BCIT President Don Wright about to announce his resignation for a potential position with the BC NDP.
President Don Wright announced his resignation on February 13 in a formal address. While the BCIT president was visibly emotional, he was optimistic about the road ahead with the provincial branch of the New Democratic Party (BC NDP).
“Adrian Dix has offered me the position of head of the civil service over in Victoria if his party wins the election in May,” Wright announced to a crowd of BCIT staff and students, “and I have accepted that offer.”
Wright communicated his support for Adrian Dix and the BC NDP to listeners, noting he is not partisan but expressing his own personal philosophy.
“I believe Adrian Dix’s agenda is … a natural extension of what the mission of what this institution is,” said Wright, “which is to promote the prosperity of BC by providing people with the tools to be productive, to have rewarding careers and to make a meaningful contribution to the wealth of our society.”
Wright’s last effective day as president of BCIT will be February 26, at which time Chris Golding, the current vice president for institute planning, will step in as acting-president.
Golding told The Link that he feels he will be a good person to fill in during the search for a new president because he doesn’t intend to ever take on that role on a permanent basis.
“It’s probably best that you have somebody who’s acting that doesn’t plan on applying for the job because it can often appear to be you have a head start of everyone else,” said Golding.
“I’ve known for a few weeks now,” Golding said, “and we’ve been just trying to make sure that everybody got informed at the right time.”
Kathy Corrigan, the MLA for Burnaby Deer-Lake with the BC NDP, said that Wright was selected based on his credibility in the private and public sectors and his time at BCIT is synonymous with the NDP’s prioritization of post-secondary education in BC.
“It certainly dovetails nicely with the emphasis that we have put in recognizing how important post-secondary education is, trades and training and universities absolutely critical to the future of this province,” explained Corrigan.
Although enthusiastic about his new potential role with the BC NDP, Wright was emotional when announcing his resignation and reflecting on his five years as BCIT’s president.
“I think when it comes time for me to finally retire, I’m going to look back at these five years as the best five years of my career,” said Wright. [pullquote]“I think when it comes time for me to finally retire, I’m going to look back at these five years as the best five years of my career.”[/pullquote]
According to Corrigan, Wright’s role with the NDP, if elected in May, would be instrumental in transition planning.
“It’s prudent of you to plan for being in government and that’s not second-guessing what the people of BC are going to do by any means,” Corrigan told The Link. “What it does mean is that you need to have a plan in place and that’s called transition planning.”
In his public announcement to BCIT staff and students, Wright said his reason for accepting is two-fold.
“I need to spend the next period of time preparing for my new position,” said Wright.
“Second, I didn’t want BCIT in any way to be affected by perception of conflict from my current position to the one that I may be going to.”
Wright said that if the NDP were elected in May, a higher investment into post-secondary education is likely.
“If the government does change in the spring time, I think you’ll find that there’s a government that places a higher value on BCIT than has been the case over the last little while,” said Wright. [hr]
Neetu was born and raised in the Okanagan Valley (minus the few toddler years she spent living in Punjab, India where her line of heritage is from). She moved to the lower mainland to attend BCIT and is now in her graduating year of the Broadcast and Online Journalism Program. Her writing and editing for Link magazine often happens late at night because when she’s not at school she works as a reporter and anchor for CKNW Newstalk 980 and is also involved in the start up of a charity called the Beautiful World Foundation. She loves to travel and feels fortunate to be in a field where she can share the stories of interesting and inspiring people from around the world.
