Know Your Profs is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better.
If you have an instructor you’d like to see interviewed in the paper, but perhaps you’re too busy to ask them yourself, email editor@nexusnewspaper.com and we’ll add them to our list of teachers to talk to.
This issue we caught up with Camosun Welding prof Kevin Alexander to talk about travelling for lacrosse, his clothes catching fire, and the importance of not lowering the bar for students.
1. What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?
Welding. I’ve been here about 14 years.
2. What do you personally get out of teaching?
I like seeing students grow, mature, and work reasonably hard to achieve their goals. Too many people these days expect instant results at everything, and in real life that’s just not the case. Showing a student that’s not the case is important.
3. What’s one thing you wish your students knew about you?
I don’t know about this one. Probably that at one time I was just like most of them. I was a young Camosun welding student who, in fact, almost got the boot out of here twice for goofing off too much. In the end, my trades training paid off with quite a few good job opportunities and, lastly, a fairly good one here at Camosun. I still have a lifelong friendship with my first instructor, Bill Murphy. Thanks for not kicking me out, Bill!
4. What’s one thing you wish they didn’t know about you?
Well, honestly, I don’t really know what they know about me, so I can’t really wish for them to not know something. I think even though you want them to work hard, they know at times I can be a little too easygoing, and they may try to take advantage of that.
5. What’s the best thing that’s happened to you as a teacher here?
Well, I think it’s always fun when the students get older, have success, and come back or see you on the street and they say hello or thanks for the instruction and help you gave them to get where they are in their life journey.
6. What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you as a teacher here?
Well, I don’t think anything catastrophic has really ever happened to me around here (touch wood), but I do get mad at myself when a demo doesn’t go smoothly. I also am not too thrilled every time my clothes catch fire, but those are part of the game. Although we try, nothing can be perfect every time.
7. What do you see in the future of post-secondary education?
Well, this answer could go on for quite some time, because I do have concerns. Young students coming out of high school have been “let” through most of their lives with no chance of failure. When they arrive in post-secondary it can be extremely hard to accept the fact that the reality is people can fail if they do not meet certain minimum expectations. I don’t believe that lowering the bar whenever students start to struggle is the answer. To me, this seems to be a rather large issue in a lot of society in general today. Post-secondary education must prepare students for the working world, where they must understand that those who work hard and smart will be the ones who succeed. Those who do not will not. There are no free passes out there.
8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?
Well, that depends. In the winter months from November until April I don’t relax too much at all. I am an assistant coach and director of player personnel for the Vancouver Stealth of the National Lacrosse League, a professional box lacrosse league playing games in Canada and the United States. So on weekends I am usually travelling to either Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatchewan, Toronto, Buffalo, Denver, Rochester, Atlanta, or New England. Luckily, all the games are on weekends, and Camosun and my department chair have been great when I needed a vacation day off here or there. The summers are a bit different, and I like to golf, fish, watch car racing, go to the odd Shamrocks game… just all kinds of outdoor activities.
9. What is your favourite meal?
Undoubtedly, spaghetti!
10. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
Probably “late.” I hate late in anything.