In other words I read that as a hint to politicians to be realistic and make policy with a business plan that considers all the factors and stakeholders involved.

I sure wouldn’t want to be a student that subsidizes Canfor’s environmental issues and half full classes at the training facility. One would think being a private facility their funding would be similar to private schools where they only get half the funding of a full public school?

Sounds similar with the rehab centre…..Does Fehr not own that property also?

Bowman is saying what several and perhaps even most of have been saying about this project, there are many reasons why this will not or should not get off the ground.

The proponents for this idea need to do some much more detailed work involving potential partners and even some in the community in that work since. It is our money which will fund a good portion of this type of project. The problem is that it appears from previous reports in the media that at least of one of the proponents does not like to prepare proposals unless there is a good chance of succeeding.

Give us a business plan that everyone understands.

“Give us a business plan that everyone understands.”

Second oldest form of business, invest $50,000.00 into the front running party, wait until after election and then extend palm and expect payback. How this differs from the oldest form of business? How you get screwed:)

Business plan? Pssst! $50k of rail grease is all it takes.

If the plan is as you suggested yesterday gus to run the mill as a training facility with the emphasis on quality then there is one big problem,outdated equipment with 25 year old technology. It would be like sending automotive apprentices to Cuba to learn to work on our modern cars.

Of course if one of the proponents just happened to acquire controlling interest in a sawmill equipment manufacturing firm I’m sure they would be willing to fill the mill up with current technology equipment…for a price. Guy must be a freaking genius to devise a taxpayer funded showroom for his manufacturing business.

I don’t believe that there is much if any equipment still in the mill. I could be wrong. It happened once before.

All Canfor wants is somene to clean up the site for them.
Cheers

Never heard of a Mill as a training center, if you put the right plan together it could work but need a mill thats operational. The concept works in other countrys but needs a plan that is supported by industry and provides the tools people need to prepare before taking college training. CNC has not addressed the skills shortage in any meaningful way, just same old shit thats not addressing labour demand more just bums in seats and if you show up you pass.

The arguments that Bowman put on the table (Sustainable, sensible, Students) applies equally to the WIDC center. Are there enough [S]tudents? Is it [S]ustainable? Does the business plan make [S]ense?

These 3S should be considered for any future infrastructure building in this town otherwise we will end up with more half empty buildings and sport centers and additional operating costs to operate/ maintain them.

“It would be like sending automotive apprentices to Cuba to learn to work on our modern cars.”

You know, I think you may be onto something there. The Cubans are known for their ability to keep the old cars running. It gets them around. Who needs all the latest gizzmos? Perhaps we need to focus on smaller mills in this province.

I think that the question of what kind of mill might be feasible to show the spectrum of modern technology while still staying small to reduce building cost is one which must be explored. If that is a too unrealistic kind of request, then we have to look elsewhere.

In fact, I think that intuitively there are two opportunities presenting themselves right now to tie a quality training facility in with what I would think will be state-of-the-art mills – Burns Lake and Lakeland. Both are in CNC territory. I doubt it would take more than $10 million to invest in on-site classroom/workshops attached to either one or even both of those facilities and enter into an agreement that addresses the need for both the operating mill and the training facility to continue to bring state of the art equipment in at the earliest opportunity.

Just think of it as the trades equivalent of medical schools which have evolved from the old schools where classrooms and labs dominated to today’s schools where clinics in different hospitals are the dominant learning environments. Since there is better control over quality with that type of system I think we should find an improvement over the old apprenticeship system. The notion of apprenticeship could still stay around with a one or two year post certification period before the final “trade qualification” is issued.

I think I am presenting an education driven proposal rather than a real estate driven proposal. We have to remember what the primary business we want to be in is to improve skilled labour training.

univ ….. you have to remember that it has taken a long time to deal with both UNBC and CNC as to what their role might be with WIDC. That is also why the government is saying that they are still open as to which educational institute(s) will be involved. In the end it could be BCIT and/or UBC, for all we know.

The original annoucement went to far into putting “bricks and mortar” to the concept which should have dealt much more with intent and process rather than a pre-conceived icon. BUT, I can also see that many people need icons in order to put their minds around it. It simply backfired in the media and is a great lesson in how not to do such a thing.

Then again, is the trades centre proposed by Canfor and BID any different? Not in my eyes. They are making exactly the same mistake.

We need a neutral person or persons to champion such a concept or re-tooling manufacturing trade training to align it much more with the European trades training systems many agree are some of the best recognized in the world.

Steph99: “CNC has not addressed the skills shortage in any meaningful way, just same old shit thats not addressing labour demand more just bums in seats and if you show up you pass”
I’d like to know where you got this idea from because if you can’t provide some sort of evidence, it’s sheer slander and incredibly disrespectful to the Trades instructors at the college. If you have some sort of personal ax to grind, deal with it in an up-front and honest manner rather than trashing the professional ethics of CNC faculty.

The last time I checked there was a huge imbalance in number of females vs males in UNBC. Offering engineering programs may help to attract more male students whose numbers in high schools is comparable to female students. That is the angle to increase the student numbers. [In brackets, taking into consideration that recruiting international students has been damaged by some of the discriminatory policies against international faculty members in PG].

I don’t see the wood engineering programs supported by a WIDC center having that 3S appeal. But the Canfor proposal, having an industry partner, is different.

UNBC and CNC need to think 3S and design the right academic programs. How many undergrad programs were started in the last 5 years in UNBC? Zero?

“CNC has not addressed the skills shortage in any meaningful way”

I agree with that simply because they have no long range thinking ….

1. fewer students show up = less demand.
2. less demand = unviable programs
3. unviable programs = program cut

Simple. That is not the faculty fault. It is the fault of the post secondary education system in this and probably every other jurisdiction in Canada. They have not been able to come to grips with that and we are supposedly seeing the results of that.

Simple, look at program cuts and funding cuts as well as new programs and new funding peaks and valleys over the decades.

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“if you show up you pass”

I think that is a bit of a hyperbole.

However, I happen to think that in many colleges in BC and elsewhere there is something there and needs more exploring to either debunk it or verify it.

I do have the impression, however, from my experience that there are some plder students who have had a tough turn for the worst in their lives who think they are owed a certificate or diploma.

Bowman: “We partner with BCIT on existing programs and look forward to continue those partnerships. … We are certainly open to collaborate with BCIT.”

1) Is Bowman suggesting that CNC is also willing to discuss a merger with BCIT and becoming the BCIT northern branch (recall our past discussion on a CNC-TRU merger)? A merger between the two “make sense” and opens lots of opportunities for CNC and PG students.

2)Or is he “signalling right, but actually turning left” as David Cameron put it. Assuming right is BCIT, where is left?
….

When I took the electrical program at CNC a number of years ago now I was one of only 6 out of 16 students in the class that passed. It definitely wasn’t a case of show up and you pass when 2/3’rds of the class failed to make the 70% pass mark.

univ …. ask Bowman … in my opinion you are way out in left field on #1 suggestion …

BCIT is a separate institution. It has moved into a degree granting institution similar to Ryerson in Ontario.

Community colleges are a different type of institution. I do not think there is a place in BC or any large province in Canada to have institutions similar to the state universities in the USA. I think those kind of universioties may actually be unique in the world. Too much watering down in the regional campuses in my view. I think PG and other communities would see an overall loss in service both quantity and quality wise.

I think we need to get back to the centres of excellence concept of 3 decades ago.

When Bowman said that CNC is already partnered with BCIT, he was not suggesting merger, but the existence of programs, such as Medical Radiography, where much of the curriculum is essentially leased and clinical sites divvied up. CNC also did this with the Medical Lab program in an agreement with NAIT. In turn, CNC’s Dental Hygiene was leased by what was then Malasapina (now VIU)and run in Duncan.

As for the admission to the college being down, employment in the region is up and studies have shown that there is a fairly linear relationship between employment and post-secondary attendance such that when employment goes up, attendance goes down. Simple, really.

gus wrote: ” … they are still open as to which educational institute(s) will be involved. In the end it could be BCIT and/or UBC, for all we know.”

I wasn’t the first one to bring BCIT into the picture. If BCIT comes all the way north to open a lab with Canfor in Prince George and compete with CNC and UNBC for share of market in PG, then we can discuss the interesting possibility of BCIT opening a branch with help of CNC in PG.

It is much better than a CNC-TRU merger scenario and it will be a very good development for Prince George considering all technical programs that BCIT offers.

Do you have any objection to more trade programs in PG?

I think we should wait for the next CNC president and next BC government to answer that ….

… but I should mention University of Quebec system (UQAM, …. ) with ten provincially-run public universities in Quebec, Canada.

Have you heard of UBC Okanagan in BC?

UQAM actually stands for Université du Québec à Montréal.

The ten (one is a distance education University similar to Alberta’s Athabasca University) were created in the late 60s at about the same time that Ontario built a whole series of independent universities in smaller communities around the province.

I prefer the system built in Ontario.

I know about UBC Okanagan because I took quite a number of pictures during its early construction phase.

Kelowna was the last to get UBC’s medical program – UVic and UNBC were the first. It pays to be independent. ;-)

I have absolutely no objections to more post secondary education seats in BC. The lasdt 10 years saw a substantial increase. However, we are still nowhere near the number of seats per population that most other provinces have.

I moved west in 1973, and the numbers were attrocious then.

What Krusty said about declining enrolment when job opportunities are up is absolutely true! It is actually an indicator of how little businesses in BC value education as opposed to warm bodies when push comes to shove.

The firm I worked for when I first moved to PG hired qualified people, thus we had staff from Manitoba, Ontario, Hong Kong, Czechoslovakia and Great Britain.

My point about Université du Québec was that we do have a similar system to US State univ system (e.g. calif state univ system) right in Canada. The next BC government has two choices when it comes to UNBC (and CNC):

1) Continue with the current system of paying extra funding (about 300 extra empty seats in UNBC) so it can survive when universities like Capilano university are closing programs.

2) Pay them similar to other universities and colleges in BC (i.e. reduction by 10% of UNBC funding) and we see further downsizing, closure or merger with another institution.

In the 2nd scenario having CNC as a BCIT operated branch in PG may be “more sustainable”, otherwise it will not survive the competition with UNBC.

CNC or UNBC, which one will survive when the funding tsunami hits?

Failing to find 300 extra students in 5 months, What is UNBC’s contingency plan for a potential reduction of its funding by 10%? CNC doing better?

“300” reminds me of the film ….

univ …. I am going to quit this. I have 15 years of experience as both a college instructor and at the Divisional Dean level, have been a member of the WDOT (Western Deans of Technology) for many years and have chaired the organiztion for one year.

I amn afraid the scenarios you presetn are very hypothetical and would require major changes by not only the institutes involved but also the ministry responsible for post secondary education in this Province.

Unless one is with the current decision making teams the contingency plans you or I may talk about here are not founded on sound information and would be totally moot and most certainly even more wasteful of my time than my responses to you have already been.

One thing I would like you to remember and that is the nature of the community in which the old Capilano College is located and the kind of liberal arts programs which dominated the institution while it was a college.

Now that it is a University, the tendency will be that the undergraduate certificate and diploma programs will suffer, especially those programs which supported the community more for personal interest and lifestyle improvement rather than assisting people entering or reentering the working world with the skills required for that.

THAT is one of the reasons why some very smart people held out for a full fledged research university for PG since a melding of University and Vocational College would mean infighting within the institution.

That is also why Kelowna still has a college separate from the new UBC campus.

Here are the proposed cuts at Capilano

Suspension of admissions for
•Applied Business Technology (online courses)
•Interactive Design diploma program
•Medical Office Assistant certificate
•Studio Art diploma
•Textile Arts diploma

Suspension of Post Diploma
•Advanced Ceramics
•Art Institute certificate
•Guided Imagery in Music certificate

Suspension of Short & Summer Courses
•Foundations in Illustration and Design certificate
•Animation Fundamentals Citation
•Computer Animation and Visual Effects citation

Fits the expected pattern to a T.

I have the same number of years experience as analyst and I guess having a contingency plan is better than not having a plan. Preparing contingency plans in advance, as part of a crisis management plan, is the first step to ensuring an organization is prepared for a crisis.

Whether you like or not the tsunami is coming, …