News Have a lead? Contact us at news@theotherpress.ca & Douglas enrollment at an all-time high Admissions up 17 per cent from 2009 By Dylan Hackett, News Editor his fall semester, for the third year ina row, Douglas College has reached an all-time high in admissions with over 11,000 students registered for courses. The increase in enrollment is a continuation of the upward trend since 2009. “The growing popularity of Douglas doesn’t come as a surprise,” says Scott McAlpine, president of Douglas College. “More and more people are choosing Douglas based on the strength of our academic and career-based programs, and the quality of our teaching.” Douglas has been expanding its course and program roster to accommodate the flux of students with new programs beginning this fall. Among them are two new post-degree programs in sales and accounting. Douglas also partnered with Langara, Capilano, and Vancouver Community College in May to offer a Bachelor of Performing Arts degree. Some programs, like the ever-popular nursing program, can’t keep up with the demand of applicants flooding the admissions offices. “We have some areas [of study] that are very oversubscribed,” said Dave Taylor, Director of Marketing and Communications at Douglas. “Nursing, for example, received over 1,000 applications this year but only 65 seats open every year.” The rise in admissions is not exclusive to Douglas College either, with urban post-secondary institutions seeing increased registrations across the board—a pattern stemming from the uncertainty in job markets. “Whenever the economy is slow, people look at spending their time, instead of looking for a job that might be hard to come by, getting an education to prepare themselves better for when things pick up,” said Taylor. “At times like this you see people coming back to college and university for extra training as well because there are fewer opportunities for advancement.” Not all of the gains in enrollment can be accredited to the economic climate, however. “There are long-term statistics that seem to show that people are seeing the advantages of becoming more educated to further their career options,” claimed Taylor. Part of the increase in enrollment can also be accredited to the ever- TransLink cracking down on fines New enforcement techniques introduced By Eric Wilkins, Staff Writer s of Tuesday last week, the provincial legislation set to give TransLink further means to enforce fare evasion is in effect. From now on, should a fare evader fail to pay their ticket, ICBC can refuse to issue or renew the person’s driver’s licence and / or vehicle insurance. TransLink can now also bring in collection agencies to further crack down on unpaid tickets. TransLink Security and Police will be patrolling SkyTrain stations in increased numbers and the security teams now have the power to issue tickets. TransLink spokesperson, Drew Snider, said that there will be more fare checks set up, though the locations of the checks will be announced through various media sites shortly before, so as to give riders 6 an opportunity to purchase a ticket. Snider continued that the intent of the checks is primarily to remind people to purchase a ticket. In terms of the actual tickets, ticket fines now increase the longer they go unpaid. If unpaid after six months, the amount rises from the standard $173 to $213. Should the fine still be outstanding after a year, the total will top out at $273. “The new regulation is critical to reducing theft,” said TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis in relation to the new measures. “The provincial government has given us an important new tool to safeguard a significant source of revenue.” Previously, when tickets were ignored, there was nothing TransLink could do about it. Due to this, many people did just that, and ignored TransLink fines. According to ICBC, between January 1, 2011 and March 1, 2012, there were over 64,000 cases of fare evasion. Of these tickets, approximately 11,000 were voided, 7,500 were paid, and the rest (upwards of 45,500) were unpaid. Those tickets added up to more than $7.7 million in lost revenue for the company. TransLink COO, Doug Kelsey had this to say about the new enforcement methods, “The vast majority do pay their fares. This is really targeted [to] help shape behaviour on the system so that everybody pays. The people who pay should not be subsidizing the small group who don’t pay.” On a related note, TransLink installed the first faregates at the Marine Drive Station over the expanding population of international students at Douglas. This year saw a 10 per cent increase in international student registration—totalling Douglas’ international student population to over 1,100. “Our international focus is on both receiving and sending,” explained Taylor. “We want our students to have an international experience and become global citizens. It’s a very important part of life in the 21st century, frankly. We’te always looking to expand our international opportunities for domestic students, as well as looking at new countries that might want to send international students to Douglas.” summer and plan to have the entire system (245 gates) in place sometime next summer or fall. The system will use a Compass card (prepaid smart card) to proceed through the gates, similar to London’s Oyster card.