Safe Walk
needs more
volunteers

Douglas College’s Safe Walk program
is off to a good start, but organizer Joe
Spear still plans to attract some new
volunteers in the new year.

The free service operates weekday
evenings by offering coed-escort teams
which accompany students and staff to
parked cars, SkyTrain or other
destinations within three blocks of the
New Westminster campus. Safe Walk
started on November 23, and was
averaging 14 escorted walks each evening
by mid-December.

Spear, a Criminology student, expects
those numbers to grow in 1995 as more
people find out about the service, and says
the current total of 18 volunteers must
expand to keep pace.

Spear is aiming for a pool of about 50
Safe Walkers, which would require
volunteers to work only one evening each
month.

“We? ll be working with the
Criminology Students Association and
Women’s Centre to find more volunteers,
but all students and employees are
welcome,” he says. “Right now we have

 

Safe Walk Program Coordinator Joe Spear (left) with volunteers
Dave Seaweed (centre) and Assistant Coordinator Sheryl Bussiere.

two new volunteers from the College’s
faculty and that’s good to see.”

Safe Walk is offered from 6-10:30pm
on Monday to Thursday evenings. To use
the service, or to volunteer, call 527-5575

International Students continued from page 1

the Internet, videotape and fax, student
teams from Douglas College are
competing not only against each other, but
against student teams from the College of
Commerce, Tourism and Catering in
Budapest, Hungary.

“Tt’s a world classroom for
international business courses,” says
Douglas College Business Instructor
Walter Pickering. “It’s very powerful in
what it can teach our students about other
cultures and other ways of viewing the
world.”

Douglas College has a partnership and
exchange agreement with the College of
Commerce, Tourism and Catering
designed to help them change their

business curriculum to handle Hungary’s
emerging market economy.

Vandor IIdiko is one of the first
students to come to Douglas College from
Hungary. The marketing student took the
business simulation course last spring in
Hungary, and helped to run it this fall
during her work placement here.

“Tt helps us to think internationally, so
it’s very useful,” says Vandor. “We see
the importance of paying attention to
domestic and international markets, and
thinking about what the effects of our
decisions will be. We have to make
decisions on product pricing, finance,
accounting and production, how much to
spend on advertising, how much to spend

or visit the Safe Walk booth (outside the
Student Society Office, 2780; evenings
only). All volunteers must pass a
Criminal Record and background check,
and undergo two hours of training.

on quality control, so it is very specific
information.”

The next step, says Pickering, is to
refine the course to increase the personal
interaction between students, and make
modifications to the simulation itself to
give it more international characteristics.

“We hope to set it up as a video
teleconference in the future. This is just
one early application in the whole field of
electronic data transfer and distance
education. It also makes the academic
world a little closer to the real world,
which has shrunk because of technology.
I think it gives our students a better grasp
of global business and issues,” Pickering
says. fl