News

Nikalas Kryzanowski, News Editor and Matthew Steinbach, Associate News Editor

news @theotherpress.ca

 

 

Special needs programs saved from budget cuts

Emotional protest convinces College Board to tap into emergency funds

Matthew
Steinbach

assistant
news editor

   
 

Pate with student issues on
campus, students have tended to be absent.
With the last student union and college
board elections a mere 1-5 percent of
students bothered to participate. Douglas
is not the only institution to suffer from
student apathy; this trend has affected
most schools in British Columbia.

One issue in_ particular has
transformed this indifference in the past
month; over the college budget no less.
A call was sent out to salvage the Adult
Special Education programs, about half
of which were to set to be removed in a
new round of budget cuts.

Adult Special Education or ASE,
as they are commonly referred to, are
programs for students with disabilities,
as Bob Logelin (Coordinator for this
area at Douglas College) emphasised at
the May 12, 2008 meeting of the Douglas
College Education Council. While these
programs are designed for students with
varying needs they are not extensions
of other programs. ASE sections are
specially tailored, unique courses

designed to fit specific disabilities.
Individual students, as well as
community members, have a right to
inquire about cuts at the College’s Board
of Governors and Education Council
meetings. Rarely do average citizens
participate in these discussions though.
The May 15 meeting was thus rather
exceptional as the day delivered an
abnormal amount of guests, with several
delegations of students, staff, and faculty
members jointly arriving at to plea for
the programs. Together these groups
appealed to the Board’s on a number of
fronts, sometimes emotional, sometimes

rational, producing a touching meeting
for many. The night climaxed when
a petition of over 1,000 signatures
collected in ten days was dramatically
presented by a concern parent to the
Board.

When asked why there was such a
striking turn in student participation that
included a room full of past, present, and
future Douglas College students, Ally
MacGrotty, student representative on the
Douglas College Board stated “This was
a critical moment where the community
came together. This was a crucial
moment to save these programs.” She

 

explained that the interest was already
there, however this was the students
chance to represent themselves.

Not unexpectedly, on May 16
Douglas College announced that two of
the programs in question (“Transitions,”
and customer service and cashier training)
would be spared from the budget cuts.

However, this is not the end of the
process; the College must now resort
to using its emergency funds to finance
these programs for one more year. How
will these programs be maintained for
an extended length of time? The Vice
President of Education at Douglas
College, Jan Lindsay, answered this in a
press release on the same day declaring
that “the Board has provided us with the
means to continue these programs while
we look for other sources of funding.”

Karen Maynes, Vice President
of Finance, recently spoke with The
Other Press. The Dispensing Optician
program (10 sections), and Stagecraft
(two sections) are the only areas that
Douglas intends to cut thus far, other
than those ones the next set of reductions
“could be anywhere.” These ones have
only been decided because the College
has to wait until second year students
in these programs complete _ their
requirements before they can make
cuts to them. Next year an additional
$568,000 must be cut from the budget
along with the already announced cuts.

 

Campus BBQ welcomes ESL students

Nikalas ‘
Kryzanowski

news editor

 

 

Fa theme was superheroes even
though only a few dressed the part. Those
who did, “Pandaman” and “The Lucky
Charm”, were not really recognizable
as such, but in the end it didn’t matter
one bit. Everyone got fed and danced the
night away.

ThepurposeofthestudentunionBBQ
this year was to welcome international
students, along with some 90 Quebecois
students fromthe bilingualism-promoting
“Explore” program, to Douglas College.
The francophone students are on a six
week study program that allows them to
hone their English skills in a supportive
setting while also having the enriching

4

experience of visiting another part of
Canada.

Maude LaReau, a_ student at
Université du Québec 4 Rimouski and
a member of the program says that the
experience has been a great one so far. “It
has been awesome. My English skills are
improving. Everyone here is sociable.”

Angelique Laperryere, another
Explore student was playing to the
superhero theme, decked out in green,
topped off with a bucket on her head. She
became known as “The Lucky Charm.”
She has been enjoying her friends and
the nightlife around Vancouver and New
Westminster.

The DSU did not manage to pass a
budget in time for the BBQ and largely
ventured to pay for the hundreds of
burgers and cans of alcohol out of their
own pockets. They will likely move
to be reimbursed out of union funds at
the next meeting. According to Internal
Relations, the event is designed with the
hopes of breaking even, meaning drink
proceeds should eventually wind up in
union funds.

‘“Pandaman” one of the few costumed guests at last week’s DSU barbeque.