{"id":24705,"date":"2023-11-29T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=24705"},"modified":"2023-12-11T09:38:32","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T17:38:32","slug":"camosun-college-student-society-concerned-over-student-experience-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/11\/29\/camosun-college-student-society-concerned-over-student-experience-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun College Student Society concerned over Student Experience changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Camosun College recently dissolved its Student Experience division, allocating most of its workload to its Education and Innovation division, a decision that has raised concerns with the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS).<\/p>\n

Domestic and international registration will now be under the Partnerships division of the college, while the other duties that were under Student Experience will now fall under Education and Innovation.<\/p>\n

The CCSS had a good working relationship with former vice president of Student Experience Heather Cummings, who no longer works at the college after the changes.<\/p>\n

CCSS external executive Jagjeet Singh says that there is some concern regarding the quality of Student Experience going forward.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Camosun recently restructured its Student Experience division (file photo).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhat we are concerned about now is with Student Experience not being under the VP, it\u2019s a step backward towards Student Experience in all,\u201d says Singh, \u201cbecause\u2026 there were a lot of collaborations that were underway with Heather.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Camosun vice president of Education John Boraas says the Student Experience duties won\u2019t be neglected because of the changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that the Education division is the biggest and the most central to the mission of the college, I would say that members of the Student Experience have been lifted up,\u201d says Boraas. \u201cThere certainly is no diminishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boraas says that the argument was made that the divisions would work better if they were together.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that perspective won out in terms of the going-forward plans,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

CCSS executive director Michel Turcotte says that the relationship between the CCSS and the Student Experience division was going exceptionally well while Student Experience was being run by Cummings. Turcotte says the loss of Cummings, someone he felt was extremely dedicated to the students of Camosun, saddens him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to deeply miss the former vice president of Student Experience, because Heather Cummings was probably the most passionate and dedicated advocate for student fairness and wellness that I\u2019ve really ever had the privilege of working with in my 20-plus years around this place,\u201d says Turcotte. \u201cCamosun is a wonderful place\u2014both the Student Society and the college are a wonderful place to work and everybody tries to help students in the way they can. But the bonds that Heather had created with the CCSS, and even with individual board members, were unparalleled in terms of the history with the college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh says that the amount of work that Cummings was doing greatly benefitted Camosun students.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the big concern[s] is the Student Experience because Heather was doing a lot in that department in general, like reviewing the policies, making sure that they are up to date,\u201d says Singh. \u201cDoing things like regular check-ins with the Student Society was another thing that she was doing. So, if any concerns that we had about Student Experience\u2026 they were pretty quick to get an answer regarding that or saying what can be done or what cannot be done. Plus, having that independence for Student Experience as a vice president, that won\u2019t exist anymore… especially with it becoming part of a vice president who is already handling academics.\u201d<\/p>\n

To help integrate Student Experience into the Education and Innovation division, temporary measures are in place until an associate vice president is hired, says Boraas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe former director of learning services in the library who\u2019s retired, I brought her back for three months to support the reports that have been added,\u201d says Boraas. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll use that time to get a posting up for an associate vice president of Education and students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boraas says that the Student Services division used to be under the Education division, and when that separation happened, people were also skeptical about it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting, I\u2019ve been here for quite a while\u2014when the Student Services was moved from Education to a new division, there were people who felt the same way, that they were being diminished, that, you know, they weren\u2019t going to be as high a priority because they weren\u2019t in Education,\u201d says Boraas. \u201cSo, no matter what the change, people can… struggle with the change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh and Turcotte say they are hopeful and looking forward to future collaborations with the college. However, that doesn\u2019t diminish the concern that they share.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at this purely from an optical perspective,\u201d says Turcotte, \u201cgoing from having a vice president of Student Experience to having something, either an associate vice president or something that is different, looks like it could be a diminishment of importance of the above Student Experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camosun College recently dissolved its Student Experience division, allocating most of its workload to its Education and Innovation division, a decision that has raised concerns with the Camosun College Student Society (CCSS). Domestic and international registration will now be under the Partnerships division of the college, while the other duties that were under Student Experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9789,"comment_status":"closed","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":[13,301],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-november-29-2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24705","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=24705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24706,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24705\/revisions\/24706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}