“Robin has always worked hard to make sure her students are successful, regardless of their background or situation. She tries various new techniques in order to facilitate her students’ learning. She engages with K-12 students to promote Civil Engineering and organizes student / industry nights to help students find jobs after graduation. Many students cite her as their favourite teacher. She has always been attuned to the students’ needs and strives to give them all the tools they need to excel.”
Robin is a faculty member in the Civil Engineering department at Camosun, where she also just became the Chair, and a recipient of a 2024 Teacher Recognition award. She has taught here since 2014, starting as a term faculty member and becoming full-time in 2016, but she says “I am first and foremost a mom of two teenagers which is my joy and my life’s priority. Being a parent had influenced how I teach at Camosun, but Camosun has influenced how I parent as well. I came from a traditional mindset – that you go to high school, then to university, and then get a job. But Camosun has taught me that you can take a windy path to get to where you want to go, and it can be a beautiful path. That’s what inspires me most at Camosun.”
Robin graduated with a civil engineering degree from the U.S. and then went into consulting for ten years before moving to Victoria. “When we moved to Canada, I knew I didn’t want to do consulting anymore. A part of me always wanted to be a teacher, so I took a role at the University of Victoria (UVic) in their Co-op program where I helped craft their new civil engineering program.” She also did some teaching and realized she had found what she wanted to do. “My very first term position at Camosun, I was teaching fluid mechanics, and I remember driving home feeling guilty because this was the first time in my life that work didn’t feel like work.” Robin taught as a term instructor for awhile longer, then applied for a continuing position.
I asked Robin what courses she teaches. “I teach the very first design course students in our program take, called Sustainability Project. It’s a course where we teach students how to do design projects and talk about sustainability, but really, we’re trying to teach them how to work together as a team. Then I teach their very last class, which is their capstone class. It’s interesting to bookend their experience here from their first project which may be designing a simple table, to their last project which could be a two-story building. The growth that happens in between those courses is exceptional. But my favorite class to teach is hydrology, which is the study of water: water in the air, water in the ground, and water on the surface. We spend 99% of the time talking about water on the surface because that is what influences civil engineering work.”
In addition to teaching the hydrology course, I wondered what else Robin enjoys most about teaching. “I feel like it’s an honor to be on someone’s learning journey. My approach is that we’re in it together – the students and I are one team trying to reach the same goal, and I get to facilitate how we get there. But as much as I’m directing the ship, so to say, I’m learning from the students as well. I love working with our learners who are sacrificing things and investing their time to be here.” And most important to Robin? “Good discussions, and learners who are brave enough to ask questions. And if I can’t answer a question and someone else in the room can, I’m down with that. Those discussions and interactions are the most important.”
She also loves to see her students grow. “I see that growth between the first design course and the last design course. For example, in the first design course, we’ll have students who don’t say a word to anyone for the first month. Then they are put into groups and by the end of the term, those students will stand up and present their project to their peers, something they would not have considered possible at the beginning of the term. Then in their final term, I realize that they are ready to become graduates and technologists, and it’s amazing!”
Since Robin has been here for awhile, I asked if she had taken anything away with her from teaching online during COVID. “While we try to help students develop good work habits, they are people first, so we have to go into our classrooms with compassion and remember not to sweat the small stuff. While I am very strict with deadlines because of the nature of the courses I’m teaching, I have an open-door policy – if a student is struggling, I want them to come talk to me. We can figure it out even if we have to take a windier path. And even if a student fails a class, I tell them it’s going to be okay. We’ll find another route for them to take.”
The other thing Robin has taken from those couple of years is an admiration for her peers in Civil Engineering. “We don’t spend a lot of time together, but I remember we had a staff meeting on the day before everything shut down, and then were online teaching the very next day. We had never used streaming technology before, but everyone helped each other make it happen. I felt so fortunate to work with this group of people who care so much about our students.”
And aside from COVID, I wondered what other memories from her years of teaching stick out for Robin. “I remember some of my early insecurities with teaching and when I asked a colleague at UVic about how to work with a challenging student, he said, you need to connect with them. So, I did, and I remember thinking, they’re not just trying to trip me up…they need connection. Those moments of realizing that there’s more going on are huge. But the lightbulb moments are also great, when a student takes something to the next level. Or when you see a former student around Victoria who’s working and they have a good life, they’re happy, they’re being challenged – those are the best moments, when someone has launched.”
I was also curious about how many women are in the Civil Engineering program, and about Camosun’s new Women in Technology program that is slated to launch soon. “Our graduating class was 30 to 40% female this year, but there are only 5 women in a class of 35 in our current first year group – it fluctuates every year. But the Women in Technology and Indigenous People in Technology programs will be starting soon, and we will be providing excellent wraparound services, and are looking for students who maybe haven’t had the best experience with education but who want to learn.”
Finally, I asked Robin what advice she might have for new instructors coming to teach in her program. “Embrace Camosun and what it means to be at Camosun. We are here for the learners – we want our doors open and for learners to come and see us. We want questions and we want engagement. That would be my advice: understand what you’re doing here and remember what an awesome job we have, to be able to walk with someone on their journey of learning. That’s why our jobs are fun!”