Charting a new
curriculum

Times change; so do the needs of people.

The Psychiatric Nursing Department took
a hard look at what will suit the changing
needs of its students during a workshop
called Operationalizing the Curriculum on
January 4-5. Held at the New Westminster
campus, the session was an important step
in consolidating the development of a new
curriculum which will be implemented by
September. 1995. The workshop was
facilitated by Dr. Delores Gaut. professor
in the School of Nursing at the University
of Portland, who shared her curriculum
expertise and rich background in practice,
education and research into the nature of
caning.

The caring curriculum under development
focuses on the concepts which will assist
students to develop critical-thinking skills,
said Curriculum Project Manager Jeanette
Mossing. It will also increase their
flexibility in dealing with accelerating
changes in the workplace and in coping
with the needs of people in a complex and
diverse society.

“Over time, we have become more content
driven. Our present curriculum has
become a burden to students and
instructors.” said Mossing. In the caring
curriculum, teachers will act as
facilitators. coaches or mentors and
become mutal learners themselves. The
students will be more involved in working
together in learning how to promote
wellness in themselves and their clients.
As life-long learmers, the curriculum will
equip students with the knowledge and
skills to care for the whole person as part
of a family, a group and community.

While reviewing its curriculum, the
Psychiatric Nursing Department has also
maintained close contact with the General
Nursing Department which is
re-evaluating its own curriculum in
collaboration with the Fraser Valley
Consortium of nursing schools. &

Did you know?

This semester (Winter, 1994) a total of
7,643 people registered for credit courses
at Douglas College. We have 4,818
part-time and 2,825 full-time students.
The total is about the same as last
semester's (7,654). &

 

Zieroth judges national award

Read, read, dicker, pick

Quite a job; read 130 poetry books in five months, negotiate in numerous conference calls,
and spend one extremely long day cloistered in Ottawa to pick the best poetry book in the
land. No wonder Dale Zieroth didn’t rush in.

 

The call came from the Canada Council last June. Would Zieroth, editor of Douglas
College's Literary Magazine ‘Event’. published poet and Creative Writing instructor, be
one of three judges for the Governor General's Award for Literature in Poetry?

"My first reaction was hesitation. I wanted to know who the other judges would be because
I wanted to be sure they were people I could work with,” said Zieroth. "But I could not be
told at the time because the judge’s list was still confidential, so I made a leap of faith and
accepted.”

The leap of faith worked out. A smooth partnership developed between Zieroth and his
co-judges, Mary di Michele of Concordia University and Charlottetown’s Joseph Sherman,
editor of Arts Atlantic. Each judge had to read and consider every book submitted by
publishers of Canadian poetry published between October 1, 1992 and September 30, 1993.
"T had to read 130 books,” said Zieroth, "that’s a lot of books."

After winnowing the field down to 20 and then 10 books, the trio met in Ottawa on October
10 to select five finalists and the overall winner -- who turned out to be Toronto’s Don
Coles for his book Forests of the Medieval World.

“It was a fairly exhausting but rewarding process. It was important to know the book you
favored and to be able to articulate what you felt were the pros and cons about it. It was also
important to listen to what the other people were saying, not to just come into the meeting
with a pre-arranged agenda."

Zieroth acknowledged he felt gratified “but not overwhelmed" to be asked to judge.

"In the writing community it’s the kind of duty which gets around to you at some point. It
did enable me to reconfirm my commitment and involvement with the wnting and
publishing community,” he said.

"What was interesting in terms of the writing community was that the winners in fiction and
non-fiction were very controversial but in poetry the decision was not. If that is a measure
of success then I suppose you can say we were successful.” &

+t > 4 9
Remembering Gary

A long-time colleague and friend of the Department of Commerce and Business
Administration, Gary Dorosh, passed away on December 21, 1993. Despite his
struggle with cancer, Gary's spirits were always high; he is fondly remembered as
‘Mr. Happy Man’, a nickname he got on a recent trip to Thailand, where the Thai
hosts found his laugh contagious

A member of the department for 19 years, Gary is fondly remembered for his
patience with students, his dedication to curriculum and his uplifting sense of
humour.

A scholarship fund in Gary's name is being established. For further information,
contact Irene Griswold at local 5457. &

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