I thought I’d springboard to a new topic inspired by a post from Tracey Martinsen in Ideas on the Call for Change:

Tracey Martinsen - 20 May 2008 12:00 PM

(1b) Or we could ask a liaison with Douglas College and SFU to recommend a topic that they could then use as content in their courses—that could really raise our profile.

(2) I think the senior writers will see their main value in the forum, as many of us have such specialized interests that standard programming is hard to produce. Most days what I do is hard to explain to myself, never mind trying to package it in a format that is also relevant to others! But it would be great to be able to call on the experience of my peers and tech writing colleagues as I try to brainstorm new approaches to old problems. I will look for some thorny issues to post on the forum as examples of what I mean, and to encourage others.

There are several colleges that offer Technical Communications courses. Theresa compiled emails from Paul Tyson, Erin Lemky and myself into a Coast Lines article reviewing the local classroom programs. At a contractor’s meeting two years ago had the pleasure of meeting another senior member who teaches through Malaspina College’s online program. The Coast Lines article speaks of the main reasons I chose BCIT over the other local programs. One thing I forgot to highlight is that the BCIT program is overseen by an advisory board of senior technical writers, with the goal of the program is to provide students with an understanding of the variety of tools and tasks they’ll be hit with on the job.

Our chapter should get more involved with the different schools, and participate on advisory boards if they have them. Some members already teach courses at the schools, and kudos goes to you. However, there may be even more concepts, tasks, and tools that we use on a day-to-day basis that are difficult to learn on the job, but fundamental in our ability to perform our work.

Let the comments fly!

Just a note - I had tried to make connections at a certain school in town, but received little encouragement from the school. I think I was trying to promote a student event, instead of doing the Julia Broderick scholarship, I thought we could do a student event with all the tech writing programs in town. I sent emails to SFU, BCIT, UBC, Douglas College. I only got a positive response from Douglas College and from another school was told that the idea was interesting but they were unwilling to commit resources.

The STC chapter has approached schools, tried to promote event at these schools, posted a scholarship, and received very little response. Douglas College is a great example of how the chapter and a school can be involved together. This school, in fact, had the only two submissions this year for the scholarship!

Hi Theresa and Tony,

Hi, it’s Maureen at Douglas College. That’s a depressing response you’re describing, Theresa. The Broderick Scholarship is important for our school, and it brings the STC to our students’ attention. Not sure what to recommend, but I have some ideas brewing.

One thing we have coming up in the fall is our conference, Writing Matters, which is shaping up to be an annual event. I’ll get in touch with STC later this summer to see if you’d be able to send a delegate to talk about the association. We also have lots of grads who have maintained some contact with STC over the years, and they’ll be asked if they’d like to present.

Sincerely,

Maureen Nicholson
Coordinator, Print Futures: Professional Writing

I wouldn’t use the scholarship participation as a benchmark to assess how well STC engages with the academic institutions in the area. Historically, scholarship participation has been low. I think if you were to compare our results with scholarship participation in general, you’d find similar participation ratios. This past year, I know that organizers from another institution went out of their way to advertise and provide scholarship packages to students—the students from that institution just didn’t apply by the deadline.

In the past, there has been engagement with SFU to organize a mini conference. The stumbling blocks include having clear direction and being able to commit resources (generally, people) to organize and facilitate such an event. At that time the chapter had many projects on the go—so it just wasn’t feasible to pursue that.

The chapter has drawn speakers from various institutions in the past and I see no reason why it shouldn’t continue to do so.  I think the key is to be very specific about the topic. It seems to me that there could be a great synergy between our chapter and institutions/students.

Tamara Chapman

Are there plans to publish reviews of other local institutions in Coastlines?

See the institution list.

Tamara Chapman

Tamara Chapman - 30 June 2008 03:53 PM

Are there plans to publish reviews of other local institutions in Coastlines?

That’s a good idea. You should contact our newsletter webitor. Oh, wait a second. I am HE!