{"id":12872,"date":"2016-11-16T09:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T17:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=12872"},"modified":"2016-11-14T12:27:37","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T20:27:37","slug":"know-your-profs-camosuns-chris-avis-on-post-secondary-for-work-or-for-pleasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2016\/11\/16\/know-your-profs-camosuns-chris-avis-on-post-secondary-for-work-or-for-pleasure\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Your Profs<\/em>: Camosun\u2019s Chris Avis on post-secondary for work or for pleasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Know Your Profs<\/i> 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 to get to know them better.<\/p>\n

If you have an instructor you\u2019d like to see interviewed in the paper, but perhaps you\u2019re too busy to ask them yourself, email editor@nexusnewspaper.com and we\u2019ll add them to our list of teachers to talk to.<\/p>\n

This issue, we chatted with Camosun physics prof Chris Avis about mental health, his fashion sense, and post-secondary education leading directly into the workplace.<\/p>\n

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Camosun physics professor Chris Avis says he has weird taste in music (photo by Jill Westby\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1. What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?<\/i><\/p>\n

Physics; six years.<\/p>\n

2. What do you personally get out of teaching?<\/i><\/p>\n

I love that I have a job that makes use of my interest and my education. I tend to naturally be a bit introverted, and teaching\u2019s been a great means of personal growth for me\u2014it\u2019s made me more confident and a better public speaker. I also really enjoy engaging with students and watching light-bulb moments occur when they start to grasp challenging concepts.<\/p>\n

3. What\u2019s one thing you wish your students knew about you?<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a big advocate for mental health. There\u2019s far too much of a stigma around it in society and it stops people from seeking help and coping strategies that would really improve their lives. I\u2019ve struggled with stress and anxiety and had to work very hard during my education, so I can really empathize with what students are going through with their academic workload. I\u2019m a Camosun Healthy Minds ambassador and I want students to know that I\u2019m there to listen if they want someone sympathetic to talk with.<\/p>\n

4. What\u2019s one thing you wish they didn\u2019t know about you?<\/i><\/p>\n

My fashion sense is, um, questionable at best.<\/p>\n

5. What\u2019s the best thing that\u2019s ever happened to you as a teacher here?<\/i><\/p>\n

Becoming a continuing faculty member. I love teaching at the college, but it was tough as a sessional employee coping with the employment uncertainty.<\/p>\n

6. What\u2019s the worst thing that\u2019s ever happened to you as a teacher here?<\/i><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t think of any one specific thing, but I\u2019d say it can be really hard to not take work home with you, both literally\u2014marking\u2014and emotionally. It\u2019s hard to watch students struggling with courses or with difficulties in their lives and not empathize with them.<\/p>\n

7. What do you see in the future of post-secondary education?<\/i><\/p>\n

I think there\u2019ll be more of an enrolment shift toward degrees and diplomas that lead more directly into the workforce. These days students often have to make pretty major financial sacrifices to pursue an education, and more are wanting to make sure it\u2019s worth their while at the end of it. That\u2019s totally understandable, but at the same time, it\u2019s a bit sad that it seems that there are fewer and fewer students out there taking courses just out of interest and getting an education without a thought to where it might necessarily lead.<\/p>\n

8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?<\/i><\/p>\n

I run, hike, and cycle for exercise. I enjoy reading, photography, cooking, and listening to film music\u2014yes, weird taste in music, I know.<\/p>\n

9. What is your favourite meal?<\/i><\/p>\n

I do most of the cooking at home, so anything that someone else prepares is great. If I had to choose, anything Mexican is awesome.<\/p>\n

10. What\u2019s your biggest pet peeve?<\/i><\/p>\n

Cellphones and social media. We\u2019re more connected than ever, but it seems like these technologies make conversations ever more shallow and vapid. I feel that they\u2019re degrading our ability to genuinely communicate one-on-one in a meaningful way.<\/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 to get to know them better. If you have an instructor you\u2019d like to see interviewed in the paper, but perhaps you\u2019re too busy to ask them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12877,"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":[11,15,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue","category-campus","category-november-16-2016"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872","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=12872"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12882,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872\/revisions\/12882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}