Currently, West Shore students\u2019 only options for Camosun classes are 10 university-transferable courses\u2014as well as eight English and Math upgrading courses\u2014at Belmont Secondary School in Langford. The first-year courses range from Business to Psychology and have been helpful for students like Heather Coates, who is in her first year of Environmental Technology. She says she\u2019s excited at the possibility of a campus out in Langford.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019d be awesome,\u201d says Coates. \u201cI know they have the satellite ones in Belmont, and that\u2019s where I did an English course, and it was way easier to get there than to get out here [to Lansdowne]. It takes me an hour to get here and to get home. Sometimes it takes two, depending on traffic, because of the construction where they\u2019re building the McKenzie Interchange.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Rachael Grant says she\u2019s \u201cdefinitely heard a lot of stories\u201d about students commuting over an hour to school from Langford. She says the commute \u201cadds a lot to the existing demands that post-secondary brings, so anything that makes post-secondary more accessible to students is a positive thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the writing of this story, several Langford-based students expressed their dissatisfaction to Nexus<\/i> about spending nearly an hour in traffic\u2014mainly on the bus\u2014to get to school.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite a long commute,\u201d says first-year Digital Communications student Meghan Denison. \u201cThis morning I had to take the 6:40 bus to be here by 8:30; it\u2019s kind of a struggle, and the traffic is really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
First-year Legal Office Assistant student Grace McKenzie says that commuting from Sooke to Camosun is a lot different from her previous commute to Belmont Secondary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI normally go with bus systems,\u201d she says. \u201cI never really figured it would take two hours to get to school because of all this traffic that happens in the morning; I\u2019m used to going to school right next to my house.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019d be great for students to have a campus out in the West Shore area, McKenzie says, and the reason why comes back down to one thing: the commute.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it would be great; so many people would go to it,\u201d she says. \u201cIf there\u2019s a campus out there, it would help a lot, because one less thing to worry about in the morning is trying to get to class [when] there\u2019s a campus close by.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young wants Camosun<\/strong><\/p>\n Young envisions a Langford Camosun campus comparable in size to the Lansdowne and Interurban campuses. He says that with close to 70,000 people in the region, West Shore is growing, and it\u2019s at a size now where it needs a post-secondary institution.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s cheaper for students, you don\u2019t need a car to go all the way into town, sit in that traffic all of the time, and that\u2019s part of it,\u201d says Young, who is also hoping to get Amazon\u2019s second headquarters stationed in Langford. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing what\u2019s happening with the workforce being stuck in traffic, and now when you\u2019re a student you\u2019re stuck in traffic, so you just never get out of that cycle. So I think it\u2019s important for the government to recognize that when communities grow like this that we have to put education first, and we have to make sure that education is there and the opportunity is there for as many people as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilmshurst would also like to make it easier, if possible, for people who live in West Shore to not have to commute into town for their schooling.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had a couple meetings with the mayor of Langford. We\u2019ve had good discussions; we\u2019ve talked about some of the possible ways that we could approach this,\u201d says Wilmshurst. \u201cI know that Mayor Young is really keen for us to be there; we\u2019re really pleased that he\u2019s keen about that, but we have to take it one step at a time, we have to seek all of the permissions, and we have to look at what is financially viable for Camosun to do, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The cost of a campus goes far beyond the cost of building it: staffing is a huge ongoing expense for the college. Young says funding would involve a bit of help from the City of Langford, as he says he wants to make the decision easier for post-secondary institutions.<\/p>\n Young says\u00a0 that one of his main hopes for a Langford campus would be a partnership with the sports and recreation sector of the city.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/b>As we grow out here, it\u2019s nice to have that plan in place before it disappears for some other use, you know what I mean? If we can incorporate a new campus with part of our new arenas and stadiums and things like that, and make it a really full-fledged campus with exciting opportunities outside of the classroom and build some community pride that way,\u201d he says, \u201cwe\u2019re really excited to get this to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Not quite a campus in mind<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite Young\u2019s open arms, Wilmshurst says that Camosun isn\u2019t talking about a Langford campus, but rather about having a facility in West Shore that would allow the college to add programming there.<\/p>\n \u201c<\/b>We\u2019re not interested in reproducing a registration area, admissions area, and all the student services,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s a very expensive process to go through to develop a facility that has all of those kinds of things attached, but we are absolutely interested in offering more programming in the western communities, whether that be Langford or elsewhere in the western communities, because we have lots of students who are living there currently.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilmshurst is looking to the Belmont model, at least in the short term, when talking about expanding into Langford. Wilmshurst says the college is interested in offering courses similar to the ones offered at Belmont, as well as some new programming exclusive to Langford.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re interested in offering first-year University Transfer courses that we offer at Belmont, but we\u2019re also interested in offering some new programming that\u2019ll only be offered in Langford, for example. We don\u2019t know what that would be yet\u2014we\u2019re exploring those options\u2014but it\u2019s something that we\u2019d be really interested in doing,\u201d says Wilmshurst.<\/p>\n Even just starting small would be amazing, says McKenzie. Having more programs out of Belmont right now would be good, she says, because they only offer about eight classes and there are spaces for them to do classes in the morning as well. She says she thinks it would make a huge impact.<\/p>\n Young says offering the courses at Belmont was the beginning of bringing more post-secondary education to West Shore, but now he wants to get the land available in order to eventually have that \u201c<\/b>full-fledged campus.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo we\u2019re pretty proactive out here in making sure the after-school experience and the things you can do in the community for young people are going to be there and enhanced, so we can make sure we have a great experience and people will want to go to school here with all the opportunities that we\u2019ve built around,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Camosun receives an annual grant of over $45 million from the provincial government to help manage its campuses, says Wilmshurst, so there would have to be support from the provincial government to increase that level of funding if the college were to operate a new campus. He adds that if Young is able to get support to help with funding, the college would be pleased with that.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training says it\u2019s premature to comment on the situation, as Camosun has not submitted a request for a new campus.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this time, Camosun College has not submitted a request for a new campus,\u201d the spokesperson wrote in an email statement to Nexus<\/em>. \u201cIf Camosun College is interested in pursuing a new campus in Langford in the future, there is a process in place for them to bring the proposal to the Ministry for consideration. The Ministry looks forward to hearing more details, should Camosun College decide that this is a future strategic priority for their organization.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilmshurst says that the facility would have to be one that\u2019s very low cost to own and operate, and one that the college could walk into fairly easily. This development would have to be partially funded by someone else, he says. He also says that they are interested in exploring all kinds of options, including any existing West Shore facilities that may be underutilized or not being used properly that the college could access.<\/p>\n The community effects<\/strong><\/p>\n Would having a campus\u2014or some other educational facility\u2014out in Langford deter people from other municipalities from attending? Opening up opportunities to Langford students is great, but let\u2019s not forget there are 12 other municipalities that would potentially have less opportunity to take advantage of the programming of these institutions. Coates, however, says she doesn\u2019t think it would deter people from attending.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think so,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it would be rewarding for all the communities. But I also feel it depends. If they really want to take a certain program that only runs out in Langford, they might be willing to drive all the way out there, or some people will be like, \u2018Oh, maybe I\u2019ll change my mind.\u2019 But it\u2019s the same thing, like I really wanted to do this program, so I came out all the way to Lansdowne, whereas I live in Langford. Had this program been offered in Langford, I would have taken it there. I think it\u2019s mostly about the commute and the traffic; sometimes it\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n Young says that it\u2019s important to open opportunities for everybody.<\/p>\n \u201cAny student should have the ease of access and opportunity for education,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n It\u2019s interesting to note Young\u2019s desire for a Camosun campus in Langford, given Royal Roads\u2019 close proximity; however, Royal Roads has no first- or second-year programs. Royal Roads vice president of communications and advancement Katharine Harrold thinks it would make a really positive impact on the whole West Shore area.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it would be good news,\u201d she says. \u201cRoyal Roads has many academic transfer agreements with Camosun, so I think it\u2019d be a win for higher education; and a win for the West Shore is terrific, creating more opportunities we can all celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilmshurst says it makes good sense for Camosun to have a Langford presence, as the college has the kinds of programs that would be attractive to a whole range of people there. Young says the fact that there are 3,000 students making the effort to commute shows that \u201cthe demand is there.\u201d He says that Langford is a family-oriented community and that 60 percent of the jobs out there are in trades, which he feels bodes well for Camosun. Young says that Camosun is probably the best fit for their community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re just enhancing what they\u2019ve already been saying, and now it\u2019s up to us as politicians to say if that need is there, let\u2019s expose it, let\u2019s make sure that we work hard to make it happen,\u201d he says. \u201cIf Geoff and the board there see the need, I just want to make sure they know Langford is there, and we will push as hard as we can to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Correction: A previous version of this story attributed the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training statement to Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training Melanie Mark when in fact it was a statement provided to <\/strong><\/em>Nexus<\/strong> meant to be unattributed. We apologize for the mistak<\/strong>e.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Langford is known for being one of the fastest-growing regions on Vancouver Island, if not in all of BC. As a result, many people are commuting into town from Langford for school. With the Colwood Crawl as bad as it is, the students who are commuting from West Shore to Camosun or UVic are stuck […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14700,"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":[10,199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-october-4-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14732","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=14732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14774,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14732\/revisions\/14774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NEXUS-28-3-COVER-2.jpg\")
<\/a>