{"id":13120,"date":"2017-01-04T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13120"},"modified":"2017-01-03T10:29:11","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T18:29:11","slug":"open-space-camosun-board-needs-to-explain-why-they-terminated-presidents-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/01\/04\/open-space-camosun-board-needs-to-explain-why-they-terminated-presidents-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Space<\/em>: Camosun board needs to explain why they terminated president\u2019s contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

A public post-secondary institution needs to operate with transparency and responsibility to the public. When former Camosun College president Kathryn Laurin had her contract with the college terminated in 2014, the reasons were never made public by the college\u2019s board of governors. As per the terms of her contract, she continued to receive a severance payment until February 2016. The total sum of Laurin\u2019s severance pay amounted to $232,404.<\/p>\n

Nexus<\/i> filed a freedom of information request to find out more information about why Laurin had her contract terminated; we received a heavily redacted file, with most of the information regarding the circumstances of Laurin\u2019s termination censored. The college has said that because it\u2019s a personnel matter between Laurin and the board, they can\u2019t give further details.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This story originally appeared in our January 4, 2017 issue.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But that\u2019s not good enough; there needs to be a certain level of transparency in circumstances such as these. Since taxpayers are the ones footing the bill, I believe we have the right to know what transpired in the time leading up to the decision to fire Laurin. The money that she received as severance could have been better allocated to benefit the campus and its students. For instance, the Young building is in dire need of repairs, and it currently remains under construction, as it has been for years. Another problem is the disappearance of programs such as the Applied Communication Program or funding for ESL at Camosun.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that students should benefit from the money that Camosun chooses to spend, especially when that amount of money totals nearly a quarter of a million dollars over a two-year period. The current president of Camosun, Sherri Bell, was being paid at the same time that Laurin was collecting her severance; paying for two presidents was a gross waste of money that could have been spent on more pressing affairs, especially considering we don\u2019t know why that money was spent.<\/p>\n

What sort of precedent does this set for Camosun? Now that it has happened once without much resistance, it may happen more in the future, which would be a detriment to the students of this college.<\/p>\n

The head of the University of Saskatchewan\u2019s School of Public Health also had his tenure revoked in 2014\u2014and was even escorted off campus by two security guards\u2014after speaking out against that school\u2019s new strategic planning process.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t let this happen; presidents and professors of learning institutions should not be fearful of criticizing the school when they disagree with executive decisions. That may not be the case here, but we won\u2019t even know until the Camosun College board of governors tells the public what happened\u2014which, as the board of a public institution, I feel they should.<\/p>\n

I say this has gone on long enough, and I call upon the college\u2019s board of governors to make public the reason for terminating Laurin\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n

Until then, all that is known for sure is that this ended up costing everyone a lot of money, and we\u2014including those who paid for it\u2014have no idea why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A public post-secondary institution needs to operate with transparency and responsibility to the public. When former Camosun College president Kathryn Laurin had her contract with the college terminated in 2014, the reasons were never made public by the college\u2019s board of governors. As per the terms of her contract, she continued to receive a severance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13188,"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":[14,178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views","category-january-4-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13120","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=13120"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13190,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13120\/revisions\/13190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}