In August 2015, as CAFCE President (CAFCE was the forerunner to CEWIL Canada) I represented Canada at board meetings of the World Co-op Association during its biannual conference which was held that year in Kyoto, Japan. After the conference I travelled as part of a delegation of Canadian schools that make up the consortium for the Canada Japan Co-op Program (CJCP), meeting with co-op students from across Canada who were doing work terms in Japan at that time. CJCP is a really unique consortium-based international co-op program which started in 1991 and has sent over 1200 Canadian PSE students to Japan since then. It was headquartered at UVIC until 2005 when its office moved to UBC.
In 2017 I had the opportunity to become co-Director for CJCP, working with its other Co-Director, Sara Buse, and its Manager, Yuko Nemoto. Since then I’ve learned a lot more about the needs of Japanese industry and the ways Canadian co-op students can contribute. To date the Program has largely served students from STEM disciplines; in 2019, with funding from the BC Ministry of Advanced Education’s Work Integrated Learning Initiative, we started to explore the potential to build out a non-STEM stream in the Program so more students have access to these incredible experiences. We hope to launch this initiative once international learning programs can resume, when the pandemic improves. We’ve worked in close partnership with the Canadian Embassy in Japan and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and building relationships with staff in these organizations has been a wonderful opportunity. At the heart of developing international experiences for our students are strong relationships with individual partners abroad. I’ve learned not to underestimate the power of individual connections and the value in taking time to find shared goals.
What were the deliverables or outcomes of the experience?
Since those early days of the UBC Arts co-op program in 1999, a few hundred students have completed co-op terms abroad, and I’ve had the pleasure to work with many of them and their employers directly. The Canada Japan Co-op Program sends about 50-70 Canadian students to Japan each year, and I’ve appreciated working with co-op students from non-Arts disciplines as I supported their experiences through this Program. A highlight for me is participating in the Pre-Departure Training Week for CJCP that’s hosted at UBC each May; the students going to Japan from across Canada come to UBC for the training, which is led by 2 CJCP alumni with co-op employers and other partners participating. Hearing from the alumni about their experiences in Japan is always fun and inspiring. And seeing the anticipation on the faces of the cohort of students getting ready to head to Japan is fantastic.
What was the biggest take-away from your experience?