INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE /JULY 25, 1989

 

 

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Jolley Continued

 

Geophysicist Crisscrosses Canada

also organize your course in a pat-
tern, making it very problem-
oriented.

“There’s no point getting stu-
dents to sit down to memorize a
bunch of terms,” he says. “To real-
ly understand it, students have to be
able to do something with it.”

Jolley is a native of Glace Bay,
Nova Scotia, and went to high
school in Ontario. He eared his
Bachelors degree at Carleton
University in Ottawa, and then his
Masters degree in geophysics from
the University of B.C.

When he graduated from U.B.C.,
Jolley worked as an astronomer at
the Dominion Observatory in Ot-
tawa for a year. He spent the next
seven years with the armed forces
based in Comwallis, Nova Scotia,
and later Esquimalt.

 

Jolley also spent four years
teaching at one of Canada’s three
military colleges in St. Jean,
Quebec, and then took up a post at
the training command headquarters
for the armed forces in Winnepeg.

His next move was to Douglas
College in 1970, where he em-
barked on his “third attempt to live
on the West Coast.”

What brought him back to B.C.?
“The opportunity to teach physics
at a community college,” he says.
“T had enjoyed my four years at the
military college. It had basically the
same levels of students we have
here...preparation for first and
second year university students.”

Another factor was that Jolley’s
wife is originally from New
Westminister. When the oppor-

  
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
    
 

 

tunity arose to work at the College
“T jumped at the chance,” he says.

Over the past 20 years, Jolley
has noticed significant changes at
the College, including the aging
faculty. “Many, particularly in this
department, have been here since
the beginning,” he says.

He’s also noticed a faculty
morale problem over the last few
years,

“It’s difficult to overcome that,”
he says. “The faculty, I think try to
overcome it themselves by taking
on something different or trying
something different in the class-
room, or doing things on their own
as much as possible, like getting
into computers or whatever.”

For his part, Jolley admits he’s
often seen as a “one-man-show.”

“I’m the only full-time regular
instructor in physics,” he says,
although there is a part-time instruc-
tor who comes in twice a week
during the teaching semester, a
technician who works on a 10-
month contract, and an auxiliary
technician who works as needed.

But basically, Jolley heads up
the department on his own. “So,
from that point of view, it’s nice be-
cause I get to do my own thing a
lot.”

Outside the College, Jolley has
numerous interests, including read-
ing, skiing, hiking and golf. He
loves to travel and last summer,
visited the Soviet Union.