Sitting down with Douglas’ President

A profile of Dr. Scott McAlpine

 

By Kennedy Kierans

Other Press sat down recently
I with Dr. Scott McAlpine, Douglas
College’s president, to get his
thoughts on his time here so far and to
find out some of what lies ahead for the
College in the coming months. Here is an

excerpt of that conversation.

How would you assess the past 16
months?

It’s been extraordinarily busy,
extraordinarily productive, and absolutely
delightful. There’ ve been some challenges
as well. I think the major challenge was
developing the strategic plan. Quite

often strategic plans are simply dust
collectors on shelves. I assure you this
will not be. We’re already doing quite a
bit of implementation on a number of the
elements within it.

For example, we’ ve expanded the
SFU partnership to include science.
Science courses are now transferring to
SFU without loss of credit. Clearly, the
SFU partnership that we have initially
was fairly small. We’ ve now expanded
it massively with science. In terms of
numbers, I don’t know if (the partnership)
has doubled, but in terms of student
opportunity it has. It’s all about student
mobility.

Speaking of student mobility, there are
a lot of international students at Douglas.
Douglas College is probably one
of the most diverse colleges, in terms of
the student body, in Canada. The Lower
Mainland has a phenomenally diverse
population. And Douglas College needs
to be a welcoming place for that diversity.
We also need to prepare our students for
global citizenship. Those two aspects make
up the internationalization element of the
strategic plan.

Can you provide some specific
examples?

We are recruiting more international
students now than ever before as this
institution. But that’s not, in itself,
transformative of the institution. The
study-abroad or field school programs,
however, really are transformative to the
individual. You get the appreciation for,
an understanding of and an immersion in,
a different culture than you’re necessarily
familiar with. That’s why we’re expanding
the number of field school opportunities
that we’re offering this summer.

The other thing that is fantastic
about the field schools is that they are
experiential learning, and we know that

most students learn best by doing. There’s
a much greater depth of knowledge (when
you learn experientially). That’s why we
are promoting these kinds of opportunities
for the students.

Now, there’s also experiential learning
that can go on in labs. We offer much
more laboratory hands-on experience
in the sciences than the major research
universities. In some cases, the research
universities will offer a three-credit,
lecture-based course with, perhaps, an
internet-based lab, whereas we will offer
a five-credit course with a two-credit
hands-on lab component. And this really
prepares our students very, very well for
second, third, fourth year, whatever it is
that they’re transferring into.

Again back to student mobility.

Yes, but mobility is also about
the student achieving their educational
objectives. Education is an asset that
people have that can never be taken
away from them. Planning for your
future really has to be about maximizing
your opportunities. And post-secondary
education will provide that to you.

You touched on the subject of global
citizenship. Can you expand on that?

Certainly. Internationalization and
preparing students to be good and effective
global citizens has three phases. The first
phase is the recruitment of international
students. The second phase is the study-
abroad programs. The third phase involves
the full integration and participation of
international perspectives throughout our
curriculum. What if we went to the third
phase? We’ re trying to think through .
what this third phase would be and what
it would look like in a Douglas College
environment.

Earlier, you spoke about how proud
Douglas is of the quality of its teachers.
But I know that one of the other key pieces
of the strategic plan is upgrading that
Jurther still.

Yes, we have excellent teachers at
this institution, but can we get better? Of
course. Philosophically, we can always
get better, we can always improve. Now,
what do we need to have? We need to
have the ability for our instructors who are
interested, and capable, to do research,
to continue to inspire them, to continue
to fire up their minds, or move them in
that direction. If there’s new teaching
technologies emerging, people need to
know how to use it, and sometimes it’s not
that easy. (As well,) there’s always new
research going on in education, and so we

need to be up to speed on current practices
and so forth. And so when we talk about
quality, and improvement of our quality,
that’s not a critique at all. That’s simply

a recognition of the need for continuous
professional development of our faculty
and our staff.

And we know that that mindset has
been reflected in our results. The average
grade (for a student) entering Douglas
College is lower than the average grade
(for a student) entering SFU. But we
know that on average, and we have
the data on this from SFU; I’ve seen
it recently, students who exit Douglas
College at the end of year two do as well
as, if not better, than students who started
SFU from year one. Those students have
been transformed by the excellence in
our classrooms, of the instructors and
the teaching and learning environment at
Douglas College, have been transformed
from not that great a performer
academically into those absolutely as
good as, if not better than, the students
who enter SFU (directly). That’s quality.

That’s teaching practice and
methods. But what about technology?
How does the College walk the line
between keeping current with technology
and how they deliver curriculum, while
not chasing every new technology that
comes up?

Our orientation is to look more
towards state-of-the-practice rather
than state-of-the-art. State-of-the-art is
elusive, you’ll never get there. You might

rk
(Pe aute

have some elements or some centres of
excellence that are state-of-the-art. That’s
fine. For example, our nursing labs, those
are state-of-the-art. It made sense from a
teaching perspective to put our simulation
labs in, recognizing that the nursing
students learn by doing and learn from
mistakes. And you better not, as a nurse,
be making too many mistakes on live
patients. In nursing, if you make mistakes,
people die.

And having these labs is one way
Douglas distinguishes itself.

The competition within BC [amongst
academic institutions] needs to be to the
advantage of students. And it can be,
because we can offer quite differentiated
educational experience, and quite a robust
one, where we have a variety of different
courses and programs that students can go
to. And what happens is that the students
vote with their feet.

We have to give students a reason to
pick somewhere and to stay there.

And I’m here to tell you that
Douglas will give them that reason.
Look at the Print Futures program, for
example. Not all institutions can offer
that same program. We have some unique
individuals who are so full of energy. The
instructors make the program. There are
many other programs as well but at the
end of the day, across the entire College,
it’s about the excellence of instruction and
services that will distinguish the Douglas
College experience.

Dr. Scott McAlpine

 

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