Joanne is a faculty member, for the second time around, now teaching in the Management & Human Resource Leadership program area. She first started at Camosun in 1992, working as an instructional assistant for the then Hotel and Restaurant Management program. In 1998, she was asked to teach a computing class for the hospitality students and said, “I’ve been in the classroom all my life, earning my accounting designation at 42, finishing my master’s degree at 52. But when I walked into a classroom as an instructor, I knew instantly that was what I wanted to do.” But Joanne decided she still had some work to do on her own career. “I left Camosun in 2003, and I said I’ll be back in ten years – I’m going to develop my career and do some great things, then I’m going to bring those back to the classroom.”
Joanne worked in hotels in finance for several years, then decided to move on from accounting. “I completed my master’s in leadership and transitioned over to operations, and I loved being a director of operations. Eight departments with 200 staff reporting to me – it was dynamic and crazy.” Then, on March 1, 2020, Joanne went to the Delta Whistler Suites as Interim General Manager. “We all know what happened two weeks after that: the whole world fell apart, and the hotel industry was devastated. I couldn’t leave the team without a general manager during a global pandemic, so I stayed there for 2020 and guided that team through the pandemic, which was the hardest year of my life.”
When Joanne returned to Victoria at the end of 2020, she decided it was time to return to the classroom. A role came up in the leadership program at Camosun, and in the fall of 2021, Joanne started teaching full-time. “This is the icing on the cake of my career. I’m so happy to be here and love every minute in the classroom. Students tell me, your stories are what make it all come to life. It took me 18 years instead of 10, but I’m back and I’m sharing what I know and how the curriculum relates to real life.”
Today, Joanne teachers Introduction to Management and Operations Management courses. “Intro to Management is a holistic look at management leadership and organizations. The first-year students in that course are a little shell shocked, but I like to bring life to organizations and encourage them to analyze organizations so they can learn from both the bad and the good. In operations management, students evaluate an organization in the community and apply the theory to that organization, then they complete a capstone group project and present it back to the class.” But Joanne’s favourite class to teach is Leading in Diverse Environments. “In this course, students develop their ability to understand their biases, and to change the lens through which they see the world because the future leaders of organizations need to provide a safe place for people to come and be their whole selves.” Joanne says it’s an impactful course full of deep, awkward, uncomfortable conversations where she shares stories from her personal life and where everyone learns from each other.
I wondered about the classroom diversity in Joanne’s favourite course, and she told me that last year, 100% of the students were from elsewhere. “Because we’re studying how people view things differently, I specifically put them into diverse groups based on where they’re from, and those groups stay together for the whole term. Students tell me they’ve made connections they never would have, and they had no idea people had such varied opinions about such simple things. We talk about religion. We talk about gender. We talk about age, stereotypes, humor, power – everything.” Joanne celebrates diversity in all of her classes. “I’m teaching future leaders, so I encourage them to embrace diversity for their future businesses. We all have a bias toward people who are like us, but when you’re recruiting, you need to consider people who look different, who bring a different approach, and be aware of your own biases.”
I asked Joanne what she enjoys most about teaching. “I enjoy it all. I enjoy learning from the students. I enjoy facilitating a learning environment. I say right up front, you’re not going to learn it all from me – you’re going to learn from each other, and I love the discussions and sharing of perspectives. I’ve had students who were architects, veterinarians, career counselors, engineers – you name it. And they have all had experience that I don’t have. When students can bring their own practice to the classroom, that’s huge for me.”
I knew that COVID had had an impact on Joanne’s work life, but I wondered if she noticed changes in teaching from her first time around at Camosun to now. “The hospitality program I taught in originally was very collaborative, but I classes were lecture focused. But now, many of my colleagues are supporting flexible delivery where students can either come to class in-person or participate through D2L. What I see now is instructors who’ve tried new things because they were forced to during the pandemic, and continuing with those things because they are working. And I definitely see more flexibility to try things and see what might happen.” For Joanne, coming back to Camosun, tools like D2L were new to her but she has been thankful for the support she had from eLearning. “Now I think I can shake things up a bit, make my classes a little more innovative with technology, and find cool ways to engage the students. There are no limits now because the pandemic busted up all the norms.”
I wondered if Joanne had any fond memories from her years of teaching. “My memories are mostly around the connections with the students, but one that stands out for me involved one of my students from Africa. This student felt safe enough in our classroom to talk about some of the racism that she experienced when she first came to Victoria which was a shock for many people in the class, and we had a good conversation about it. One student from Mexico said he had never experienced any of this and didn’t understand what was happening for her. So, we had this profound discussion about white-passing, and the students really got it. For me, it’s those aha moments – those moments when we can expand a student’s lens – that are profound for me. My students have told me that the leading in diverse environments course profoundly changed how they walk through the world. Now they look at every crowd they’re in, every room they’re in, and look for diversity, which gets straight to my soul, because I always tell them on the first day that if by the end of this semester they take a beat before they act on their biases, I’ve done my job.”
My final question for Joanne was what kind of advice she might have for new instructors at Camosun. “Partner with someone in CETL who can work through your courses with you. Then I would say, lean on your fellow faculty and ask questions.” In fact, Joanne’s department has a buddy system for new faculty members coming in. “I was a buddy for the first time this year to a new faculty member coming in to teach BUS 150. It was an eye-opener realizing how many things they need to learn – from how Camosun works, to how to use D2L, to how courses are delivered. And since I was teaching the same course, I took pictures of my class whiteboard, sometimes to show him an exercise that was great, and other times when it bombed and to recommend he try something else. That buddy system our chair set up is brilliant.” And perhaps something every department should start up!