![\"Camosun\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Christian-Allen26-12.jpg\")
<\/a>1: What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?<\/i><\/p>\n
I was primarily a carpentry instructor for my first few years at the college and am now a program coordinator in the Trades Development and Special Projects department. I continue to teach safety and carpentry-related courses as my schedule permits. I\u2019ve been at Camosun since the summer of 2008.<\/p>\n
2: What do you personally get out of teaching?<\/i><\/p>\n
I get a great deal of satisfaction from watching, and being involved in, the growth of our students. When I\u2019m teaching apprentices, it\u2019s very rewarding to see their levels of skill and confidence grow as they progress through their apprenticeships. As trades instructors, we\u2019re teaching our future colleagues. That\u2019s a rare and enjoyable interaction for an instructor to be able to have. These days, as a program coordinator, I manage and teach in trades programs that link the college with various high schools in the region. The challenges and rewards are very different in this venue, and I enjoy watching the students\u2019 growth and maturation over their five months in our program. It\u2019s especially great to see them in the halls at the college a year or two after high-school graduation, pursuing further studies and carrying on with the work that we started together years ago.<\/p>\n
3: What\u2019s one thing you wish your students knew about you?<\/i><\/p>\n
I want my students to know how focused my colleagues and I are on helping them to succeed, and to see the amount of work we put in to create and deliver relevant, effective programs. We aren\u2019t forced to do this extra work by an employer or a government agency; we do it because we care about our students and about the courses we\u2019re teaching. In my case, when I teach carpentry, I have a great deal of pride in my profession and want to help my students become excellent carpenters.<\/p>\n
4: What\u2019s one thing you wish they didn\u2019t know about you?<\/i><\/p>\n
Hmm… have you seen the state of my office? It is truly shameful.<\/p>\n
5: What\u2019s the best thing that has ever happened to you as a teacher here?<\/i><\/p>\n
I love meeting students years after we\u2019ve worked together and hearing about where they\u2019ve gone in their lives and careers. I don\u2019t know that they\u2019re aware of how much it means to us as instructors when they approach us on the street or in a grocery store to shake our hands and talk to us, always with smiles on their faces. No other job I have done has ever given me so much satisfaction.<\/p>\n
6: What\u2019s the worst thing that\u2019s happened to you as a teacher here?<\/i><\/p>\n
As a former term instructor, repeatedly having to leave the college and find other work when enrolment declined or a course ended. After having found my dream job here, it was very difficult to have to leave it and have no idea when I might return. I\u2019m very glad that those days are behind me.<\/p>\n
7: What do you see in the future of postsecondary education?<\/i><\/p>\n
Focusing specifically on the trades, it\u2019s my hope that our country sustains its current emphasis on promoting and funding trades training. Too often, it has been treated as a passing fad. Regardless of the state of the economy, we will always need skilled tradespeople, and the only way to ensure an adequate supply is to maintain consistent training programs. Skilled tradespeople don\u2019t appear instantly when demand is high; it takes time to train and develop an apprentice into a certified tradesperson. From secondary schools through to colleges and employers, it\u2019s important that we continue to promote the trades as a viable, respectable career option, and to enable those who are interested in pursuing a trade to get the on-the-job and academic training that they require.<\/p>\n
8: What do you do to relax on the weekends?<\/i><\/p>\n
I enjoy working in my yard and garden, puttering away on never-ending house renovations like a typical carpenter, and playing in a rec hockey league. I\u2019m a mediocre but enthusiastic guitar player, and I\u2019m looking forward to restoring a classic car or truck when I finally find the time.<\/p>\n
9: What is your favourite meal?<\/i><\/p>\n
I love cooking because… well… I love eating. Barbecuing ribs in a chipotle bourbon sauce is a favourite pastime, but the Prawn Broker at Pagliacci\u2019s or anything from Da Tandoor is definitely hard to beat.<\/p>\n
10: What\u2019s your biggest pet peeve?<\/i><\/p>\n
As \u201cpaperwork for its own sake\u201d was described by Gordon Alexander, my Camosun College Canadian Literature instructor in 1995: administrivia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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. Do you have an instructor that you want to see interviewed in the paper? Maybe you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-march-2-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11753,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11751\/revisions\/11753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}