hub, you would not put it where the Interurban campus is, because a lot of factors—including the district of Saanich—have conspired in ways to make it almost impossible to get in and out of there at times.”
Yates says the move of students to Interurban will be gradual.
“It’s not all going to happen at the same time,” she says. “There will be a very steady rollout, so not everybody’s going to be out there in September; we’re going to stagger this.”
Yates says definite dates depend on when construction is completed (on its website, Camosun says the building will be ready for student occupancy sometime in 2019, with the exact date to be determined). But Turcotte says he hasn’t heard anything about the movement of students being gradual, and he says that while he’s happy the college is exploring different opportunities, he feels that if the movement takes more than a year, the building would be wasted space during that time.
“Once a building is built and ready, what is considered a gradual time? A year? I can’t see them waiting more than a year, once the new facilities are ready, to be able to put students in that facility,” he says. “These are designated facilities—labs and things like that—so you can’t really use them as easily for other classes.”
Boraas says the rollout won’t take more than six months to a year; he adds that there are points of constriction when it comes to expanding Interurban, but that students will also come from Interurban to Lansdowne once that space is freed up at Lansdowne.
“We’re going to begin a process of migrating some programs and services back to Lansdowne, so, ultimately, although we’re growing, we’re also pulling,” says Boraas, adding that there are still logistical issues to be worked out. Boraas says the college is working with Saanich to prepare for additional buses, and that Camosun is increasing their food services at Interurban. Boraas says some problems—such as library space—won’t be solved immediately.
“Health care students are fairly high consumers of library services, and until we have space freed up at Interurban we aren’t going to be able to expand that,” says Boraas. “We have nowhere to expand to.”
First-year Nursing student Natasha Lennam says the move is supposed to happen when she is in her third year, meaning she would only have one semester left. She says she’s not worried about it, because she doesn’t think it’s going to happen on time.
“Knowing how construction works, I don’t really think it’s going to happen,” she says. “I don’t think it will happen on time because when you consider how long it took them to fix [Fisher] when it was just supposed to be done in the summer, I don’t really think that I’ll be moving to the new building. I think it will happen after.”
LOOKING THROUGH AN INNOVATIVE LENS
Lots of Camosun’s big changes as of late have been at Interurban, where the college’s trades and technology programs are based. Camosun dean of trades and technology Eric Sehn says society is focusing on both trades and technology more today than in recent years, and that’s a good thing.
“The emphasis started, I’m going to say, about six years ago, and it was really hands-on trades,” he says. “In the last couple of years, of course, they’re starting to shift to tech, and, of course, look at where we live on Vancouver Island—you know that health programming has to be a big thing as well. Our population on the island, on average, is older.”
Sehn says that during graduation ceremonies is when he really notices the wide appeal of trades and technology.
“From the crowd someone will yell, ‘Way to go, Mom; right on, Dad.’ I’ve even heard, ‘Yay, Grandpa,’” says Sehn. “And you just go, ‘Yes. That’s why we do this work, you know?’ We have the opportunity to help people and help make a difference and that’s a very, very satisfying thing.”
Sehn says it came time to replace Interurban infrastructure in a lasting way.
“As a society, we’re in a cycle where large investments were made in the 1960s, for example, when buildings were constructed in communities across British Columbia. All of this infrastructure is coming to the end of its life,” says Sehn. “As an organization we have to make decisions: do we refurbish these things or do we make a new investment and set up the organization and the community for the next 30 to 40 years?”
The Centre for Trades Education and Innovation was just phase one of Camosun’s trades complex renewal. Phase two was the renovation of the old welding shop, which is now the new electrical trades centre. The last phase will be an expansion on John Drysdale, where electrical used to be.
“The Carpentry program will be taking over in the vacated spaces by the electrical department, because construction trades are in such high demand,” says Sehn.
Looking ahead, the college plans to start teaching in more detail about renewable energy.
“We’re looking at a one-year certificate or a two-year diploma for people that want to learn about all different types of renewable energy: solar, geothermal, and solar hot water’s another big one for us,” says Sehn. “To give people an exposure to the potential of what the green economy will be.”
As I walk the campus now, having spent the last week talking to people at the college about what the future will hold, I’m taken aback by the amount of time and effort it takes to keep a post-secondary institution up to beat with what the times demand.
As a student, I do the easy part. That might sound strange, but I just show up to class, do my readings, study in the library, eat at the cafeteria, then do it again the next day. I don’t have to worry about what is best for the students, or how the college will progress over time in a world that is constantly evolving.
Take a minute to look around at the architecture of Fisher, or the new trades building. They’re an impressive sight that have come at a cost of many long hours spent shuffling paperwork in meetings as construction crews go to town. The sound of power tools right outside Fisher as I wrote tests was irritating, but, when it’s all said and done, I think it’s going to be worth it.