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VIEW: Cap U cuts mean business

[Editor's note: The Tyee received this unsolicited note from Bill Schermbrucker, instructor emeritus and a founding faculty member of Capilano College's English Department in 1968. We present it here as a contribution to the discussion around Capilano University's proposed budget cuts.]

Cuts Mean Business: An Open Letter to the Board of Capilano University

Dear Dr. Brayne and other board members:

When Dean Les Brooks hired me in 1968 to set up the largest department of Capilano College, he said he wanted everybody to be aboard when the train left the station. I understood him: no aloof professor on a podium without listeners. We were to be a people's college, meeting the unmet educational needs expressed by our North Shore and Howe Sound and later Sunshine Coast communities. No hierarchy, no ranks—we were all simply instructors; no department heads—functional coordinators instead, listening to what people wanted us to provide. We soon learned that they wanted a comprehensive college, providing courses in Academic, Career and Vocational divisions.

In the 45 years since then, from time to time, and especially when there are budget cuts, people have tried to turn the university (as it now is) into something else by eliminating whole departments in “vertical cuts.” One misguided soul tried to turn Capilano into a giant extension department with multiple thousands of students learning such things as Mushroom Identification and Limerick Writing. Fortunately, one of your predecessor boards had the good sense to buy him out and send him away.

Under the excellent presidencies of Drs. Paul Gallagher, Doug Jardine and Greg Lee, Capilano held true to the initial vision and mandate (despite a few struggles and bumps along the way): To be a comprehensive community institution, wherein students could find their chosen post-secondary path whether in Career, Vocational, or Academic courses. All five of my children went there and progressed to successful careers in the federal Justice Department, teaching high school French and Drama, advertising, computer programming and financial planning.

Dr. John Dennison of UBC's Education Faculty tracked our Capilano graduates at UBC for many years and found that they consistently outperformed their UBC counterparts in third and fourth year grades.

I well remember the little smile on the face of Dean Brooks, when a democratic committee selected the colours of our first logo: Light and dark blue. I know he was thinking of the two most famous British universities. President Jardine used to talk about "A Harvard of the north."

On June 11th, I understand, you will be called upon to make a momentous decision radically affecting the future direction of the university. I have not kept up with all the ins and outs of the discussion of Capilano’s future. Though I am now turning 75 and living mostly in retirement on a Gulf Island, I come to North Van regularly; I have my ear to the ground, and I can tell you this: The faculty, at least in the Humanities Division and probably in other Divisions, are not happy about the plans for the next year.

They are convinced that a few individuals within the university are trying, on their own initiative and without consultation, to turn Capilano from a comprehensive institution into a business school, partly to attract foreign students. Such a step should be taken only with the full support of faculty, staff, and the community we serve—and never as an improvised response to a transient financial problem.

I know that you have already sent the plan back once for reassessment, but from what I hear, the reassessment has been neither open nor transparent. I urge you to proceed very cautiously before you pass a plan which may send Capilano University in the wrong direction.

Bill Schermbrucker is instructor emeritus and a founding faculty member of Capilano College's English Department in 1968.

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