a Langara students walk towards the T Building alongside the college's busy parking lot. w/cHAci su PHOTO Campus parking stalls drivers Other post-secondaries cite car-sharing as helping to alleviate crowding By MICHAEL SU ot finding a parking spot on time has become a common occurrence for some students and staff at Langara College, and they are hoping for an alternative solution like car-sharing. Ruchi Chopra, a Langara IT worker who uses the college’s daycare centre, has to arrive early to secure a parking spot. She said Monday mornings are especially difficult. “So if I get here by nine, some- times I don’t find a parking spot,” Chopra said. Most of the time Chopra will look for parking off-campus, but when- ever she has to drop her child off at the Langara daycare, the campus parking lot is her only option. “The worst experience I had was to drive this around like three times, from here until the back,” Chopra said, “I just went to and from and J wasted like half an hour.” Other schools like BCIT have added a car- sharing program with Evo to their campuses in order to mitigate parking and commuting issues. Evo has participated in past campus events and has reached out to Lang- ara, though no formal partnership talks have been held. Craig Sidjak, director of BCIT campus development, said that the Burnaby campus plan included car- sharing as one of the strategies to MICHAEL SU PHOTO solve issues with transportation and parking for the institute. “The more choices you give to students residing in subur- half an hour.” — RUCHI CHOPRA, LANGARA IT STAFF ban communities to use that type of service to get to the Burnaby campus, that would be very posi- tive,” Sidjak said. However, a downside to car-share services like Evo is that most of their “The worst experience I had was to drive this around like three times ... I wasted like vehicles are concentrated within Vancouver city limits. Dave Wharf, senior business operations manager for Evo, said the car-sharing company is an economical option for students who commute. “Car ownership is extremely expensive,” said Wharf. “So it just adds another option for people to get around.” Schools like UBC, SFU, and Capilano University have agreements with Evo to offer student discounts and reserve parking spots. But Evo has not been able to secure a partner- ship with Langara. “What we’ve been able to do is work with those universities and to say, hey, you know, we can help solve some of your mobility and transpor- tation issues,” Wharf said. According to Mark Dawson, Langara’s manager of public affairs, there has been no negative feedback so far. “We haven't had any complaints about Evo, or lack of parking or ride- share opportunities,” Dawson said. Students like Michuki Sauve have switched to public transportation because of the time it takes to find a parking spot. “You'd be running late for class,” Sauve said. “You need extra time and also paying for parking here at Langara, unless you're finding a spot out on the street, it’s going to be like seven dollars a day.” Sauve has never used a car-share service like Evo before, but lately, it has become an appealing alternative. Workshop tackles soaring student angst Trauma-informed teaching can be used in classrooms By AISHWARYA SINGH new workshop at Lang- ara College aims to help instructors re-evaluate their conduct in the classrooms and acknowledge stress amongst students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alex Boston, philosophy depart- ment chair, was one of several instructors who attended the teach- ing workshop. “I think I gained awareness and [learned] how widespread the causes of trauma are,” he said. “You don’t spring into solv- ing someone’s problem with your awesome advice, you're there to listen to the other person.” The teaching and curriculum development centre hosted the trauma-informed workshop on March 8 for two hours on Zoom with all 24 spots filled. It was designed to help instruc- tors understand the issues students are facing as the pandemic contin- ues to hamper their learning. The goal is to create a warm classroom environment for students where they can thrive. Parisa Zitouni, educational devel- oper at Langara, launched the work- shop as a result of the pandemic related stress she noticed on campus. “They can share their learning philosophies to their students to, you know, bring a more humanised approach to their learning. They can incorporate compassion and enthu- siasm and use positive language,” Zitouni said. Boston said the workshop was a good reminder of what students are going through so instructors can learn to be more lenient and be more available to listen if a student wants to talk or share something. A short video was shown that highlighted the power of sharing. Boston said he was empathetic to the message. “So that resonated with me,” he said. “I think that was a very valu- able lesson.” Magdalena Dachtera Wrobel, a Langara English-for-academic- purposes instructor who didn’t attend the workshop, said she tries to pay attention to her students’ well- being in the classroom. “If students come to the class and they are under a lot of stress then it doesn’t have a good influ- ence on their learning. It’s hard to be academically successful when they are not happy,” Wrobel said. She believes that students are now stressed about different things than they were before the pandemic. “The workshop would be benefi- cial because it would create aware- ness and give instructors some strategies,” she said. “How to improve the classroom environment, and make it safe for students to feel comfortable and share their concerns in a stress free environment.” Melinda Worfolk, an instructor at College of New Caledonia in Prince George, presented an online work- shop on trauma-informed teaching last year. “We are not psychologists or counsellors but we want to help.” She said trauma-informed teach- ing emphasizes the impact of trauma ona person's behaviour and learning. Worfolk said students tend not to share stress because they are afraid instructors will not understand them. As a result, their problems keep getting worse. According to Zitouni, instructors want students to thrive in the class- room and when that doesn’t happen, it also affects the instructors. “We are here to create a more accountable learning space where we can nurture more trust in the class- room,” she said. "Very" or "extremely" concerned about COVID-19's effect on grades. "Very" or "extremely" concerned about having to take on more student debt. Temporarily laid off or lost job. SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA