The 50-year man: Alan Cameron marks five decades of teaching at UFV

When 29-year-old Dr. Alan Cameron zoomed over the Port Mann bridge in his Porsche to begin teaching at the year-old Fraser Valley College in September 1975, he had no idea that he would go on to become its longest-serving faculty member.

Fifty years later, he’s back in the classroom after a year’s sabbatical, and looking forward to teaching French and Russian to the latest generation of Fraser Valley students and being the most senior member of the Modern Languages (MOLA) department.

And lest you suspect that this near-octogenarian took it easy during his sabbatical, guess again: he completed a 380-page textbook on teaching linguistics in French and sent it to the publishers during his break from the classroom.

Dr. Alan Cameron welcomed students at UFV’s Day One event, but for him it was (roughly) Day 18,262.

Five decades. Two sets of children. A dozen sports cars. Several generations of students. Colleagues who weren’t born when he started here. You can measure his time at UFV in many ways, but the most significant factors were the two bouts of cancer he survived, in 2007 and 2011.

“I endured 35 brutal radiation treatments during my second cancer. Lying there strapped into a machine during treatment number 29 or so, I thought to myself: ‘there is a good chance you’re going to croak’; then I asked myself what I would do if I survived.

“I was very weak, but I knew I had to fight and endure the treatments for the sake of my wife and kids, and every fibre of my being forced myself to complete those treatments. But I also decided that I was not going to let the cancer define me. If I survived, I was going to continue to do what I love to do, and teaching was at the core of that. Working and engaging in teaching always gave me a sense of purpose.”

Alan Cameron teaching on the Chilliwack campus in the early 1980s.

Alan has been with UFV for all its eras, missing only its inaugural year. He went for his job interview in an office above a doughnut shop in Clearbrook, had his first office above a nightclub in Chilliwack, and initially taught in church basements, before moving into the original Chilliwack campus on Yale Road when it opened in late 1975.

Alan is known for his love of sports cars and fast driving; back in the ’80s, he used to see how quickly he could get from his Cultus Lake home to the Chilliwack campus in his Porsche, and claims to hold the record for driving between the Chilliwack and Abbotsford campuses: 11 and a half minutes!

“You certainly could never do that today,” he notes.

Alan was part of the first generation of faculty, helping to define the culture of what was Fraser Valley College and is now UFV. He was among 25 full-time faculty members when he started in 1975, along with long-retired legends such as Graham Dowden, Peter Slade, Rory Wallace, Scott Fast, Paul Herman, Astrid Stec, and others who have passed away, including Dave Wyatt, Kevin Busswood, Mircho and Janina Jakobow, Jocelyn Creigh, and Jack Gaston.

“We really were pioneers. We didn’t always agree on everything, but we had a great deal of respect for what we were trying to build. We were at the start of something exciting. The faculty members who were hired were all chosen for their engaging personalities and genuine concern for students. It helps to be a bit of an extrovert, and you have to be compassionate if you’re going to teach.”

Alan Cameron (seated in front) with the Fraser Valley College Blues softball team,comprised of faculty and staff.

There was also a real sense of community. People had moved from places all over Canada and countries around the world to work at the new college and they formed lasting bonds, epitomized by picnics, pub nights, and the Fraser Valley Blues employee softball team.

“We even had a Fraser Valley College hockey team in the 1980s,” he recalls.

Alan later helped with the transition from a two-year community college to a four-year institution, sitting on the Access committee, which lobbied successfully for university-college status in 1991, allowing for the establishment of third- and fourth-year courses and paving the way for regional university status in 2008.

His most rewarding moments have been when he sees his former students thriving in the community.

“When I took my son to French Immersion kindergarten and found out that his teacher was one of my former students, that made me feel really good. Those MOLA alumni are making a difference throughout our community.”

Alan has always believed in promoting bilingualism and learning languages in order to promote understanding, even during the decades when there was a lot of anti-French sentiment in Western Canada or when Quebec was on the brink of separation. He arranged cultural exchanges and study tours to Quebec and France.

“Languages teach us so much about people. I tell my students that going to someone else’s linguistic space shows that you are making a real effort to know them.”

And he practises what he preaches. Alan is enrolled in second-year Halq’eméylem this semester, learning the language of the Stó:lō people, adding it as a twelfth language that he speaks or has studied.

“Learning a new language is certainly harder at age 79 than it was in my twenties. I might have learned 25 words in an hour back then, and now it takes me all day. But as a linguist, it’s the best way for me to show respect and I’m going to continue with Hal’q’eméylem for as long as I can. I’m learning a lot”

He has seen a lot of change during his five decades of teaching.

“It’s been amazing and bewildering to see the amount of change, especially in technology. Information that I would have had to search for hours for in the stacks at UBC during my doctoral studies is now available within a few taps on a keyboard. But the core of my work is still individual interaction with students in a classroom setting.”

He’s often asked if he ever plans to retire. His answer? He’ll go when the students let him know it’s time.

Alan with his wife Melissa and family at the Welcome Back Barbecue in 2017.

“I always ask my students at the end of the semester if I’ve still ‘got it’ and so far, the answer has been an enthusiastic yes. I still owe UFV two years of service after sabbatical and I’ll take it semester by semester after that. I still have lots of energy and I’m always pumped up in August when the fall semester is approaching and I’m getting back in the classroom.”

Alan Cameron on campus in 2020.

Alan Cameron at UFV over the years

Newspaper articles featuring Alan Cameron