Cowichan campus is really a great place for students to launch their educational path.
Many students reach their goals right here at their home campus and sometimes other students
use it as a great stepping stone to move on to a bigger campus. The campus as part of VIU but also
the community means opportunity like to me it's opportunity for anybody in the community who wants
to come in and extend their learning journey or weave newer old learnings back into their pathway.
Cowichan campus is a really small friendly campus where we get to know our students and i really
like the opportunity to become acquainted with students and watch their progress and growth here.
I think that it's so highly tied to the community here like we've got the best teachers
we've had business owners who are now teaching here they're so well connected with all the
trades people within the valley. It's really hard to beat the kind of people you have teaching here.
Everybody here cares about our students and we all want to see our students succeed. I first came to
VIU as a student and I've completed both a bachelor's and a master's education with VIU.
As well both of my children attended VIU so it does hold a special place in my heart. Because
of its size I think it allows opportunity for community. The classes are small and you get to
know people and i have my students in more than one class so you really do get to know them.
You get to see where they progress in life and we we almost always stay in touch with them.
People are friendly genuinely care about one another and create just a fantastic place to work
and to learn. This particular campus is a very warm campus very inviting campus and i think it's
it's very much necessary given that we're a regional campus and we're very connected to the
community. Everybody seems to embody that spirit of openness and willingness to help and i think
that's what makes it a very special place. I was a student and i graduated the summer 2019 i have a
degree in indigenous studies and history. One of the biggest takeaways that i had a chance to do
is have a class with my grandpa before he passed so he was an elder in residence. And then one of
my favorite things about working here is working closely with the office here as well. I think what
i like most about it is the diversity that you see on this campus we have students from all kinds of
different backgrounds some of them are fresh out of high school and some of them have been out of
school for 20 years or more and they're coming back and i think everybody feels welcome here.
One of the things I've learned from students really is kind of perseverance. I have a lot
of respect for what so many students have to go through to be here you know they have students
who have multiple jobs and families and they're juggling all these things and yet they may manage
to prioritize school. Some students really face seemingly overwhelming odds to get to their goals
but by taking advantage of the services that are available to them as students and just by sheer
force of their own perseverance they make things happen. I really enjoy the students. I really
feel that they bring a lot of information into the classroom and they have a very strong demonstrated
willingness to learn. What i'd also like to mention is that i work with elders very closely
and they have very strong elders at this campus. They support me in my learning because i'm going
through a learning phase as well. I constantly learn from students either in the classroom
or doing advising work and i think what it is it's the resilience and the eagerness
and over my years at VIU now what i see is students are bringing their children and
grandchildren so it's that continued sort of cycle of learning and weaving in new journeys with us.