Laylee Rohani has been elected as the new Camosun College board of governors chair. Rohani, who moves into the position on August 1, has been a member of the board for five years, and has been in the position of vice chair since January 2018.
Rohani says that outgoing chair Ron Rice has left big expectations and has done fundamental work for the college during his time as chair.
“There are big shoes to fill, for sure—Ron was an amazing chair,” says Rohani. “He really had a wonderful way of making people feel welcome. I think as a member of the Cowichan Tribes, his background and his involvement with, essentially, looking at Indigenization as part of reconciliation and how we can move the college forward in that way has been really fundamental. It’s been a wonderful experience to serve with Ron on the board.”
Camosun College Student Society external executive Fillette Umulisa believes that Rohani will be a great chair, and she is excited to see the position filled by a woman.
“I think she’s going to do a great job,” says Umulisa. “Having a woman as chair of the board is a woman-empowerment cause right there.”
Rohani says that her cultural and educational background have motivated her to serve the community by sharing her knowledge as a lawyer.
“I am a first-generation Iranian-Canadian,” says Rohani. “I’m a member of the Baha’i faith, and as part of my faith and my cultural background, service to the community is very important. As a lawyer, I also feel that I am able to use my skills and experiences toward community service, particularly with my educational background. Because of that, when the opportunity came up to serve on the Camosun board, I was very excited to join the board and to be able to serve the community in that way.”
The positive experiences that Rohani’s husband had as a student at Camosun have been an important motivation for her to serve on the college’s board.
“One of the biggest things, actually, that led me to Camosun College is that my husband is a licenced carpenter and mechanic,” says Rohani. “He did both of his apprenticeships through Camosun College. He had such a positive experience with Camosun and is a big supporter of apprentices now in his construction company, so he also was a big supporter in me being involved with the college in that way.”
The Camosun board of governors is a governance board; it oversees the execution of the college’s strategic plan and reports to the public as well as to the government.
“We don’t get involved in the operations of the college,” says Rohani, “so it’s really looking to ensure that the strategic plan of the college is being carried out. Also, there’s financial accountability that comes with the role of being a governance board—we have a responsibility, essentially, to report to governments, as well, and to the public. It’s a governance board; it’s not involved in the day-to-day operations.”
As the chair, Rohani says that her role is mainly to mediate the board and ensure effective communication.
“I think the role of the chair is really to facilitate productive consultation and to make sure that the voices around the table are all heard,” says Rohani, “and that everybody is able to express their viewpoints in an effective manner, so I do think it’s creating that space where there can be effective consultation, and the role of the chair is pretty important for that.”
According to Rohani, one of the exciting things that the board is working on right now is Camosun’s new health building at Interurban.
“There is, of course, the exciting new Centre for Health and Wellness that is coming up,” she says. “That’s one of the big [projects], I guess more in the next few months, that the college has been working toward and is really excited about, in terms of having that centre open in the fall.”
Rohani says that another big project the board has on its agenda is the campus master plan, which represents a long-term vision for Camosun.
“The campus master plan is kind of looking at the college, and looking not just at the next few years, but really looking at a long-term vision of what the college could be,” she says, “looking at the space of the two campuses and what the college could look like in the future based on needs that may come up, and needs that are foreseen.”
The campus master plan prioritizes students, which Rohani says is an important focus for the board.
“One of the pillars of the strategic plan is being student-focused,” says Rohani. “And that, for me, should always be a priority that the board has in front of it in decision-making.”