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Emerging Vision
Recession has flowered into recovery.
Confrontation has evolved into partner-
ship. Restraint has given way to renewal.
Like the jargon of our changing times, the
actual performance of colleges in British
Columbia is a symbol of the underlying
vitality of this province.

Now that the budget dust has settled it
might be useful to look at why colleges
were granted an additional $12.7 million
and for what purposes the funds were
designated.

Of the $12.7 million, $3.9 million was
granted to the colleges as part of norma |
operating costs to help alleviate the
many accumulated problems of restraint.
A further $3.0 million was allocated to
an institutional renewal fund to assist
in development of new curriculum,
productivity adjustments and enhancement
of quality. These two elements were
welcome relief but a third component was
remarkable.

A further $5.8 million was granted as a
local economic renewal and development
fund. Colleges are invited to apply

for support of projects directly aimed

at the economic recovery of their commu-
nities. The first grants will come out
in June of 1985. This fund is a vote

of confidence in British Columbia's
colleges and they are taking it seriously.
Why?

The first twenty years of community
colleges in British Columbia brought
higher education to every corner of
the province. Working together, citizens
committees and school boards sparked
the creation of colleges to provide
educational opportunities and job
training that simply had not existed
before.

College pioneers were really after a
fair deal for their children and them-
selves. They wanted their share of
public funds generated by a booming
era of natural resource exploitation.

 

As the provincial treasury expanded

from the proceeds of our resource export
economy, colleges expanded into the full
range of arts, humanities, sciences,
technologies, trades and remedial ser-
vices. Enthusiastic young faculties
were gathered and institutional facilities
were built as proud community develop-
ments. Believing in continued economic
expansion, colleges developed traditions,
reputations and certainties.

But an historical curve has been thrown
at the colleges. Just as they were
reaching their stride the economic down-
turn of the eighties hit with full force.
Suddenly therewas not only a challenge to
old expectations but an actual loss of
funding for existing programs. Low
enrolment courses were dropped; many
useful services had to be discarded;
staff had to be trimmed. It was the end
of an era.

At the end of an era, two things happen.
There is a chorus of lament for the past
and there is a surge of invention. True,
there have been losses which justify |
some keening in the ranks but the power-
ful song in colleges has been sung by
the voices of adaptation and renewal.
Colleges are beginning to move into a
second phase. The emerging vision is
one of major participation in provincial
economic development.

Throughout the province, communities
which derived their livelihood from bulk
resource export have gone into decline.
Vacant shops, closed mines, depressed
real estate prices, and food banks are
evidence enough. Stiff international
competition in resource commodity
markets as well as technological growth
in developing nations seem likely to
alter our provincial economic base--
permanently.

Prescriptions for renovating our economy
call for diversification into secondary
manufacturing, adoption of high technolo-
gy, extensive support to small business,
increased sensitivity to the Pacific Rim
trading countries and new working part-

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nerships throughout society. Colleges