{"id":13236,"date":"2017-01-18T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13236"},"modified":"2017-01-23T09:11:59","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T17:11:59","slug":"camosun-college-focuses-on-coastal-issues-with-new-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/01\/18\/camosun-college-focuses-on-coastal-issues-with-new-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun College focuses on coastal issues with new program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inspired by the coastal life around BC, Camosun is beginning a new program focusing on the trades element of marine and coastal culture.<\/p>\n

With the Coastal Skills Initiative program, Camosun is hoping to become one of the province\u2019s top post-secondary institutions when it comes to coastal skills and marine education in the trades sector. Camosun TRADEmark of Excellence campaign director Angus Matthews says that this program was brought to fruition because of the growing need for coastal skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cVarious industry leaders and communities have gotten in contact with us about aligning our trades program with the pressing needs of the coast,\u201d says Matthews. \u201cWe kept hearing that people would like to see us focus more on coastal issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews says the program will help students prepare for some of the courses and career paths that they may be looking to move into after they\u2019re done here at Camosun.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun College TRADEmark of Excellence\u2019s Angus Matthews (photo by Jill Westby\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThings like the construction of marine infrastructure, such as marine plumbers, electricians, and welders who\u2019d be working in the shipbuilding world, are the base of the program,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re also spreading into the coastal side of Transport Canada for things like deck officers and bridge officers for BC Ferries. This led into things like oil spill response, coast guard work, and the whole world of safe transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews says that this program has allowed Camosun to look more locally to the coast instead of looking east toward the mainland of Canada, which is what other post-secondary institutions have been doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program causes Camosun to look north and south down the coast rather than inland into Alberta,\u201d says Matthews. \u201cWe really saw a focus for Camosun to look along the coast, and that\u2019s kind of how Coastal Skills emerged.\u201d<\/p>\n

One example of a specialized area of the program is marine electronics. Matthews says that marine electronics isn\u2019t just in the ocean; it also offers work on the shore, working on tracking and communications for vessel-management systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is fixated on the future and the possibility of more tankers on the sea; what we are doing is filling in the existing gaps,\u201d he says. \u201cOur students are very much in demand for all of the existing systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Centre for Trades Education and Innovation at Camosun\u2019s Interurban campus got some new toys, too. According to Matthews, nautical students will get hands-on learning with the new navigation simulator.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the new trades building we have a 12-station navigation simulator where 12 computer stations can allow nautical students to actually experience operating a vessel in relationship with each other rather than in isolation. They can do situations with five or six vessels and a ferry crossing the bow and all sorts of scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews says that it\u2019s very hard for some potential students to come all the way to Victoria; for these students, Camosun will actually send an instructor to them for training, which, Matthews says, will work to strengthen their community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re finding a series of nucleuses in small coastal communities where we can send an instructor and do a six-week program to get the student through their foundation program. These students are much more likely to stay in their communities and contribute to the redevelopment and reconstruction of their community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Rachael Grant says that the chance to send an instructor off campus for this program will open up some great opportunities for students unable to move or commute to Victoria for school.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could definitely be a barrier to education if you\u2019re located in an area that\u2019s not near a post-secondary institution,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s excellent to hear that Camosun is looking into options to bridge the gap for students that don\u2019t live near a post-secondary institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grant believes that although the program is funded through support from corporations like BC Ferries and Ralmax instead of the government, students shouldn\u2019t worry too much about these companies pushing their own agendas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be a potential concern, for sure, but there is a practice that exists where a corporation contributes funding for a particular program at a post-secondary institution to, essentially, train their workers in a post-secondary setting so they don\u2019t have to,\u201d she says. \u201cFor this particular program it would really depend on how the curriculum is taught.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspired by the coastal life around BC, Camosun is beginning a new program focusing on the trades element of marine and coastal culture. With the Coastal Skills Initiative program, Camosun is hoping to become one of the province\u2019s top post-secondary institutions when it comes to coastal skills and marine education in the trades sector. Camosun […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13237,"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":[15,180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-january-18-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13236","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=13236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13239,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13236\/revisions\/13239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}