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Jean Watters - 2015-04-08 - Richmond
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Jean Watters - 2015-04-08 - Richmond
Simon Fraser University Library
Holly Hendrigan, Interviewer |
SFU Library Oral Histories |
Tech BC Memory Project
Holly Hendrigan, Interviewer |
SFU Library Oral Histories | Tech BC Memory Project
Holly Hendrigan: This is Holly Hendrigan of the TechBC Memory Project. Today is
April 8, 2015 and I’m interviewing Dr. Jean Watters, who is now retired. We are having a face-to-face conversation in Jean’s home in Richmond, BC. Hello Dr. Watters.Jean Watters: Hello.
Hendrigan: I’m here to ask you some questions about your experience at the
Technical University of British Columbia, which offered classes in Surrey between 1999 and 2002. So first of all, what year did you begin working at TechBC?Jean Watters: I started, I arrive in July 1st I believe, July 1, 2001. So I was
less there, and I think when we had the official announcement was on February 14 and that was, Valentine’s Day. Was not a big gift. [laughs]Hendrigan: No, no. And, and you were you came in as the new President of TechBC?
Jean Watters: I came in as the new President, yeah.
Hendrigan: Yeah.
Jean Watters: Yeah.
Hendrigan: And where had you worked before?
Jean Watters: I was President of Laurentian University, in Sudbury, and prior to
1:00that I was the first President of Collège Boréal, which is a French college in Northern Ontario. Hendrigan: Right. And how did you come to work at TechBC, how did you -Jean Watters: Somebody called me about the--and sent me the advertising because
I've always been involved quite a bit in learning technology and the human aspect of learning, using technologies, and they thought it was the ideal job for me. So I did apply and I got the interview, and it happened--and it just happened that way. The former, the last President of the Chair of the Board, was also a graduate from Laurentian University and her husband was from Sudbury. So she knew quite a bit about the University and she knew a lot about what we were doing also over there in terms of distance education and e-Learning.Hendrigan: Right. And so what did you know about TechBC from your place at Laurentian?
2:00Jean Watters: At the time very little. Actually, I would say nothing [laughs]
and but, after, I was warned, ahead of time that if the government--the Liberal Government--would come into power it would be very, very difficult to survive as an institution. Because TechBC was created by the NDP Government--two people from the NDP Government--and there were lots of work being done at the time by a group of people from Surrey who wanted the university in the regions. Sharon Shilliday was one of them, and the other one who was working very close on the project at the time was Ken MacKenzie. He was the President of the Real Estate Board in the Lower Mainland.Hendrigan: Right. And you mentioned there were two people in the government that
3:00had worked hard to build the university, you said?Jean Watters: Sharon [Shilliday] probably would know better than I do.
Hendrigan: Ok.
Jean Watters: But I knew it was created by the NDP Government at the time and,
unfortunately, the Liberals were determined, when they came in, to close quite a few of the small existing universities.Hendrigan: Right.
Jean Watters: Three of them actually got axed.
Hendrigan: Yeah.
Jean Watters: Yeah.
Hendrigan: So you arrived to a university where classes were taking place but
hadn’t yet settled on its permanent physical space. What do you remember about that?Jean Watters: Well, first of all, we knew--ahead of time--when I applied for the
position, they sent me all kinds of documentation about the new campus, and it looked beautiful and very, very exciting. Because the tower there: the design was--it was just the type of university that attracted me. There’s another 4:00thing that attracted me to apply for it: there was no Senate. And, at many universities, a Senate is a place for professors to ventilate [laughs] in many ways, a Senate can drive you crazy sometime as President because on one hand it can vote for a freeze in tuition fees, and in the other hand ask a salary increase. So I felt in many ways that Senate[s]--and I still think that way--are not very accountable in many ways, and the, the fact that no Senate whatsoever and the feeling--the teamwork--that was going on there, was incredible. The other thing also: there was no tenure at the time, which was one of the few universities like that, so those are factors that attracted me because it was a brand new university that was moving very fast forward, with new ideas that nobody else had, and people coming from all over the world. I mean it was people 5:00from Australia, from Europe, and very, very bright people.Hendrigan: And these people were faculty then?
Jean Watters: It’s not only faculty, but even technical staff as well, but the
faculty: we had Americans; we had Europeans; we had Russians. It was South Africa: they were coming from all over the world and make it a very interesting team.Hendrigan: Right. But in the meantime you were kind of in the basement of a--
Jean Watters: Yes, yes, but I was used to that.
Hendrigan: Yeah, oh are you?
Jean Watters: Because when we built the College at Boréal, we had built a
beautiful new campus but for two years, my office was shared with forty other people and there was about--it was like a classroom.Hendrigan: Right.
Jean Watters: So this didn’t bother me at all actually; it, actually, on the
other hand, it brought a sense of closeness. People worked very, very closely together.Hendrigan: Right. But in the meantime, the, the lease arrangements of the
6:00physical space, when you looked at the budget, what did you see that was going on there?Jean Watters: Well, at the time we were very excited because the new
construction was going in. ICBC, was it ICBC, yeah it was there: we had a very good relationship with the people building the building. We knew, we thought we were going into that. The government at the time, shortly after I arrived, thought it was too expensive. We did find another space, not too far from the existing campus; it was a forestry research centre or something and we were looking at it. But it was quite evident, right from the start, no matter what you were trying to do, the government was determined to close it. And after the government got elected, there was seven members of MLAs in regions of Surrey, and all of them was on board with the government and many of them didn’t have 7:00any experience. And one of them, it’s only one [Tony Bhuller] of them bugged the government on TechBC. As a matter of fact, he threatened at one point to tie himself with a chain to the [laughs]-Hendrigan: Is that right?
Jean Watters: To the, the campus, yeah.
Hendrigan: Yeah.
Jean Watters: The cost, to me, the way we went about it--because they broke the
lease, and it did cost, as far as I'm concerned, a fortune to the governments to renew the initial lease, to go forward. I think the matter got settled later on when Simon Fraser University took over. The other factor also, I’m going back and forth here, the other factor also that played in the closing: it was the opposition of other universities, it was not quite obvious at the time, but it was a certain fear that everything that was touching, directly or indirectly, 8:00technology would go through TechBC. And it brought lots of fear to many other universities like Royal Roads University, whose future was not certain either at the time. And the government was determined at the time to transfer to Simon Fraser University; it became quite obvious towards the end. And I had a very good relationship with Michael Stevenson because he and I worked together, when he was at York University as a Vice President, so I knew him quite well. And I had a meeting also with the Deputy Minister and the Minister asking me to support them and I refused. And I remember the Minister at the time was not very happy with me. And I said I cannot--I was hired to bring this university forward, not to close it. So we fought towards the end but it’s, to me it was 9:00a very sad. A sad moment. There's another factor and maybe will answer some of your questions, another factor that’s very, very, very important that I realized after: the fact that TechBC had a very narrow mandate, didn’t help. If they had a broader mandate including general arts programs and science, I think it would have helped because that’s what the region needed and the region wanted: a very broad based university rather than a tech university. But a tech university was better than nothing. And when they, Simon Fraser, took over and make it much more broad based, it became in many ways much more successful because you had the business program, general arts programs and so on. But on the other hand, TechBC was unique in many ways and to me, up to this 10:00day, I still think it was probably the most, the most innovative university in, I would say (I'm exaggerating probably) in the world at the time- Hendrigan: Yeah.Jean Watters: Yeah.
Hendrigan: Yeah, that was one of my questions here about what was TechBC trying
to do differently as an academic institution: integrated curriculum, multi-disciplinary, online learning-Jean Watters: It was unique and the fact it was a new university. I always said
a government, a university-- a new university, should go through four phases. The first phase you got the dreamers ok, which last a certain time, and then you get the [French]--the management comes in, and then starts putting rules and regulations and so on. And the last phase, is, excuse the expression, is a shit disturber. [laughs]Hendrigan: Ok.
Jean Watters: Ok. You end up with with paper work and rules and regulations and
11:00so on but all universities, now all colleges: when they get started, they always have a spirit, a dream to pursue and do things differently. And what was nice about TechBC: it, over the four, five years it was there, it managed to stay at the dream level and people were pursuing a dream and so there was no, there was no politics. Most traditional universities: you find lots of politics; you have lots of controversies between each department. Engineer says that--the engineering department would say that the teachers' department doesn’t know anything; the teacher department would say the engineer don’t know how to teach. You didn’t have that at TechBC, you have a feeling of collaboration that I never met anywhere else, except at Collège Boréal, when it started, yeah.Hendrigan: Right, so it was a real kind of a start-up kind of culture.
Jean Watters: Yes.
12:00Hendrigan: Yeah. So when you came and you knew, you were warned, how did you see
your role in terms of keeping the institution alive?Jean Watters: You know, first of all I must say that when I came in, we pursued.
We pushed, we pushed, we pushed, and we did a number of studies but no matter what study we did, it was already rejected by the government for one reason to the other, because they were determined to close it. One saying I realized--I’ve been a lobbyist a good part of my life--and I think the fate of TechBC might, might have had a chance. It would have changed if some serious lobbying, political lobbying would have been done, prior to the Liberal campaign, prior to the campaign because at the time, all the Liberals--everybody knew in BC the Liberals would come in. And I don’t blame my predecessor, but he was not a lobbyist and didn't want to get involved politically. And I’m 13:00sorry, at the end of the day, it’s always a political decision, so personally if I came maybe in May rather than July, I still think today that we could have turned things around. We did the same thing at Collège Boréal: it was created by the NDP government and the Conservative came in and we were very afraid that they will close the college and so on. We did a lot of lobbying and developed a good relationship with the governments and it went forward. And that work have to be done prior to the election, not after the election.Hendrigan: Right. So is the role of University Presidents in Ontario or Québec
different from the role of University Presidents here in BC?Jean Watters: No, the role is not different; it just depends at what stage the
institution is. Ok, it’s very exciting to work within the new institution or 14:00within a new faculty because you are extremely, extremely creative and so on. The other thing also--that’s my own, my own thinking. Keep in mind when I started working at the college level in 1994, there were very few women in the management positions in the institutions. So my commitment, when I started Collège Boréal is that 50% of management would be women, and it was. And it changed, as far as I'm concerned, the entire culture of the institution itself. TechBC was already there; I would say close to 50% of the management were women, and it changed, to me, men and women don’t look at problems the same way, their brains are different; we do not collaborate the same way and so on. And to me, it brings a much richer culture when you have a broader management. To me, 15:00again, I believe in 2015 if you do a survey of colleges and universities, you would find that it’s still traditional in many, many ways. And the last factor I should mention is--that’s my own, my own view--it’s very important to work very closely with the union. We didn't have any union there, and to me it was ok, but it’s very important to, to keep your staff happy, and you have to be able to anticipate a problem and try to solve it.Hendrigan: Yeah. Well speaking of that, it comes to my next question, which was
I’ve heard TechBC was a very social place to work, and I’ve even heard about the parties at your house-Jean Watters: [laughs]
Hendrigan: Can you talk about why you find it important for staff to connect on
that level?Jean Watters: Well it’s very, very important, especially with a new
institution, together. You have to-- people, I used to say, "You have to work 16:00hard but you also have to play hard." [laughs] And to me, the--when I was at Laurentian University, I took my office from the eleventh floor and moved it to the second floor and when I left they moved it back from the second floor to the eleventh floor.Hendrigan: [laughs]
Jean Watters: To me, it was very, very important to be closer to the staff and
closer to the university so I always tell my son I’m being part of a team. So as a President you cannot isolate yourself, you have to build a very high level of trust with people you working with. And I must say it was not difficult. The one person who didn't trust me at all, at TechBC, was the person that also applied for the job. Didn’t get it and she wasn’t very pleased and it showed during the rest of her term there. But it’s very important to keep your staff happy. And especially, because they were--staff--was under lots of pressure. So no, we knew something bad would happen eventually, but we had to 17:00fight and find occasion for people not only to be stressed but to be able to, to relax.Hendrigan: Mm-hmm. Now, you brought in town halls with, with the staff and the
students. Can you talk about what the town halls represented?Jean Watters: Yes, that’s another thing, I think it’s very important when
you go through the process we went through as an institutions and that was [French].Hendrigan: Right.
Jean Watters: [laughs] Was helping, was quite "character helping," quite a bit
there. Transparency was very important; we kept nothing secret from the staff, nothing. The only thing I kept secret I must say and never mentioned. It’s the first time I mentioned it publicly--I never mentioned the pressure I had from the Deputy Minister and the Minister [Shirley Bond] at the time. I said ok, I 18:00said. She just told me that my salary come from her and da-da-da-da-da and I should be loyal. I said no: I’m loyal to the people that hired me. And I was hired as President of the institution not as a government employee. But it was very, very important to keep people informed all the way through. I think that that, drove the government a little bit crazy because they’re used to a lot of secrecy and I must say it was the same thing when I was Collège Boréal. We were very, very wide open; shared all the information and we didn’t want to keep anybody in the dark. Hendrigan: So the government would prefer to-Jean Watters: Yeah, any government prefer to--any government prefer to keep
those things quiet. It’s very funny about the Minister, the Minister Shirley Bond actually became, to my wife and I, a pretty good friend after that, when she was the Minister of Education. But at the time, TechBC couldn’t do 19:00anything right. I mean, she was very highly critical of the architects [Bing Thom] and the building, which won, the following year, won a major award, international award [laughs]. So nothing could be done and she didn’t want to talk to the staff when she came: she just wanted to talk to the students because she was genuine there, in that sense, that she want to make sure that the students would not suffer as a result of it.Hendrigan: Did you have any contact with Bob Williams?
Jean Watters: No. I don’t even know who he is, I’m sorry.
Hendrigan: Ok, he was kind of the mastermind behind the ICBC involvement in the
building of the university. He was an NDP-Jean Watters: Bob Williams?
Hendrigan: NDP-
Jean Watters: No.
Hendrigan: If you came after the government changed then, he wouldn’t have
been a part of it-Jean Watters: No. There was a man there, I don’t remember his name, there was
two, one was in charge of construction, the building, he was very nice. Another 20:00one was the President of ICBC, and I don’t recall his name, he was an older fellow, very friendly and him and I got along very well because I’m very straightforward and he was the same way, he likes it that way. [laughs]Hendrigan: Yep.
Jean Watters: Yeah.
Hendrigan: Yep, yeah. I think he was the Chair of the Board so he wasn’t
actually the President.Jean Watters: Ok.
Hendrigan: So, we’ll talk a bit about the transition, so you arrived in was it
July of 2001?Jean Watters: Yeah, July 1st 2001.
Hendrigan: The government had changed and you were aware of the institution's
tenuous position when you took the job-Jean Watters: I was told by, but keep in mind, the President of Royal Roads
University, Jerry Kelly. I knew him quite well from Alberta days, and he kept me--he told me, he had told me that this institution really would go through a difficult situation. There was also another institution that got closed, what’s the name of the institution?Hendrigan: OLA?
Jean Watters: OLA-
Hendrigan: Open Learning.
21:00Jean Watters: Yeah and I knew the President quite well from, because we created
a national network of universities for the science education and he was, he was pretty sure that TechBC would go through a tough time. But he was not aware he would [laughs] have a tough time, at the time, yeah.Hendrigan: Right. So in September of 2001, the Finance Minister [Gary
Farrell-Collins] referred to the university as a fast ferry-Jean Watters: Yeah.
Hendrigan: That doesn’t move. What impact did that comment have on TechBC’s
students and staff?Jean Watters: We were upset and it just confirmed what we were thinking. The
Minister of Finance at the time, his job: it was quite obvious, he was a henchman, he was a henchman; Campbell was not a henchman, he was the henchman. As a matter of fact, I do have a paper signed upstairs by Campbell, he signed it 22:00in September and he signed it and it said, To the most innovative university in British Columbia. And [laughs] I was cleaning some papers the other day, I ran into that. So Campbell in many way was, I think that the Minister of Finance at the time was following orders, and he wasn’t an easy man to work with. He was a terrible man to work with so. Yeah, even with the staff.Hendrigan: And this was despite the innovative pedagogy-
Jean Watters: They were not interested in that.
Hendrigan: Yep.
Jean Watters: They were not interested at all in what we were doing. We
submitted, we submitted some very good papers and we hired some of the best people connected to the government to help out. We developed a very close relationship with the, we call the "bag man" for the Liberal party. We hired a Director of Communication who was a very strong lobbyist and was extremely well 23:00connected and they were determined from the start so, so no matter what, I think they were determined. We kept fighting, we, we kept fighting to the end. And you know the day that we gave up is the day that they disbanded the board. They didn’t fire me; they disbanded the board and they just got a letter and saying they’re gone, or phoned. I don't know if they had a phone [call], but they’re gone. And keep in mind we--at the time, there’s a possible strategy--but to us, only the Board could fire a President [laughs] so if there was no board, they could not fire us.Hendrigan: Right.
Jean Watters: No, and it worked out. There was pushing, it was pushing too much.
The other thing also, keep in mind, that in the meantime, during that process, especially towards the end, we [thought] the best solution besides being closed, 24:00it was a transfer to Simon Fraser University. So we knew it was inevitable. The other person that helped a lot in the process and put him on the, I've got lots of admiration for the person is Don Avison; I don’t know if you--. Don always been very straightforward but he was in a extremely difficult position. Because one hand, he had the other university that wanted to see TechBC close because they were afraid that all the technology would go to TechBC. And on the other hand, he knew what we were trying to do and try in many ways to protect us.Hendrigan: He later went to BCIT right?
Jean Watters: No, no he did not, you’re talking about-
Hendrigan: Don [Wright]
Jean Watters: Don Iveson was the President of the Council of Presidents-
Hendrigan: Ok.
Jean Watters: He’s a very prominent lawyer. His wife is the Assistant Deputy
Minister in Advanced Education right now and he's the guy who wrote the report 25:00that disbanded the college of teachers in BC.Hendrigan: Of course. Yeah.
Jean Watters: Yeah. So very, very bright and one of my favourite, one of my
favourite persons I must say, yeah.Hendrigan: Yeah.
Jean Watters: You’re talking about the, the President of BCIT [Don Wright]: I
got my memory back, who resigned his position and was hired by the NDP to take over the--. Very bright, I negotiated my contract with him because the person that I first negotiated with, it was a consultant and it was not very good. And I said, I didn’t want to negotiate with them so he was on the board of TechBC and so they ask him to negotiate with me and I said it was unfair because I was only a graduate from University of Montreal and he was a graduate from Harvard, which was not very fair. [laughs] But he was very, very good too. Yeah, 26:00very bright.Hendrigan: Yeah. So what kind of toll did the period of uncertainty have on
everybody there?Jean Watters: Well like I said, it was not easy task but like I said, we had
lots of parties, we had lots of meetings, we kept everybody informed and I said that we hang on to hopes, we hang to hopes and I remember when we learned that it was the end of it, there was lots of tears. And we actually, we learned first: we got a phone call; we were having a management team at Harrison Springs, through a last ditch effort to--and I got a phone call. Tell you honestly I don’t remember who called, and I learned that, the board had been, we had not been told TechBC been closed, we been told the board had been disbanded and the government’s taken over. Yeah. There’s a couple of things 27:00also that I should mention, one is--still, up to this day--bothers me a lot. We, I was really concerned not only by the students' future. There were students, we are sure that after the discussions that everybody would be able to finish the program and I say most of the people were able to finish the program. But I was really concerned about the staff, especially the faculty, because lots of them had left tenured positions to come and work in a very creative and innovative university. And I was told they will all be treated fairly. As far as I'm concerned, they were not. They had to reapply for their jobs; they ended up with junior positions. And senior management: it was tough for them. Most of them did find other good jobs, but in the end, I think for the faculty it was extremely, extremely difficult. I have to tell you what's happened also, in the meantime during--I think it happened in January or February. The Association of 28:00University Faculty of Canada, the Executive Director and the Vice President was from UBC came and visited us. They knew our staff were not tenured and I said, "Feel free, go and talk to all of the professors here." As far as I was concerned that’s what [faculty had]: lots of freedom--the professors had lots of freedom, so go talk to them, anybody you want to, go talk to them. So at the end of the day, they came back and the, the Vice President of the association gave me a letter. It said in the letter that they would support us for the work we are doing, in spite the fact that teacher were not tenured and they were not part of the Association, but they would strongly support us because they liked what they saw. And it was quite obvious the letter was written ahead of time. I 29:00said, How did you know it will happen this way? He said, "Would you like to see the other letter?" [laughs] Hendrigan: Oh. That’s funny.Jean Watters: Yeah. [laughs] They had prepared two letters.
Hendrigan: That’s funny. That was CAUT?
Jean Watters: Yeah.
Hendrigan: CAUT.
Jean Watters: They had prepared two letters-
Hendrigan: Wow.
Jean Watters: Yeah, I thought it was very, very good-
Hendrigan: Yeah, yeah. So, it was Valentine’s Day then-
Jean Watters: Yeah.
Hendrigan: February 14th, and it was announced that SFU was assuming-
Jean Watters: Yes.
Hendrigan: Administrative control. How, how did you feel about that?
Jean Watters: We felt very bad. No, we felt bad; we knew, we had a feeling we
knew it was coming. To us, at least TechBC was continuing and it took a few days, to everybody, you know, to settle down. Actually we--the first week was extremely difficult for everybody because the following day we had to get the 30:00town hall meeting so there were lots of tears but something I remember well, everybody applauded, everybody applauded because they knew that the entire management team had done its best to bring this forward, to go forward, yeah.Hendrigan: Mm-hmm. So SFU has taken this administrative control, and where did
that leave you?Jean Watters: Actually it left me in a better condition than many people and I
realized after: it was just I had an iron clad contract with non-disclosure agreements so while the others, while the others were on the front page newspaper with the settlement and so on because I had a non-disclosure agreement, I didn’t do the front page of the newspaper and TechBC didn’t do the front page of the newspaper. And so what I did: I stayed on board I think 31:00for two months after that to help with the transition. And Tony Baena is really funny because Tony is of Indian descent from Montreal and a very bright young man. He’s the one who was responsible when CanadAir, CanadAir, CP Air, closed-Hendrigan: Yep.
Jean Watters: He was the, the Vice President I think at the time and he was the
one who was responsible to close [laughs] CP Air with the staff and so on. So he was put in that, in that position. The other thing also, we had some very competent people. Just think about Jane Fee. Jane was responsible for student services; she was just very bright and she had lots of experience also. She was a former President of the union in I think at Dalhousie University, a University 32:00down East. So everybody did stick around as long as they could. Yeah.Hendrigan: So what did TechBC teach you about government relations in the BC
post-secondary setting?[phone rings]
Jean Watters: Renee?
[I’ll get it]
Jean Watters: Ok, thanks.
Jean Watters: It didn’t teach me anything, but because it just confirmed what
I knew in many ways. That lobbying is very important, but lobbying has to be done at the right time. Now I’m still think, I’m still convinced up to this day, is if some serious lobbying had been done in May and June, during the Liberal campaign--get the people on our side--the outcome would have been completely different. On the other hand, I hate to say that, it maybe--it's not been a bad thing because at the end of the day, Surrey ended up with the university they wanted. You know, one of the biggest problems they have right 33:00now? They have no room. They have no room. It's been and is a very successful program. I know it’s not, what it should have been. It’s not as innovative, [Renee speaks in background] in many ways it’s very traditional in many ways, but it’s the type of programs that you have now in Surrey, that people really wanted from the start.Hendrigan: Right.
Jean Watters: Yeah. And Joanne-
Hendrigan: Curry.
Jean Watters: Curry, is a very competent person, she was supposed to help there
with the transition and fourteen years later, now she’s Vice President of external affairs or something like this.Hendrigan: She’s actually now the acting Dean of Continuing Studies.
Jean Watters: Oh ok. I thought she had her VP status-
Hendrigan: She, she’s just doing--I think she’s just doing both jobs.
Jean Watters: Both roles. She is a very competent person.
Hendrigan: Yes.
Jean Watters: They couldn’t choose, as far as I'm concerned, a better person
34:00to do the transition. Very humane in many ways and very good manager and I think she did a superb job. I was offered either a buyout or under my contract or take a VP position. It was not public, just: I was told that I could if I stayed on board. I could not, morally I could not. No. It’s, to me, it was--it would have been wrong, completely wrong.Hendrigan: So you, you, you remained for a couple of months and then where did
you go?Jean Watters: I didn’t go anywhere.
Hendrigan: Oh, ok.
Jean Watters: I just decided to retire at fifty one years old. And a year later
I wrote a report and did the last lobbying to create La BAFF, Le Bureau des Affaires Francophones et Francophiles, that arose for the Federation of Francophones. And because I knew Michael, before I wrote the paper and I went to 35:00see Michael Stevenson and I said, if I write this, will you support it and he said, yes. And so we wrote it, we did lobbying for the funding and so on, and we got it and BAFF just celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. The other thing also, after two years, I was getting tired of playing golf every day [laughs] and I applied for the school board, which was responsible--because keep in mind I worked for governments. I worked for the college system; I worked for universities. The only thing I never tried in my life was school board, and I said listen, I'm probably the only person in the whole world who did all four of them. And so I was approached, and applied, and my wife was the Chairman of the board at the time. She wasn’t my wife [then] and the first time I saw her was love-at-first-sight and I said ok, no matter what they pay me I’ll take the job. [laughs] So we’ve been together for almost nine years now. 36:00Hendrigan: Sure. So you were with the Richmond school board then or?
Jean Watters: No, no, it was, no, it a French school board for the entire Province.
Hendrigan: Ok, right, right.
Jean Watters: They got forty-one schools and my wife is now, was at the time the
Chairman of the board.Hendrigan: Ok, right.
Jean Watters: So two years at--I was there for over three years. After two years
she resigned--I’m sorry, she didn’t run again as the [Chair]. And after one year, I didn’t work with her at all and missed her lots so I resigned also in my third year and been in retirement since then so.Hendrigan: Yeah, nice. So to your knowledge has any other institution tried to
emulate what TechBC did?Jean Watters: No, it’s very funny, I don’t know if you know Tony Bates, ok,
Dr. Tony Bates from Vancouver by the way, and I can put you in contact with him, with you. He’s probably the author, the most quoted author in the world in the 37:00area of e-learning, innovation and technologies. And he and I have been doing lots of consulting together, especially for The Justice Institute and a few other institutions. He’s a very, very prolific writer actually, just finishing his last book; he’s seventy six years old, tomorrow. [laughs] And he wrote a lot about universities and colleges and to him, he probably will tell you, [TechBC] was probably one of the very most innovative--it was at the time one of the most universities in the world. The funny thing about what’s going on right now is the traditional, like Athabasca University, and Teleuq University in Québec don’t have an inclusive mandate for e-learning distance education. All institutions are getting involved in one way or the other right now. The biggest weakness I see in the system right now is that everybody’s trying to 38:00teach with new technology, and you approach in old ways [laughs] rather than through a much broader approach to research and development and curriculum development. But technologies are influencing life on a daily basis, and I wrote a paper not too long ago, did research on the impact of new technologies on learning and one of the major things I found is that, whether it it be at the school systems or be at the college university level, the gap between learners and teachers is getting broader because the young people now-a-days are used to an instant reply. I mean, instantly: so traditional lectures for them, which was boring for us when we were young, is twice as long for them because they’re used to, to having an instantaneous response. What’s the difference 39:00now-a-days, I think it’s the fact that the e-learning is becoming worldwide. Many of the institutions right now, local institutions: many of the students now come from overseas and it can be from Africa; it can be from all around the world and this bring a different culture, to learning. Because we have a tendency to judge other people according to own value system, to old cultures and so on, and when you realize you work with different people from different cultures, it’s completely different. I mean it's quite a learning experience. The funny thing and I was telling that the other day is that we don’t notice that as much here in BC because in multi-cultural society in BC is part of our daily life- Hendrigan: That’s right.Jean Watters: But if you come from Québec [laughs] which is a monolithic
society in many ways, you can see how difficult it is for them to adapt in many 40:00ways to that globalization, yeah.Hendrigan: Right.
Jean Watters: I went off track completely here. [laughs] I’m sorry.
Hendrigan: Yeah. If you had the opportunity to start a post-secondary
institution from scratch again what would you keep from the TechBC way of doing things? No senate?Jean Watters: Pretty well everything.
Hendrigan: Yeah. [laughs]
Jean Watters: Except much better lobbying to start with and ensuring that you
get the government support. I, we have been dreaming about, I’ve been lecturing to a university in China it’s called Tsinghua University. I was invited there by a professor many times, and it is probably the most famous university in China and with the--in BC, where 26% of the population is from Asia (not necessarily from China but from Asia): the highest level in Canada. We 41:00thought about the possibility, looking at the possibility maybe to bring a university like Tsinghua University in Canada. But it’s a dream, and to do something, it’s a dream but it’s a young man's job. [laughs] At sixty-five, my wife's complaining a lot about getting older but you don't have the same level of energy that you had when you’re thirty or forty, or forty years old yeah. Hendrigan: I've heard how hard people worked there.Jean Watters: Eh?
Hendrigan: People worked really hard at TechBC-
Jean Watters: Oh everybody worked hard, I mean no matter, Collège Boréal was
incredible. We pursued dreams and we enjoyed it, now. It wasn't a job. You get up in the morning and you just look forward to it and you know, in spite, in spite of all the difficulties we went through at TechBC, the people maintained the spirit almost right up to the end. And it’s not because of me; it’s not 42:00because of the management. It’s not because--I think it’s everybody, put together. It's, and you know what I’ve been there six months and I made friends for life. That’s fourteen years later; we’re still in contact. We did organize the ten year reunion or something last year, the people that were there ten years ago. And everybody--I can think of four people, five people (ok I keep adding more and more) became close friends. Still close friends to this day, in spite of the fact we worked only six months together. Yeah, so I have lots of respect for the people I worked with. Lots of respect.Hendrigan: So final thoughts or parting words on TechBC’s legacy?
Jean Watters: You know what, I think more research has been done on TechBC in
the last four, five years, than it was it in our life. [laughs] That university was only functioning with students probably only four years, but people still talk about it today. It was an excellent model. It’s very sad in many ways that it was closed for political, pure political reasons. If the governments at 43:00the time would have understood, what TechBC stood for, I think--I still think today--that all the universities and colleges in BC would have benefited from the experience of TechBC. This was a unique institution doing things in a unique way. And to me, it has been, for the governments, for the people in BC: it's been missed opportunities. It was a way of doing thing differently, like I said. On the other end, the positive about all this is that it has, under SFU, broadened the mandate and is delivering the type of program that people really wanted in this Surrey area, so.Hendrigan: Now is there anything else you’d like to say about TechBC that you
haven’t mentioned yet?Jean Watters: I think I pretty much said everything [laugh]. I think I’ve even
said more than I should have said but you know what, after fourteen years, everything is still fresh in my mind. It’s like it was yesterday. I'm sad about TechBC closing but I’m not sad about the quality of the people I had the pleasure to work with. And the students, and the learners and the staff, it was an incredible group. Like I said, my only sad part is that [I wish] we had been able to help them around all along, and the biggest loss in many ways is the Province-- and the faculty [members], we [left so many of them out.] You know, we were given a promise and I don't think it was opposition from--I know where the opposition came from. It didn't come from the management at SFU, by the way. But I think the faculty that were transferred should have been treated more fairly. Yeah.Hendrigan: Dr. Watters, I, I truly appreciate you taking the time to speak to me
about your short but intense period at TechBC, thank you very much.Jean Watters: Thank you very much for reminiscing with me about what counts as
one of the greatest challenges of my life.Hendrigan: Thank you.
[End of transcript]
0:00 - Hiring at TechBC
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So first of all, what year did you begin working at TechBC?
Segment Synopsis: Describes how he was recruited to be the President of TechBC, from his previous position as President of Laurentian University.
Keywords: Employment Experience; Recruitment; University Presidents
Subjects:
1:57 - TechBC struggled from the beginning
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: And so what did you know about TechBC from your place at Laurentian?
Segment Synopsis: Recalls that he was warned, before even starting at TechBC, that it was going to be very challenging to keep it open if a change of government took place.
Keywords: Political Affiliation; School Closing
Subjects:
3:30 - Innovative approaches to higher education / Working in temporary spaces
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So you arrived to a university where classes were taking place but hadn’t yet settled on its permanent physical space. What do you remember about that?
Segment Synopsis: Recalls being very attracted to TechBC because of the beautiful design for the prospective campus, the fact that TechBC was not going to have a Senate or tenure, and the international backgrounds of faculty and staff. Notes that working in the temporary space did not bother him, as he had a similar experience at Collège Boréal.
Keywords: Educational Facilities; Experimental Universities; Faculty; Open Plan Schools; Tenure; University Governing Councils
Subjects:
5:59 - Politics and TechBC’s space
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: But in the meantime, the lease arrangements of the physical space--when you looked at the budget, what did you see that was going on there?
Segment Synopsis: Reflects on the frustration and challenges of trying to find a permanent space for TechBC, and how it seemed like no matter what, the government was determined to close TechBC and have SFU take over.
Keywords: Educational Finance; Experimental Universities; Government School Relationship; Politics of Education; School Construction; Technical Education; Universities
Subjects:
10:14 - Workplace culture
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: Yeah, that was one of my questions here about what was TechBC trying to do differently as an academic institution: integrated curriculum, multi-disciplinary, online learning-
Segment Synopsis: Describes TechBC’s culture as one of “dreamers,” where every department was open to collaborating and morale remained high.
Keywords: Institutional Cooperation; University Planning; Work Environment
Subjects:
12:01 - Lobbying to keep TechBC open
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So when you came and you knew,--you were warned--how did you see your role in terms of keeping the institution alive?
Segment Synopsis: States that closing a university is “always a political decision,” and that lobbying at the right time, prior to the election, may have saved TechBC. Talks about why it is important for the University culture to ensure that women occupy 50% of all management positions, and how it is important to work closely with the union.
Keywords: Elections; Government School Relationship; Lobbying; Unions; Women Administrators
Subjects:
15:51 - Workplace socializing builds trust
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: Well speaking of that, it comes to my next question, which was I’ve heard TechBC was a very social place to work, and I’ve even heard about the parties at your house-
Segment Synopsis: Talks about why he worked hard to bring the staff together.
Keywords: Friendship; Social Life
Subjects:
17:24 - TechBC town halls / ICBC contact
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: Now, you brought in town halls with the staff and the students. Can you talk about what the town halls represented?
Segment Synopsis: Talks about how he instituted TechBC town halls to facilitate communication and transparency. Speaks to the challenge of managing government expectations about secrecy with loyalty and obligation to TechBC. Did not have any contact with Bob Williams, but worked with others from ICBC on the development.
Keywords: Cabinet Officers; Communications; Government School Relationship; Political Affiliation
Subjects:
20:22 - TechBC closure announced
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So, we’ll talk a bit about the transition. So you arrived in, was it, July of 2001?
Segment Synopsis: Discusses what it was like to start work at TechBC when he knew there was the possibility of closure, and then to continue working as it became more and more clear that TechBC would be taken over by SFU. Other institutions were in trouble: Open Learning Agency, Royal Roads University. Reflects on how there was limited interest in TechBC’s innovative pedagogical approaches. Despite efforts to lobby the government and communicate TechBC’s successes, SFU’s takeover seemed “inevitable.”
Keywords: Business Planning; Consolidated Schools; Contracts; Governing Boards; Lobbying; Provincial Government; School Closing
Subjects:
26:08 - Impact of TechBC’s uncertain future
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So what kind of toll did the period of uncertainty have on everybody there?
Segment Synopsis: Describes how he tried to keep staff, faculty, and student morale high by hosting lots of parties and running lots of meetings, to keep everyone informed. He feels that while the students’ needs were met, faculty and staff were more negatively impacted by the transition as they were forced to re-apply for their jobs and ended up in junior positions. Had a positive interaction with CAUT who supported the organization.
Keywords: Employment Interviews; Faculty; Faculty Organizations; Job Layoff; Tenure; Transfer Policy
Subjects:
29:28 - SFU takeover of TechBC
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: Yeah, yeah. So, it was Valentine’s Day then-February 14th- and it was announced that SFU was assuming administrative control. How did you feel about that?
Segment Synopsis: Reflects on what the first week was like after it was announced that SFU was taking over administrative control of TechBC, describing it as “extremely difficult” and that there were “lots of tears.” Notes that everyone stayed on as long as they could, to help with the transition, and talks about why he was not able to talk to the press.
Keywords: Contracts; Emotional Adjustment; Grief; University Administration
Subjects:
32:12 - Lobbying and lessons learned
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So what did TechBC teach you about government relations in the BC post-secondary setting?
Segment Synopsis: Talks about the importance of post-secondary institutions lobbying the government, but doing so at the right time. Speaks very highly of Joanne Curry.
Keywords: Government School Relationship; Lobbying; Organizational Change; Universities
Subjects:
34:37 - Professional life after TechBC
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So you remained for a couple of months and then where did you go?
Segment Synopsis: Describes his “retirement”: how he worked to set up Le Bureau des Affaires Francophones et Francophiles after his time at TechBC, and how he met his wife once he started with the school board.
Keywords: Retirement
Subjects:
36:42 - TechBC's innovations / Diversity in British Columbia
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So to your knowledge has any other institution tried to emulate what TechBC did?
Segment Synopsis: Discusses whether or not any institutions have tried to emulate TechBC’s model, and states that if he were to open up his own university now, he would follow a very similar structure - no tenure, no Senate - with more timely lobbying. Speaks to how hard everyone at TechBC worked in their time there, and how it turned people into lifelong friends.
Keywords: Blended Learning; Employees — Workload; Ethnic Diversity; Experimental Universities; Friendship; Government School Relationship
Subjects:
42:58 - Legacy of TechBC / Conclusions
Direct segment link:
Partial Transcript: So final thoughts or parting words on TechBC’s legacy?
Segment Synopsis: Ultimately states that he is sad that TechBC was closed for “pure political reasons,” It was an excellent model with excellent people. His memories of TechBC remain clear. He feels regret for how faculty were treated.
Keywords: Faculty; Group Experience; Memory; Politics of Education
Subjects: