Camosun College president Sherri Bell started her job here a year ago, following the unexpected and prompt termination of previous president Kathryn Laurin’s contract. Bell was stepping into a position filled with questions, and she was about to lead the college through a year of change.
We caught up with Bell recently to talk about her first year on the job at Camosun, some of the challenges she faced, and how the college needs to improve in the future.
It’s been a year since you started here; what was your first year like?
The first year was probably the most amazing year of my career. There were no huge surprises. Camosun has a great reputation; coming in, I knew the quality of instruction here, I knew the quality of the people that work here, I knew a lot of the students who come here. I knew—I thought I knew—about the place. What got to me the most was the heart of Camosun, and very quickly it became a part of who I am, and that is just incredible. I don’t know how many times I was just in awe of what we do, and seeing the difference we make to students. I think in a place like this, you have to have a good fit. Camosun and the values and what it stands for is a great fit for me, and I think I’m a pretty good fit for Camosun.
How does that heart of Camosun compare to other institutions you’ve worked at?
I don’t want to compare, but there are shared values that permeate across the institution, that no matter where you teach—and we have two large campuses—it doesn’t matter where you go; you could be in the trades building or in arts and science, and that pride of the institution and what we do for students and what is important to us is pretty clear. And I think that really became clear when we did our strategic plan, because there was a lot of input into the strategic plan and the same things kept coming up over and over again, which is what we value.
What have some of the challenges been in your first year?
I guess with any new position, the challenge is just getting up to speed, understanding what happens, learning the names, the acronyms… I’m an educator and always will be—that’s who I am at heart—so the education piece wasn’t a problem. And Victoria—of course, I live here—so the challenge was just getting to know everything about Camosun. I still feel like I don’t know everything, for sure.
What have some of the victories or successes been in your first year?
One of the things that I’m proud of is the reorganization of our senior administration. We were able to do that because we had two openings at the vice president level, and that allowed us to look at what was important. When we were trying to figure out what structure would make sense for the college, we were crammed into my office and I had poster paper and I drew a stick figure of a student, and drew a circle around it, and said, “Every decision we make, we have to go back to the centre, which is, ‘How is this going to benefit the students?’” And although it sounds like a bureaucratic exercise, it wasn’t. So that’s when we came up with the idea of having a student experience portfolio; Joan Yates is the vice president of student experience, and that’s never been done before. So how do we take that restructuring and really make something happen that we can all be proud of and that students who come here leave saying that that was an experience second to none? That’s my end goal. Joan’s got a big job this year in creating a plan (laughs). She’s done a wonderful job so far in talking to people. She’ll sit in Student Services and just watch. We can’t make good decisions without information or data. That’s what we’re doing right now, just talking and listening and looking at what we can do and how we can make it better. So that’s something I’m quite proud of; even though it’s an administrative change, it will permeate, I’m hoping, throughout the student experience. I think we can look forward at the college to hearing more about that as the year goes on. And I’m happy not just with the strategic plan, but the process that we took was unique, and I like the outcome.
What were your impressions of Camosun coming into the job? How were you surprised?
I think the difference was before I came here, I didn’t understand the core values or feel that heart, so that’s what I learned. This might sound a bit corny, but I go home at the end of the week on a Friday, and my husband would say, “How was your day? How was your week?” and I’d say, “Awesome.” He finally, around November, said, “Okay, I’m really tired of hearing, ‘awesome’.” But it’s just how I felt. I was so excited, and I still am. I’d come home after an event and say, “You should see what we do. It’s amazing.”
Last time we talked, you mentioned indigenization at the college. How has that gone in the past year?
I’m glad you asked that question. This year, that has been a big priority for me. Again, it’s just getting to know people and what we do, talking to people from other colleges and universities on the island… We’re leaders in indigenization and have been for years. I think where we have an opportunity to really make a difference is what we do in response to the Truth and Reconciliation. We have our senior leadership council and we have a small committee that’s looked at all the recommendations and has come back to our senior leadership council, and we approved about 86 actions to be taken. We’re so far along that we’ve actually started to talk about what specific things will happen each year, what’s the budget for it, and who’s responsible. Beside every one of those actions is someone’s name that’s a member of the executive team, because I believe that we have to be held responsible. Whether or not we do the hands-on work is one thing, but we all need to take responsibility for certain actions we want to see happen. I’m probably most excited about rolling that out and getting the college involved and working with different groups of people to put the actions into place. So I’d say that that was a priority last year, and I have been absolutely amazed at what we already do, but I also feel it’s really important to talk about where we’re going. That’s what we’ll see in the fall: what’s the plan to take us to a place we need to go as a college and as a country?
You mention the student experience a lot. What exactly do you feel the Camosun student experience is and what do you want it to be?
I think it’s everything, from the moment you make a phone call to Camosun to ask a question to walking in the door to meeting with advising to starting classes to getting a diploma or degree; it’s all part of the student experience. So any interaction you have with anyone at the college is part of that experience. Any smart institution is always looking for improvement, and we’ve been fortunate with budget that we can actually add support where we see the need, and we have done that over the past couple of years to improve the student experience and to help students that perhaps need more support. What the plan is going to look like is unknown right now; we’re still in that data-collection and information-collection stage. There are also certain things that I think we do well that we want to beef up a bit, which is experiential learning or hands-on learning, workplace learning, co-op student employment—that part of what students experience here, I think we can improve. We’ve put a director into that role, Nancy Sly; she’s got a big job, because we’re depending on what she and her team come up with to add to that student experience. That’s one thing. I’d like to see students more involved in applied research, taking problems from the community to the college and having our students focus on problem solving. We do a really great job right now in many areas of technology; mechanical engineering is a huge part of what they do. We want to spread it. Social innovation is another area; again, it’s real-world issues that come to us that our students have that experience with. It’ll all unfold a little bit more as we fine-tune the focus.
Lots of these ideas we’re talking about, they tend to be more conceptual. We did a couple stories about a year ago about Camosun students who don’t have ADD or ADHD using ADD or ADHD medication to help them study. That’s a world away from me and you sitting here talking about these big concepts. There are students over there taking drugs because they feel they need them to get through their studies at Camosun. How do you feel about that?
I saw those stories, yes. When I read the story, I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. It made me incredibly sad to think that we have students who have to resort to that kind of thing. So, the one part that I haven’t talked about that will be a part of that student experience is mental health. We’ve got a document now, but a document is just a piece of paper. We need to roll that out once we know exactly what it is that we want to be doing. So we’ve taken the first step, and with the next step hopefully students will see some support. And I think with that focus on student experience, we have to be listening to students. Right now, we’re collecting information and data. That’s what it is: listening to what the student society says, individual students, groups of students, faculty, staff; it’s hearing from people who say, “This is an issue.” I think we know what some of the issues are, but the deeper, personal ones, I think, are a little bit more challenging to get at and will be a part of our strategy as well. But, yeah, students that feel that in order to finish the work that they’re working on have to resort to that, maybe we need to do something different that we haven’t thought of around timing and coordination of assignments.
What about how Camosun deals with students with disabilities? We’ve covered that and heard both criticisms and compliments. How do you feel Camosun does in that regard?
I think there’s always going to be stories of excellence and stories of “I wasn’t served properly.” I think we need to learn from the stories that are “this didn’t work for me” and figure out why. I feel very, very strongly about the fact that if someone has a learning disability or a physical disability, the plan has to fit whatever is their disability, and support has to be given in classrooms. It has to happen, not just with one person and not another. I believe that, in education, we’ve come a long way. I have a daughter that has a learning disability, and she struggled until she figured out what her disability meant for her and the fact that she was really bright. She went on to university and graduated. I don’t think that would have happened without some support from people and a plan. So, I’ve lived it and seen how it can affect people, and, again, I’m never averse to listening to students saying, “This didn’t work for me,” and learning from the student. We’ve added some more supports into supporting students in general. There’s such a range of disabilities, and everyone with a disability needs for people to understand what their disability is and that it doesn’t mean they can’t do everything else. They just need some support in place, whether that’s with writing or reading, or they’re in a wheelchair, or visually impaired… As a society, we have come a long way in understanding it’s what we have to do as Canadians. If I ever heard something that was happening here where someone didn’t get what they should have got because of their disability, I would take action. It’s incredibly important.
What are some areas where Camosun needs improvement?
I think a lot of leadership is about clarity. I’ll give you an example. I think we do a really good job with sustainability, and we’ve done some excellent work around recycling and reusing, and added the Camosun Express [bus shuttle service between the two campuses], and added some incentives so people don’t drive. But I think it needs to involve more students than faculty and staff. It needs clarity. What are we really talking about when we say this? I want people to have a crystal-clear image of what we’re working on. That’s part of my job this year as the strategic plan unfolds. Yeah, we’ve got a plan, but what does it actually mean? Being really, really clear, I think that’s one thing we can improve on. And of course student experience we’re still working on—sustainability, indigenization, what it means to have an international population, and are we supporting domestic and international students? I think there are lots of places where we could look to improve, places that we’re doing a good job, but we continually ask questions. “How could we make this better for students?”
Last time we talked, you mentioned you go to a lot of concerts. Have you been to any good ones in the past year?
Yeah, I have. I went to Adele in July in Vancouver at Rogers Arena. I’ve been to a lot of concerts there, but the sound of her voice was unbelievable. It ranks right up there. And she’s by herself; it’s not like watching Eric Clapton with a huge band, or Paul McCartney. She was just incredible; it just sent chills up your spine. That stands out, and the Marimba band on Hornby Island (laughs).
What’s in store for the upcoming year?
Rolling out—and, again, I don’t want this to be bureaucratic—our strategic plan with real, tangible, clear changes and ideas, and getting feedback. So, more engagement and hopefully information and action. Last year we were collecting a lot of feedback. Now it’s responding to that and giving people information to say, “Here’s what we’re working on. Is this hitting the mark?” This is a plan that will last for five years, and we want to be hitting the mark with it. I’m as excited, maybe even more, about this year. It’s great.