{"id":20655,"date":"2021-02-19T11:45:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T19:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=20655"},"modified":"2021-03-01T09:41:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T17:41:12","slug":"camosun-president-sherri-bell-talks-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2021\/02\/19\/camosun-president-sherri-bell-talks-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun president Sherri Bell talks retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2015, Camosun president Sherri Bell was sitting in her office with with Camosun vice president of education John Boraas and vice president of communications, advancement, and planning Joan Yates and a large stack of poster paper. The three were thinking about what they wanted portfolios for different positions to look like in coming years. Bell got up from her chair and went over to the poster paper. She drew a picture of a student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Let\u2019s start here. How do we come out of a conversation around different portfolios with the student at the centre?\u2019\u201d Bell says today.<\/p>\n

Out of that conversation eventually came the position of vice president of student experience, and the student experience portfolio. It\u2019s one of the things that Bell is most proud of accomplishing with the team she assembled since she became Camosun\u2019s president in 2015.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun president Sherri Bell at the Lansdowne campus in 2016; Bell became president in 2015 (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yesterday, after 40 years of working in education, Bell announced that she would be retiring on December 31 of this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels real,\u201d says Bell. \u201cI, of course, had been considering retirement, but I never knew exactly when it would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Bell took a presidents seminar at Harvard University. She says the narrative around retirement at the seminar was that you probably won\u2019t know when the time is right to retire if you\u2019re that dedicated and passionate about your job. Finding the right time for your institution that is also a time that works for you personally is key.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year is the last year of our Strategic Plan, so a new one has to be developed,\u201d says Bell. \u201cIt\u2019s our 50th anniversary, and we\u2019re coming to\u2014hopefully\u2014rounding a corner with the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of those things led Bell to announce her retirement over 10 months before she actually leaves, which will give the college a lot of time to allow for a smooth transition of power, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt takes time to recruit, interview, and select a new president,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

But it was also the right time for Bell personally, she says. She\u2019s feeling great\u2014she\u2019s healthy and full of energy. Retiring with a future ahead of her is important to her. She has kids, parents, and a granddaughter who she hasn\u2019t been able to see as much as she\u2019d like to, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love what I do, but it\u2019s also good to leave when you\u2019re feeling that way, I think,\u201d she says. \u201cIt felt like the right decision, but I think it\u2019s going to get harder and harder as the date gets a little closer. This life\u2014Camosun\u2014it just\u2026 It gets to your heart, and what we do is so important. I\u2019ll miss the people more than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

This past 12 months has been the year with the most changes and uncertainty in Bell\u2019s entire career.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of that, you have to depend on relationships that you\u2019ve built over five or six years, and our infrastructure as far as relationships is pretty strong,\u201d she says. \u201cThis past year has been isolating and tough for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Handing out ice cream cones during CamFest, working with donors, going to student award ceremonies, or speaking with a group who wants to know more about Camosun can\u2019t happen in the same way when things aren\u2019t done face to face.
\n\u201cI miss the parts of my job that gave me the most joy,\u201d says Bell. \u201cI can\u2019t just walk out of my office at Lansdowne and run into faculty, staff, and students\u2026 It\u2019s that, you know? It\u2019s been a year of constant change and you\u2019ve got to be able to just roll with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, February 16, the college had Conversations Day, virtually, to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Even though things are a bit different, Bell calls it a huge highlight for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt actually really worked well,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is the world we\u2019re in; let\u2019s change it and make it as best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bell, who admits she will probably have to figure out what retirement\u2019s going to look like, it\u2019s always been about making sure students have the best experience possible. In her office, she has a framed poster on the wall that a friend made for her back when she was teaching K-12. It\u2019s about bringing people together, engaging them, then making magic happen for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that collective vision to know what the outcome is. Our vision at Camosun\u2014inspiring life-changing learning\u2014it\u2019s not just a bunch of words, I actually believed that we\u2019d do that everyday,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel really blessed. Right now, the decision feels right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2015, Camosun president Sherri Bell was sitting in her office with with Camosun vice president of education John Boraas and vice president of communications, advancement, and planning Joan Yates and a large stack of poster paper. The three were thinking about what they wanted portfolios for different positions to look like in coming years. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20659,"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":[9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20655","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=20655"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20658,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20655\/revisions\/20658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}