{"id":15371,"date":"2018-02-07T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=15371"},"modified":"2018-02-16T09:27:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T17:27:43","slug":"camosuns-glen-allen-on-student-mobility-and-sorting-out-waitlists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/02\/07\/camosuns-glen-allen-on-student-mobility-and-sorting-out-waitlists\/","title":{"rendered":"Know Your Profs<\/em>: Camosun\u2019s Glen Allen on student mobility and sorting out waitlists"},"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 in an attempt to get to know them a little better. Do you have an instructor that you want to see interviewed in the paper? Maybe you want to know more about one of your teachers, but you\u2019re too busy, or shy, to ask? Email editor@nexusnewspaper.com and we\u2019ll add your instructor to our list of teachers to talk to.<\/p>\n

This issue we talked to Camosun Marketing instructor Glen Allen about his love of Japanese food, his impact on his students, and that one time a dog literally ate his students\u2019 homework.<\/p>\n

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

I started as a term instructor in the school of Business in 2007, then moved to Camosun International, where I managed all of the college\u2019s short-term international programs from 2009 to 2012. I returned to Business as a full-time instructor six years ago and have taught courses across three different departments: Marketing, Management, and Applied Business Technology.<\/p>\n

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Camosun College Marketing instructor Glen Allen (photo by Adam Boyle\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

I\u2019ve been immersed in the education sector my entire career, with significant stints as teacher, administrator, and even entrepreneur. What I like most about teaching is the opportunity to channel some of the teachers and professors who made lasting impressions on my educational experience\u2014and life\u2014and to do my best to impact my own students in a similar way.<\/p>\n

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

I am a huge supporter of international student mobility. In my life, I\u2019ve had the good fortune to study, work, and travel across much of the globe. I empathize with students who have come to Canada for the first time and who struggle with cultural, linguistic, culinary, and other challenges on top of their academic studies; at the same time, I encourage our domestic students to get out and see the world as soon as they are able.<\/p>\n

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

On more than one occasion I\u2019ve marked assignments from the beach at Beacon Hill Park.<\/p>\n

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

I love hearing from former students who drop by a year or two after their course is done to tell me that they never realized how useful the course content was until they had the opportunity to use it in the workplace.<\/p>\n

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

I had my marketing class submit an assignment that involved samples of food packaging. I was dog-sitting for a friend at the time and left the box of assignments on the floor when I went to work the next morning. The following day I had to break the news to some of my students that while their assignments had been received, the dog had literally eaten their homework.<\/p>\n

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

To echo the words of [Camosun English instructor] Kelly Pitman a few years back, I\u2019m concerned that the focus by some on post-secondary education as a tool for meaningful employment\u2014job training\u2014is overshadowing the idea of education as a tool for teaching people how to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, and responsible global citizens. If the focus were more firmly placed on the latter, I think society may be better equipped to deal with solving systemic challenges such as poverty, racism, and underemployment.<\/p>\n

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

Besides spending quality time with my family, I am a competitive curler. Our team competes on the World Curling Tour and started this season ranked number four in BC and number 79 in the world. Competitive sport may not always be relaxing, but I find it therapeutic in that it gives me an opportunity to tune out whatever other stresses may be going on in the background.<\/p>\n

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

Just about anything Japanese. I lived for two years in Hokkaido and am a big sucker for ramen, okonomiyaki, katsudon, jingisukan, shabu shabu\u2026<\/p>\n

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

Students who don\u2019t respect an instructor\u2019s need to sort out waitlists during the first week of classes. If you don\u2019t plan to be in a course, please withdraw ASAP\u2014preferably before the course starts\u2014in order to help out those students who really need to get in.<\/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 in an attempt to get to know them a little better. Do you have an instructor that you want to see interviewed in the paper? Maybe you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15372,"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":[15,206],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-february-7-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15371","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=15371"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15427,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15371\/revisions\/15427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}