Archive for Kwantlen
“A Disaster Not Waiting to Happen”
This is the excellent title of Andrew Petter’s Vancouver Sun article explaining how recent federal education policy has been undermining universities throughout Canada. The subheading is similarly right on:
A new report from Canada’s auditor general reveals that the federal program represented as a measured effort to reduce international student numbers instead produced a shockwave — destabilizing post-secondary institutions, damaging Canada’s global reputation and hitting B.C. particularly hard.
Both my former home and my current one have been hit hard, with very large layoffs (more seem to be on the way, alas).
This country’s international student program [had] been a quiet success story — supporting institutional excellence, strengthening communities and projecting Canadian values abroad. …
The dramatic rise in international enrolments during the past decade was no accident. Federal and provincial governments actively encouraged it. Federally, international students were seen as drivers of economic growth and a vital source of future skilled labour. …
The auditor general’s findings reveal a program rollout that was deeply flawed. What was represented as a measured effort to reduce international student numbers instead produced a shock wave — destabilizing post-secondary institutions, damaging Canada’s global reputation and hitting B.C. particularly hard.
Here’s the Auditor General’s troubling report in full:
My old school
“B.C. Finance Ministry investigating Kwantlen Student Association” is the CTV headline.
The ministry did not elaborate on the specifics of the conduct or alleged misappropriation it’s investigating, saying only that the action follows “a report from the registrar of companies to the minister of finance.”
“Action is being taken to protect the student association and its members pending the investigation,” the statement concludes.
CTV News has reached out to the KSA for comment on the provincial investigation, but has not received a response. This story will be updated if one is received.
This bit seems notable:
KPU vice-president of students Zena Mitchell sent a brief statement Friday night saying the university “welcomes” the government’s notice regarding the investigation.
The word “welcomes” does a lot of work here.
My old school
The mysterious absences and then the firing of Kwantlen Polytechnic University‘s just-hired President, Dr. Bruce Choy, has increased anxiety among faculty, staff, and leadership already shaken by Wednesday’s announcement of new layoffs.
The latest round of layoffs comes as the Kwantlen continues to grapple with declining international enrolment that has contributed to a “sharp decline in revenue.” KPU has campuses in Surrey (largest), Richmond, Cloverdale and Langley. In fiscal year 2026, KPU reported international student enrolment fell by nearly 4,500, compared to fiscal year 2024 when the federal government capped the number of student visas being issued. … As a result, KPU made a number of cuts in administration, faculty and union positions, while also freezing overtime and discretionary spending.
My old union has some serious questions about all of this.
It will be no hayride for the person who becomes Kwantlen’s *next* president!
We remember our friends
From Nov. 2011:
I had a favourite tree. It was in a little marsh beside Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Langley campus. Since I started teaching there, I always stopped to gaze at this tree on my way into campus and back on my way out to the bus stop next to Liquidation World. I must have taken more than a 100 pictures of it. When I got my cat, Dig, he reminded me of this tree — dignified, if ragged, and beautiful. It is a weird but real grief – my beloved tree has fallen over into the swamp.
The header of basil.CA was taken from the third photo, above. I had forgotten that until today.
“Ellie on Wheels”
A former student of mine Elaine Bartels has a truly terrific YouTube channel up and running.
Ellie On Wheels is a channel devoted to nomad life. The goal is to be happy, be free, and to not only survive as a nomad but to thrive with joy, good health and prosperity. Nomad life is a broad term for someone who moves their home frequently. Whether your home is in a car, a van or a trailer, nomad life is a chance to live as you want, on your own terms, without the burden of a mortgage or rent every 30 days. This channel is about living your life in to your best ability while living on wheels. I encourage you to be open to new ideas of what home looks like, and to be curious about what home means to you. I’ve been on a 8 year journey in 8 different vans, surviving in Canada in the most beautiful scenery, during the best and the harshest conditions. Nomad life or, my “life on wheels” began suddenly for me, I was not prepared. I have learned much along the way, I’d be happy to share my knowledge about surviving as a nomad on wheels. I call my vans my “no rent plan” vans!
A leader leaving
The last couple of years were especially challenging for Kwantlen’s outgoing president, Alan Davis, but he was a superb leader for most of his term. I’m grateful to have worked at our university with him at the same time. Here’s a fitting send-off from Kwantlen’s senior administrative team:
Dr. Alan Davis is not a big fan of farewells and doesn’t want a fuss about his departure as President, but we did want to recognize him and a few of the changes we have seen during his leadership over the past 13 years. What follows is just a sample of those changes.
In 2012, KPU created the Brewing and Brewery Operations program, which earned many awards and catalyzed the industry in western Canada. We have added Entertainment Arts programming that plugged into B.C.’s thriving film, television and gaming sector and KPU has also added a bachelor’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Next week, KPU will establish a Faculty of Graduate studies as it continues to work towards adding its first masters programming.
Through it all, student success remained a guiding light for Dr. Davis, which he told the Runner in January. “In the end, if we’re a strong institution, then we’re better able to fulfill our mission, which is to teach students. Student success is what we’re all about.”
The university also became deeply involved in social justice during Dr. Davis’s time. The role of Indigenous Elder in Residence was created in 2015, and the university has benefited from Indigenous writers, artists, and designers in residence. We’ve added tuition waivers for students from the seven local First Nations and developed the xéʔelɬ Pathway to Systemic Transformation Framework. In 2020, KPU launched the Task Force on Anti-racism. Flowing from that, we now have an Office of Equity and Inclusive Communities and an EDI Action Plan. The university has signed the Scarborough Charter, the 50:30 Challenge and is seeking to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
There has also been growth in the areas of research and scholarships. KPU added the Applied Genomics Centre, the KPU Research Farm, the Seed Lab along with many major grants and research chairs. Teaching and Learning Commons was also added to support faculty and KPU started Canada’s first Zero Textbook initiative to reduce the cost of learning for students. To support and create more opportunities for mature students, the university expanded Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR).
We have also seen several new buildings, including: the brew lab, which was built in Langley in 2014, the new Wilson School of Design, the revamped Spruce building, which opened in 2018, and Civic Plaza became KPU’s fifth campus in 2019. KPU has received funding to build a new day care facility in Surrey and it is also working to add student housing for the first time.
Dr. Davis has been at the helm of KPU for more than a quarter of its history. He has overseen unforgettable positive development of the institution as it matured into the polytechnic university status it gained in 2008.
Despite the externally driven challenges the university faces today, KPU remains far stronger than when Dr. Davis arrived. That is great for our students and their education.
Thank you, Dr. Davis.
Gone, home
I handed in my final two sets of marks the other day. My retirement starts September 1. I have some off-boarding things to do before then – get rid of my laptop, throw out old student exams confidentially, pass off some projects, etc. Most of my department cadre is already gone, and my leaving isn’t creating any waves with the current crew. That’s OK, if notable, too.
2025
Next year, at summer’s end, I will be retiring from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I will remain open to other contract opportunities elsewhere after that, but this will be it for me as a full-time prof. The decision conveys my acceptance that I am just not the marvellous teacher I used to be: The oil in my olive is no longer extra-virgin, and my students and I share fewer and fewer references in culture and in history.
A friend wrote me earlier: “Give a special mindfulness to every day in the classroom. These years that defined you will no longer be your lifescape. You are a teacher and took that as a trade and an obligation quite seriously and you got a lot of joy from it. Just savour all the days between now and when you’re over the wall.” I will.
Happy American Thanksgiving!
Even though I live in Canada, there is no holiday more meaningful to me than American Thanksgiving, having been raised south of here. I always obey the name, and spend the day reflecting in gratitude.
Today will likely be the last time I teach a first-year class at Kwantlen. I was assigned this class by surprise right before this semester started. It was a fun challenge getting back up to speed! These students form such a delightfully keen and courteous group. I’m grateful for the opportunity to stand in front of them one last time.
“Grief Casseroles”
That is the name of Danielle Raymond’s new writing project (on Substack). Danielle is a dear friend of mine whom I met when she was a psychology student taking one of my technical report-writing classes at Kwantlen. Her memory and artistry fashion an exacting lens that renders pain and love with surpassing vividness.
Neil Kennedy
Neil was a truly lovely man. Whenever we saw each other on campus, we would stop and chat. He was happily erudite and gorgeously articulate. (After talking to him, I finally had a handle on the prose of John Donne. That bit of instruction was accomplished on a jam-packed Vancouver bus.)
From Kwantlen‘s announcement:
Neil was a much-beloved member of the English Department for over 20 years, and this loss will be felt deeply by many colleagues, staff, students, and alumni.
Neil’s tremendous kindness, generosity, and unfailing support for students were at the heart of everything he did. Neil was first hired at KPU in 2004, and he played a foundational role in the English department – contributing to the development of the B.A. Major in English and inspiring so many students in his courses. Neil was always at the ready to serve the department wherever help was needed. He was active for a long time on the Search, English Placement Test, and PD Committees. He was also a steadfast member of the Curriculum, Educational Planning, and Library Committees.
Neil brought learning to life for English majors. His dedication to teaching and his passion for all things Renaissance will be dearly missed. Neil’s amazing laugh always filled the English department’s hallway with warmth, and his unfailing wit was a constant source of great conversation and insight. The summer semester was undoubtedly Neil’s favourite as he repeatedly attended Bard on the Beach and shared this passion for theatre with KPU students and colleagues. Whenever Neil took part in the KPU Open House, he would challenge passersby at the English department’s display table to choose any passage from the Riverside Chaucer, defying them to find a quotation that he could not identify.
Neil derived tremendous joy from sharing his knowledge of literature with his students. Teaching was truly his life’s calling. Former students have shared that Neil awakened them to the beauty of poetry. Indeed, Neil was known for adding “hopefully a few moments of beauty” as a learning objective on his course syllabi. Neil also worked for many years in the Learning Centre where he supported students in integral ways during their time at KPU. He cared for KPU students both as young literary scholars and as people on life’s journey. …
The KPU flags will be lowered upon confirmation of a date by the family. A memorial event will take place in the early Fall on the Surrey campus for faculty, staff, and students to pay tribute to Neil.
—
Neil seemed always to be sharing delight in a kind of communion with life and language that he brought others into. To honour him I have made a donation to Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach.
[updated June 15]
Still teaching
Today marks the beginning of my 22nd year teaching at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I still pinch myself that I landed this marvellous gig. Nowadays I am the most senior person in the department in terms of both age and in the number of years “on campus.” The fine folk who hired and then mentored me have retired and gone off to various happy adventures.
In early 2003 my business – Basil Communications Inc. – was not bringing in a lot of dough. My main clients were still recovering from the economic fall-out after 9-11 in the investment community. (Traditionally communications are the first expenses to be cut in hard times.) I was running on fumes. It was hard to think.
A friend gave me some money to make sure I made it through that spring. The instant I deposited the money, my mind cleared, and I went home and applied for jobs at three local universities. Kwantlen set up an interview. It was gruelling but I thought I did well. After a couple of weeks went by without me hearing anything, though, I guessed that I hadn’t gotten the position; I know I shed a tear or two the night I accepted that.
Just as I walked into my Scotia Tower office the next day, my late friend John Fraser asked me whether I’d been hired. As I was telling him I hadn’t been, the phone rang at the front desk. The receptionist said the call was for me. The job, it turned out, was mine.
I still think, thankfully, of those tears that fell the night before I received this news. I’ve never forgotten how much I wanted this job teaching undergraduate students. I’ve also never forgotten that it was a friend’s generosity that cleared my head.
The fellow on the phone that day mentored me through my first several years at Kwantlen. We ended up coauthoring a textbook together.
Catching up with Thanos
Your favorite editor standing by his university‘s Entertainment Arts hallway, on the Richmond campus.
The work international students must do in B.C.
Several years ago my late Kwantlen colleague Arley McNeney organized a class project in which her students presented research on the challenges international students at our school face. I was embarrassed when I read their report; I had been so clueless, about so much, regarding the lives of my own students. I was particularly alarmed by the report’s findings illustrating how many international students faced continual food insecurity. There were additional widespread problems these students face, including precarious living situations (usually far away from a KPU campus) and abusive work environments.
This week The Tyee published what can be read as an update of the report prepared by Arley’s class: “Cash Cows and Cheap Labour: The Plight of International Students.” One disquieting theme: Students recruited internationally were shocked by how many hours they needed to work outside of school simply to survive in Canada. One study surveyed
1,300 international students at Langara and the College of New Caledonia in Prince George. They found the vast majority of students were working, and many were struggling. Only 28 per cent of surveyed Langara students said they had enough cash to meet their basic needs.
In theory, international students need to show they have the financial means to support themselves for one year in Canada. Since the early 2000s, that figure has been set at tuition, travel costs and $10,000 in cash. The federal government has recently announced that figure will double to $20,635.
But McCartney said the government likely knew for years that the $10,000 threshold was far too little to make ends meet, especially in cities like Vancouver, where the cost of a vacant rental unit stood at $2,373 a month as of last year.
The result was that students, either by plan or by necessity, found jobs. …
“At the end of the day, I think that we all believe students shouldn’t have to work 40 hours a week to pay for their rent, their groceries, their food. I wish that was the reality,” Chirino said. “But when you look at their fees and how much they have to pay, that simply isn’t feasible.”
At least 90% of my international students have jobs, very often more than one job. But it is not rare for me to hear growling stomachs in the classroom.
A couple of weeks ago, our university president, Alan Davis, wrote an open letter to the university community on this topic:
We have done significant work to improve the experience for international students in the past few years, but we also heard what you said [in a recent large survey] and there is more to do….
This won’t be an easy road. The federal and provincial governments are taking a close look at international education and some of the changes they are making or might propose could have a significant impact on KPU. While we’ve been gradually increasing the diversity of our international student population and we’ve seen a softening of international enrolment, the emerging external factors provide additional complexity in forecasting future trends.
Our annual student satisfaction survey repeatedly shows a higher proportion of our international students have more positive views of KPU than domestic students across several important metrics, including supporting student success and feeling part of the community. We have some strong foundations, but we will build on them in a careful and considerate way.
Fall term …
… starts today at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I have 85 new students, and life is very good.
Teaching
This week I start my twenty-first year of teaching at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Artificial Intelligence technology like ChatGPT has required that I prepare a layer of adaptations to my curriculum this semester. It will be a new experience and perhaps a fun one.
I started university teaching forty years ago, at Stanford – as a graduate student TA in Larry Friedlander‘s famous Shakespeare class. Heavenly bliss (and no personal computers, let alone no internet). I went on to create and teach my own classes there.
Before Kwantlen and after my initial Stanford years, I had taken a couple of lengthy breaks from teaching but stayed in the same mental neighbourhood (writing, editing, mentoring, and publishing). I have always known what I wanted to do.
Arley
My Kwantlen colleague Arley McNeney was a visionary who welcomed all manner of detail with a humbling level of attentiveness and who accepted everybody, and she made the people around her better. Such a strong good spirit.
Almost all of our interactions were via correspondence or social media, though I finally met her at The Commodore in Vancouver back in 2019. She was there for the headlining Mountain Goats, me for Lydia Loveless, who opened for them.
From our school’s announcement:
It is with profound sadness and a deep sense of loss that we share the passing of our friend and colleague, KPU instructor, Arley McNeney (Cruthers). Arley was a mother, a sister, a daughter, and a friend. She was a highly respected instructor and beloved colleague to those who were fortunate to collaborate and work alongside her. She was a decorated Paralympian and parasport athlete, a talented writer and novelist, an unending builder of community, an advocate for inclusion and disability justice, and a creative linocut artist.
Arley instructed business communications, public relations, and entrepreneurial leadership at KPU. However, her journey into becoming an educator was winding: in 2001 she joined the Canada women’s national wheelchair basketball team and won gold at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championship the next year. She was the recipient of BC’s Premier Athletic Award for New Westminster and in 2004, she was named to Team Canada’s national wheelchair basketball team to compete at the 2004 Summer Paralympics where she helped the team win bronze. In 2006, Arley was named to Team Canada for the 2006 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship. In 2014, Arley received the BC Wheelchair Basketball Society’s Coach of the Year award.
Not only was Arley a successful athlete and coach, she was a former communications/marketing/PR professional for parasports, the founder of an adaptive soccer team that uses disability justice principles, and the author of four novels. Arley’s first novel was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Foundation. She attended the University of Victory and earned an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Arley was an innovative leader in open education, Open Educational Resources (“OERs”), and open pedagogy. In 2019, Arley presented an open-licensed game developed by her applied communication students that focused on instructors developing compassion and empathy for students struggling with (unaffordable) textbook costs and the role OERs can play in supporting students’ well-being and success. Arley’s work was pivotal in the open education movement and the continued work in the area of Zero Textbook Costs (“ZTCs”). That same year, Arley was awarded for Excellence in Open Education by BC Campus.
In addition to being widely recognized as an advocate in the areas of open education, Arley was a tireless scholar and advocate in the areas of decolonization, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), anti-racism and anti-oppression, and disability justice. She collaborated with colleagues across KPU through her work as an Open Education Teaching Fellow, decolonization and Indigenization faculty champion, and disability justice activist. She was an early leader and mentor in developing Open Educational Resources at KPU, and published Business Writing for Everyone in 2019, an inclusive guide to writing in the workplace that has since been adopted, adapted, and remixed by KPU faculty and countless educators around the world. She was regularly consulted on questions of accessibility and UDL in course design and program review, and her expertise and the generosity with which she shared it, are irreplaceable. In recognition of her contributions to supporting social justice, in 2021, Arley was an inaugural recipient of KPU’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion awards.
Arley’s focus on supporting students in all aspects of their lives from UDL to food security was unparalleled, and her supportive, non-judgemental, and student-centred approach to teaching and focus on student success, has inspired us to do our best in our work at KPU.
Arley sought to truly understand and engage her students, co-creating empowering learning opportunities with them each semester, and often bringing food to share in the classroom. She was incredibly generous with her time and energy, supporting students and colleagues alike, and sharing her expertise and teaching resources freely.Arley’s legacy is immeasurably rich and will continue through the inspired work of her friends and colleagues, and the thousands of students she taught. Her work and contributions embody the highest values of our university’s motto, and are something we should all aspire to: “through tireless effort, knowledge and understanding.”
The outpouring of emotion and admiration on Twitter has been really something. I am at a loss for words, mostly, or at least for the adequate ones. My colleagues have helped me out in that respect. Melissa Ashman’s thread is close to perfect:
It’s a sweet gig!
Applications for two full-time regular faculty positions in my department – Applied Communications – are being accepted until February 10. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please encourage them to apply. This is the link to the job posting. Kwantlen Polytechnic University is a fine place to work.
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