October 2009

Enrolment Report

Douglas College enrolment is up this year by 7.3% on a headcount basis. A total of 9,500 students are registered in one or more courses. This increase is consistent with overall system increases attributable to both increased efforts in recruitment and retention and the state of the economy. Most classes at the New Westminster and Coquitlam campuses are full with a significant increase in university-level courses, especially in the liberal arts (such as Psychology and English) where enrolment is up 12%, and Commerce/Business courses which increased by 10.5%.

The Douglas College advantage is that students really appreciate the close interaction they have with our amazing instructors. Rather than start with the impersonal experience in big lecture halls, our students get deeply involved in their learning from the very start. Other significant increases in enrolment occurred in Criminology, Nursing, Office Administration, Classroom and Community Support, Print Futures: Professional Writing and Developmental Studies.

BCC Cooperation

The BC College Presidents met on Friday, October 9th. This follows on a meeting with Minister Stilwell in late September. Our commitment, as a college system, is to be at the forefront of leading the economic recovery of BC. Given that we are engaged in knowledge transfer and knowledge creation, the transformation of BC into a knowledge-based economy requires a strong college system and the BC Colleges are here for British Columbia and British Columbians. Minister Stilwell will be meeting with various Douglas College representatives on October 23rd and we will continue to deliver this message.

Strategic Planning

The Douglas College website has been updated with new President’s Office web pages. We will be posting process information surrounding strategic planning on that site. At present there is the text of my contextual remarks on planning as well as selected demographic data on the region we serve on that site.

H1N1

The College continues to monitor the situation and has adopted necessary policies and procedures consistent with other post-secondary education and training institutions in the province. H1N1 flu information can be found on the College website under the Community heading.

Evergreen Line

On October 5th and 8th, representatives of the College (Paul Wates and Hazel Postma) attended a public session regarding the Evergreen Line. While there are still questions about the Evergreen Line, Evergreen officials insist the line will be built, that two-thirds of the money is pledged, and that it is not unusual to begin a project and not have all revenues accounted for. However, TransLink officials note that the system is currently in debt.

When built, the line will have six – possibly eight – stations, beginning at the Lougheed Town Centre and ending north of Guildford Way, east of Pinetree, south of Douglas College. Stations are generally 80 metres long, and the Douglas Station, as a terminus, will need another 70 metre trail track.

Once Evergreen is built, it will take 13 minutes to travel from Douglas College Station to Lougheed Mall Station and 40 minutes from Douglas College to downtown Vancouver.

Tri Cities Welcoming and Inclusive Community and Workplace Demonstration Project

The Tri Cities Welcoming and Inclusive Community and Workplace Demonstration Project (WICWP) has just been funded by the Immigrant Integration Branch, Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development. The project will place 15 to 18 foreign trained professionals in community agencies for a work experience and perhaps future employment. This initiative was developed by the Tri Cities Planning Group, which is a committee that collaborates to meet the needs of children, youth and families in the Tri Cities. Committee members include the Executive Directors of community agencies, a Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) manager, along with Jan Carrie and Gary Tennant as Deans of Child, Family and Community Studies.

Partnering with SUCCESS, a large multicultural agency, Douglas College will house the project at David Lam and provide research and evaluation through the Centre for Health and Community Partnerships. CFCS and EASL will team up to deliver the classroom components. CFCS will also introduce participants to the service learning component and liaison with community agencies who will mentor participants. This project demonstrates an excellent model of a community collaboration which will support the integration of new immigrants into the community and address work force shortages in the social service sector.