Julia Denholm has just wrapped up her first year as dean of Capilano University’s Sunshine Coast campus, also known as kál-ax-ay, and she’s looking forward to increasing Cap-U’s profile on the Coast.
In the couple of years leading up to Denholm’s appointment in December 2015, Capilano had been through a budget crunch, some program cuts, and a faculty strike. But Denholm said new leadership at the top has the university on a positive course. “We’re actually feeling pretty confident at the moment.”
The past year has already seen a strengthening of the Sunshine Coast campus’s ties with the shíshálh Nation, including the formal renaming of the campus’s main building as kál-ax-ay, a name chosen by shíshálh elders.
“That’s very much to do with the campus faculty and the relationship they have with leadership at the band,” Denholm said, adding that she plans to be more active on that front now that she’s settled into her job.
“The connections to the First Nations community at Capilano University run deep, and we need to bring that to the surface more … We’ve got to be able to put our education money where our aspirational mouth is. We need to stand behind our commitment to the First Nations communities on which our campuses reside.”
Cap-U is also renewing its branding, and making an effort to be an even stronger presence in the community, Denholm said.
“We’d very much like to have a community advisory group for this campus – that hasn’t been in place for a long time, and I really feel its absence,” she said. “We’ve had a fabulous connection with the community foundation that put together a project to investigate some of the opportunities we might be able to explore here at the campus. We have a new president at Capilano University, and I’ve been working with him and my boss, the vice-president academic and provost, to identify things we can be doing at this campus that really respond to the community’s needs.”
Denholm added that the Sun-shine Coast’s geography – with the population spread out from Earls Cove to Langdale – can be a challenge when it comes to the campus’s role in the community.
“We’re located in Sechelt, and for people on the Sunshine Coast that’s really far from Gibsons. It’s really far from Pender Harbour. And, it’s really far from Egmont. So we have been looking at what specific programs we can be offering that are tailored to the needs of the community that will be sufficiently of interest to draw people to make that drive or take that transit trip to come to the campus.”
New programs being offered or planned include a health care assistant program, an education assistant program, an English course in cooperation with School District No. 46, “First Year Here” – a suite of courses students can take on campus and online, business administration, and Adult Basic Education.
“One of the things about this campus is that we’re the little engine that could,” Denholm said. “The staff and the faculty here are incredibly full of ideas and energy and creativity. And I can say without reservation that I’ve never worked anywhere in post-secondary [education] with a group of people who are as hard-working and dedicated to their campus as the faculty and staff are here.”
You can hear Coast Reporter’s full interview with Denholm on episode 42 of the Coast Beat podcast (https://soundcloud.com/user-756673449).
