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An international perspective

on reorganization

The planning for the new Pinetree campus
in Coquitlam has initiated a lot of
discussion about change at Douglas
College. The need to restructure College
Operations to incorporate a major, new
campus has presented a logical
opportunity to reappraise College goals
and to reorganize in order to meet those
goals more effectively.

Much of the consultation and discussion
about restructuring has focused on internal
and community concerns. At the same
time, President Bill Day believes it is
imperative that the College community be
aware of shifting national and
international forces when considering
parameters for change. In view of this, the
Inside is reprinting the concluding portion
of Day’s presentation entitled "Challenges
and Change: Canada’s Colleges and
Institutes in a North American Context"
which was delivered at a recent
conference in Mexico City. The opening
portion of the presentation discusses
traditional Canadian attitudes about
post-secondary education and how those
attitudes are being reappraised due to the
continuing decline in our national level of
prosperity. Copies of the entire speech are
available at the Administration reception
desk.

"It is fair to say that Canada’s colleges and
institutes, as well as its universities, are
currently in a state of quiet upheaval.
Hopefully, this will leave the institutions,
the working population, and the country in
much better shape in ten years than it is at
the present time. Governments at the
federal and provincial level are
encouraging colleges and institutes
through funding constraints and incentives
to view their futures as being intimately
bound up with the future of the local,
regional, and national economy. Institutes
are increasingly viewing their curriculum
as common property to be shared and
developed in concert with business, labour
and the government; viewing themselves
as being part of working consortia of
institutions rather than competing empires;
and furthermore as being institutions with
a strong entrepreneurial mandate. This
involves publicly funded institutions
learning how to compete with a rapidly

developing set of industry-based and
private training activities, and to be
strongly focused on the needs of business,
industry, labour and the learner.

It is noteworthy that the basic skills and
attitude required for change at the
institutional level, in many cases have
already been learned through participation
in international education activities.
Canada’s colleges and institutes now
know that their programs are exportable
commodities of very high quality -
competitive with those of any other nation
in the world.

It appears that governments at all levels
have reached a simultaneous conclusion -
that technical and vocational education is
a primary key to Canada’s prosperity in
the future; and that business, industry and
labour must collaborate with each other
and with public institutions as a matter of
common necessity and future survival.
Programs are now in place and working.
These include:

- efforts to revitalize and rethink
apprenticeship systems, and the role of
secondary school in technical and
vocational preparation;

- college and institute collaboration on
joint projects, including international
education and curriculum development;

- efforts to lower barriers to student
movement through recognition of prior
learning, both formal and informal;

- efforts to develop, define and incorporate
standards for curriculum content and
student performance at a national level;

- collaboration with business and industry
in analyzing needs and directions by
economic sector. This encourages
common standards and therefore student
mobility and efficiency of effort;

- formal efforts led by governments to link
public schools, colleges, institutes and
universities, while connecting academic
education with technical and vocational
training.

Our challenge is to apply this energy to
the same problems at the continental and
international level." A

Students get down
to business

The computers are running, the printer is
buzzing, you’re busy arranging the budget
for a global corporation when someone
tells you to prepare a major presentation
for company stockholders - in 30 minutes.

The corporate pressure cooker, also known
as the B.C. College’s Business Simulation
was held in Richmond recently, with two
Douglas College students winning top hon-
ors. Leslie Harvey, now an auxiliary
clerk-ty pist with the Purchasing Depart-
ment, was named top Accountant while
teammate Cindy Thompson won the Mar-
keting division.

 

  

 

 

LS

Leslie Harvey

The three-day event featured 12 B.C. col-
lege teams running a computerized
business simulation program. Consisting
of four students and an instructor-coach,
each team faced business duties ranging
from board meeting preparations to mak-
ing long-term production, investment and
marketing decisions. Results were evalu-
ated by seven judges from large and small
businesses and government.

"The time pressure was incredible, but you
could feel the adrenalin in the room," said
Harvey. “We had to make a lot of deci-
sions and sometimes we had two hours
and at others we had half an hour."

Ron Mckinnon of Commerce and Busi-
ness coached the Douglas College
contingent, which also included Computer
Information Systems student Darren
Critchley and Paul Hoskin of Administra-
tive Management. Capilano College won
the team award at the event held February
24-26 at the Executive Inn. A

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