![\"Kathryn](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Kathryn-seated-treated-FOR-COVER.jpg\")
<\/a>Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Rachael Grant says that the CCSS wants to have the college board explain why Laurin was fired in the first place (Laurin did not respond to a request to comment for this story).<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we would like to hear an explanation is from the Board of Governors, the body that made that decision,\u201d says Grant.<\/p>\n
But Camosun College Board of Governors chair Russ Lazaruk declined to be interviewed for this story, saying via email, \u201cI cannot comment as this is a personnel matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camosun College chief financial officer Deborah Huelscher says that the college would rather have put that money elsewhere, but acknowledges that they need to stick to the terms of the contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would prefer to invest those kinds of dollars in our students,\u201d says Huelscher, adding that \u201cthere\u2019s a contract and we have to honour the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Nexus <\/i>stories published at the time, there was speculation that Laurin had her contract terminated because of her criticism of the provincial government cutting ESL funding. CCSS executive director Michel Turcotte says that if the college board had issues with Laurin, for whatever reason, they shouldn\u2019t have renewed her contract so soon before firing her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that she was receiving money for so long [after her dismissal] would tend to support the argument that the reasons for her departure were not substantive,\u201d he says. \u201cThe reason she was terminated, we would have to assume in that case, was more to do with an approach to governance, perhaps, or something less tangible. Arguably, they shouldn\u2019t have renewed the contract if that was an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant says that the amount of money that Laurin is getting is \u201creasonable and necessary given her treatment.\u201d Camosun students have concern about this much money being spent on something they don\u2019t know the reasons behind, though. First-year Science student Rain Smith says that the circumstances surrounding Laurin\u2019s pay don\u2019t justify it as a reasonable expenditure.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo reason for dismissal and having to pay out two separate presidents kind of seems like an unnecessary addition to the Camosun budget,\u201d says Smith.<\/p>\n
Second-year Applied Chemistry and Biotechnology student Monica Alvaro Fuss says that information about why Laurin was dismissed needs to be given.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s right to dismiss a person on the grounds of nothing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
First-year Nursing student Michaela Roberts says that Laurin, who is now working as Victoria Symphony Society CEO\/executive director, is entitled to her compensation. However, like Turcotte, Roberts is unclear about why things were handled in this manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand why they did that,\u201d says Roberts. \u201cIt\u2019s just a waste of money at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to Camosun College\u2019s recently released 2015\/16 financial statements, the college spent $232,404 on ex-president Kathryn Laurin\u2019s severance pay during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016. $163,834 of this was on salary, $15,601 on benefits, $16,939 on pension, and $36,030 on vacation payout. Laurin\u2019s pay ended on February 29, 2016. Laurin was fired in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12521,"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":[13,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-october-5-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519","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=12519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12523,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519\/revisions\/12523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}