Become a Board Member

FSA members have the opportunity to vote for a candidate to represent their interests on the FSA Board of Directors for the remainder of a 2019-21 term which was vacated by Silvia Raschke who was appointed by the board as Vice President earlier this year to replace Vnit Nath.

Voting is open Noon, November 4 until Noon, November 15, 2019.

Nominations were accepted from Oct 2nd until Oct 16th for one (1) Director-at-Large position. There are two candidates for the position.

• You can hear from the candidates at the All-Candidates Meeting which will take place as part of the FSA Annual General Meeting on October 23rd.
• Please take the time to read over the candidate statements (below)
• Vote starting on Nov 4th until Nov 15th!
• Electronic voting information will be sent directly to members on Nov 4th
• If you do not receive your voting instructions please let us know. Voting will be managed by a 3rd party (Simply Voting).

To see the full election timeline for 2019 please click here.

We also encourage members to review our vision, mission, values, and key priorities when considering their selections. Questions can be directed to the FSA or to the Chief Returning Officer, William Oching.

Candidate statements below are those of the individual candidates and do not represent official positions of the FSA.

Candidates: Directors-at-Large

Two (2) candidates for one (1) position.

Please take the time to read both statements in preparation for voting.

Colin Jones

Hello colleagues,

I am excited to put my name forward to serve as an FSA Director-at-Large. Though I have worked in IT Services for 22 years and taught in part-time studies for most the that time, as your Chief Negotiator for this round of bargaining, I have been more involved in our association than ever before. This unexpected privilege has given me a unique perspective on our union, and the opportunities and challenges we face.

I sat on the FSA Executive as a Director for the first time in 2009, which marked the beginning of my formal involvement in the FSA. Over the years, I have learned a lot about how the FSA works. I have also learned a lot about how BCIT works – and doesn’t work. FSA Board Members have an opportunity- and responsibility – to bring forward issues identified by our members, and work with BCIT to see improvements.

I was appointed to our Collective Agreement Committee and, subsequently, to our Bargaining Team for both the 2010 and 2014 rounds of negotiations. While bargaining with BCIT over the past 3 rounds, I have learned how very far the needs of our members and students can fall from the demands of BCIT’s administration. The longstanding tenets of academic freedom and shared governance are the cornerstones on which BCIT was established. The need to continually defend these, alongside departmental and member rights, is paramount to our union.

BCIT has spent the last few years focused on employee engagement, telling us how disengaged we are. I don’t believe that. Our members are very engaged. We simply disagree with the actions of BCIT leadership. I want to find opportunities for BCIT and the FSA to communicate more, not less, and work together to solve the complex problems we face – to tackle them as partners, not adversaries.

If elected by our members, I will amplify your voices, advocating for the improvements required to do our jobs even better.

Glenn Pellegrin

I have been a faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology department for over 30 years. My primary expertise and teaching has been in the field of Automation and Instrumentation but I have taught service courses to other programs as well as first year courses with up to 160 students. I have been Program Head at two separate times totalling over 10 years and spent a short time in management as the Associate Dean for Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology.

I have been an FSA representative on the joint management-FSA Performance Development System committee and serve on the Instructional Development Committee.

I believe there are very important issues facing BCIT and the FSA. As a polytechnic institute, we have a very unique and lucrative niche in post-secondary education. BCIT has been successful for its job-ready graduates and we are seeing other post-secondary colleges and universities recognizing the industry’s need for these types of graduates. At the same time, we are having great difficulty attracting qualified, field-experienced and practical professionals to teach in our programs. My goal is to bring forward the issues and concerns of FSA members in BCIT’s engineering programs.