25 years feels like it went in a flash! My career (so far) at FVC/UCFV/UFV

On a grey December morning 25 years ago — Dec 10, 1990 to be precise — I left my basement suite and my boyfriend in Burnaby and drove the 90 km (!!!) out to the Chilliwack campus of Fraser Valley College to begin a three-month contract as marketing coordinator within what was then called the Information Services department.

The college was in the midst of a campaign to become a degree-granting university college like Malaspina, Okanagan, and Cariboo had become two years earlier, and my new boss Bob Warick had secured funding to hire me to help with the lobbying effort. In a way, it was a “build your own job” challenge.

If we were successful in becoming a university college, there would be enough growth and expansion to justify keeping me on. I’m still here!

The three months turned into seven months of intense lobbying, copywriting, news release issuing, rally organizing, and general cause promoting. All without the benefit of email, the Internet, or social media, none of which had been invented and/or were in wide use yet. Old fashioned print ads, radio talk show spots, news releases, community rallies, posters, pamphlets, and flyers were our arsenal. Some key students really took the reins and fired up the community in support.

It was a heady time, with a change in government happening as the NDP seemed poised to oust the Social Credit party provincially. The community campaign that we helped to foster succeeded, and the politicians felt the heat. Our local MLAs were mostly Socreds, and managed in the dying days of their mandate to secure the sought-after university college status and FVC turned into UCFV. The announcement was made on July 3, 1991, roughly seven months after I started what was supposed to be a three-month stint. 

Jubilation ensued, and then the busy task of planning and launching degree programs began. We all took to the job with enthusiasm and a real sense of collegiality and collaboration. There was the excitement of starting something new combined with the soul-searching and introspection that comes with growth and change. There was a determination not to abandon or forget our community roots, or to leave the applied, upgrading, and trades programs behind as we launched into degree programming.

Faculty, staff, administrators, and students sat on planning and hiring committees together. We held a planning conference called A Question of Balance. “We” truly were a cohesive “we”. Many dozens of new employees joined UCFV every September for several years. New buildings were approved at a fairly rapid pace. The change to university-college status, which lasted for 17 years, resulted in major growth and development at UFV and set the stage for our eventual successful campaign for university status. None of this was achieved easily.

My term contract turned into a fulltime job, and I imported the boyfriend, who eventually became the husband. We left the basement life behind for a treehouse-style cottage amidst the cedars on Little Mountain in Chilliwack, which led to us being eco-activists lobbying for the creation of trails and natural parks. This was when Chilliwack Councillor Sam Waddington, who ably leads the nature and wilderness cause locally today, was still a toddler. We knew him then! Ours was a message that much of the community was not yet ready to receive, but some were very happy to hear it.

Then we moved to a cottage in the country and started our family. Once baby number three arrived we felt the need to expand — his bedroom was a Harry Potteresque cupboard for three years — and we supersized our house in an ambitious renovation. Two dogs and ten cats later, here we happily remain.

Fast forward 25 years — slightly more than half my life — and I’m in roughly the same department (renamed to Community Relations, then Community Relations and Development, then Community Relations again, then Marketing and Communications, and then University Relations), in a similar job (renamed to media and publications coordinator and then media and communications manager). I’m on my fourth-and-a-half boss (had one acting one for a couple of stints). I’m proud to say I hand-picked two of them! I’ve served three presidents.

My department has gone from 4.5 members to more than 25 at full complement (now including alumni and advancement, web team, recruiters, graphic designers, and other specialties that didn’t exist in 1990). The university has more than tripled in size.

But let’s go back to that December morning when I drove my Volkswagen Rabbit (25 years later we still have a VW) through the grey Fraser Valley and pulled up to the “old motel” building on the Chilliwack campus on Yale Road. I got lost along the way because I took the Yale Road exit out by Greendale, figuring that that would be close to the campus because… Yale Road. Of course now I know that Yale Road is one of B.C.’s oldest roads, with remnants extending from New Westminster to Yale. But I digress. Don’t get me started on trying to figure out Five Corners, or how Yale Road mysteriously turns into Vedder Road.

I had been interviewed at the Abbotsford campus (by the legendary Barry Bompas among others, who jokingly advocated for hiring me because I would bring the average age down) and didn’t even see the Chilliwack one before I took the job. I received the job offer the moment I arrived home in Burnaby. No weeks-long reference checking or second interviews back then! Just: Hire that gal! The Abbotsford campus at that time was smaller than my high school, and the Chilliwack campus, consisting of the “old motel” and the Ag building, was smaller than my junior high.

As I entered the “motel” and smelled the must and mould and felt the echoing floorboards of a “temporary” building under my feet and the rain drops dripping into my office, I wondered what I’d got myself into. I was assured that this Building A was only temporary, only designed to last five years, and that we’d be moving to a new building soon. I ended up planning my new office in that imaginary new building three times before we moved across town, twice on the old campus and once for the new one at Canada Education Park 22 years after I started. The “temporary” building was in use for 37 years in total. It was called the motel because the plan was to convert it to a motel after our brief tenancy, but that never happened.

As I’ve said, it was a grey day, and the clouds didn’t clear for several days. Once they did, I discovered what a beautiful, mountain-ringed, blue sky paradise I’d brought myself to.

I was taken in sight unseen as a basement tenant by a kindly chemistry instructor and her daughter, who became good friends of mine, and my love affair with the friendly and welcoming community of Chilliwack began. I met friends in the first few months who ended up being dear lifelong companions. Most of them were at least 20 years older than me (there weren’t many FVC employees under 40 then) and were a little bit maternal in their outlook toward me. That was okay — I needed all the mothering I could get as I launched into adult life. 

The front desk receptionist was a little gruff to me when I presented myself, but today she is a grandmother figure to my children known for her effusiveness and joie de vivre. A colleague in marketing who was described by my boss as a “bit of a hippie” greeted me with a deep hug and said “we’ve been waiting for you!” She eventually served as birth coach for two of my children. That chemistry instructor? I helped her make a match with the continuing education coordinator and they’ve been a couple for 20 years! I also ended up match-making a mature student who led the university-college lobbying campaign with my high school friend and today they are happily married have two kids together.

Now most of these friends are now in their 60s and 70s and we start our dinner parties early so they can get home to bed. I am older than some of them were when I met them. We’ve added many friends along the way as we met people through our kids and our activities, but these folks remain the core of our concentric circles of wonderful friends.

We had a small but jubilant celebration at my boss’s house in the hills of Ryder Lake on the night we received university-college status. It ended up being a sleepover for all involved (I staked out Grandpa’s guestroom in the basement early).

“This is going to be a very interesting place to work,” I thought to myself as I drove down the winding country roads to the flats of Chilliwack early the next morning

There were new programs to promote, a university-college culture to foster, students and employees to recruit, buildings to open, and stories galore to tell, as I took on the mission of sharing the ongoing narrative of what had been FVC and would ultimately become UFV with our communities.

As I became an official chronicler of the university-college and eventually the university, I listened carefully to my elders, absorbing their tales of what it had been like to work and study here in the college’s first decade and a half, of what their experiences in helping to create a college from scratch, a special college known for its “get it done” attitude.

For the record (and now for some lists):

Of course nobody works alone. So when I say “I” there was usually some “we” involved. But a gal deserves a little credit...

Things I pioneered and/or advocated and/or worked on collaboratively within the marketing and communications function at FVC/UCFV/UFV:

• Editorial style guide based on CP style, slightly modified for academic culture
• Professional copy editing of academic calendar and continuing education booklet
• Use of fax machine to send news releases instead of hand delivery by courier (!!!)
• Professional desktop publishing program (we used the very clunky Ventura when I arrived, eventually succeeded in getting us Quark Xpress before we moved on to InDesign)
• Adobe Creative Suite (I said we could do our own ads better if we only had Photoshop and Illustrator!)
• Graphic standards manual (had to lay it out myself using the very clunky Ventura)
• Use of email to distribute news releases and other material once it was extended to all employees instead of just senior admin
• First UCFV website (started planning what was called a ‘gopher’ — google it — and it grew from there)
• Use of scanner for photography
• Digital photography
• Online version of employee newsletter
• Flickr photo management social media
• Facebook (I remember showing it to Kim Lawrence in 2006 and watching her jaw drop)
• Twitter (I first tweeted back in 2007)
• In-house graphic designer
• In-house photographer

 Things I named and/or founded (in collaboration with colleagues) 

• Aluminations alumni newsletter
• UFV Today enews
• Skookum magazine
• Several slogans. My favourite was Get There with UCFV.

Programs I helped market and launch, in collaboration with departmental clients

• Bachelor of Arts
• BA in Criminal Justice
• Bachelor of Business Administration
• BBA Aviation
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of CIS
• Bachelor of Social Work
• BA in Adult Ed
• Bachelor of Science in Nursing
• Bachelor of Kinesiology (and all previous kinesiology programs)
• Bachelor of Global Studies
• Various Agriculture credentials.

Programs I helped rebrand and re-launch

• Office Careers to Applied Business Technology
• Graphic Design to Graphic and Digital Design (after a 10-year hiatus)

Initiatives I helped market and launch, again in collaboration with clients:

• Summer semester
• UFV Online
• Choose Chilliwack campaign
• Can Learn initiative (Now you can learn anywhere!)
• Aboriginal Resource Centre
• Institutional Learning Objectives
• Indigenizing the Academy

Major campaigns I poured heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into
(some of which took years to come to fruition)

• University College campaign
• Future Now fundraising campaign (1994 to 1997)
• Centre for Indo-Canadian Studies fundraising campaign (2003 to 2005)
• Securing Canada Forces Base land for Chilliwack campus campaign (2003 to 2007)
• University campaign (2000 to 2008)
• Launch of the “new U” (2008 to present)
• 40th anniversary campaign (and 20th, and 25th... we basically ignored 30th and 35th) 

Buildings and facilities whose launch I promoted and publicized

• Health Sciences Centre, Chilliwack (on the same day I found my birth mother… but that’s a whole other story) — 1992
• Building E, Abbotsford (bet you didn’t know there was a Building E! It’s the wing with the Roadrunner café in it, eventually absorbed into Building A, which itself used to be known as Building B) — 1991
• Peter Jones Learning Commons, Abbotsford (aka the library or Building G) — 1995
• Building D and E, Chilliwack, including new theatre (at least it was new back in 1995)
• New childcare centres in Abbotsford and Chilliwack (opened in mid-90s, closed in 2003 when I was eight months pregnant – darn the timing on that! Abby one is now U-House)
• Mission campus at Heritage Park Centre — 1996
• Building D, Abbotsford (that maze is almost 20 years old and I still get lost in it) — 1997
• Envision Athletic Centre, Abbotsford (two phases) — 2002 and 2006
• Baker House, Abbotsford — 2006
• Trades and Technology Centre at Canada Education Park — 2008
• Chilliwack campus at Canada Education Park — 2012
• Agriculture Centre of Excellence — 2014
• Student Union Building, Abbotsford — 2015
• Several versions of the Hope Centre — various years.

Union benefits we enjoy today that were suggested by me

• Special leave days for when you're not sick, but your dependant is
• Maternity leave top up by the employer
• Bonus days off on your milestone anniversary years
• Free tuition for dependants if course is not full.  

Then there were ALL those Convocations, guest lectures, president and chancellor installations, honorary degree recipients, and countless profiles and special publications. All a pleasure to work on.

As the main internal communications person for the entire 25 years I’ve done countless new employee profiles. I’ve seen new people come, contribute to the growth of UFV for 20 years and retire, all while I’m still thinking of them as one of the “new” people. I’ve seen people start as clerks and technicians and end up in senior administration.

I’ve suffered along with the rest of us with several rounds of budget cuts and the layoffs and bumping that come with them, although was lucky to never be touched directly. I’ve celebrated the growth years when dozens of new folks joined us at once.

I’ve run birth announcements and then watched the kids grow up and become our students, including my own daughter! I’ve seen students become alumni and count several among my friends. I have sat on more than 20 hiring committees including some key ones for my University Relations colleagues (you’re welcome).

I’ve run more obituaries than I care to count, including four in the past year and two in the past month. (Oops, can’t help counting.)

I’ve worked with more than 40 different colleagues in my own department over the years. The retirement dinners are becoming surreal to me as so many layers of FVC/UCFV/UFV employees gather in one place and time. I’ve aged in place and watched in amazement as my colleagues aged along with me. I’ve had my own family crises of serious ongoing illness and death, and dear colleagues and friends who comforted me in these tough times.

In short, I think I found the perfect match for a long and satisfying career and the perfect home for me and my family. Along with all my colleagues, I have helped build a university from scratch, while retaining our community roots. I’m glad to be here and will continue to be so.

 






 



 

 



Thanks to all for a fun first 25!