Langara College president Lane Trotter is moving across the water to take on that role at Camosun College, where he will replace retiring president Sherri Bell.
Trotter officially becomes Camosun’s president and chief executive on Jan. 1 with an initial five-year term.
“Camosun has a well-deserved reputation as a college that transforms the lives of its students,” Trotter said in a statement Wednesday. “I was inspired by the tremendous dedication to students, the applied research, and commitment to supporting the needs of local communities.”
Camosun’s operations are based at its Lansdowne and Interurban campuses. The 50-year-old post-secondary institution serves about 20,000 students every year, offering about 300 programs in six areas of study. Programs include academics and trades training. During the pandemic, students and staff worked together to design and develop safety equipment.
Trotter said post-secondary education has a pivotal role to play in B.C.’s post-pandemic restart, facilitating reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, supporting marginalized communities, and enhancing sustainability.
The new job brings Trotter, who holds a master of public administration from the University of Victoria, back to Vancouver Island. He has a doctorate of education from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.
Bell is retiring as president at the end of December after serving for six years.
At Langara, Trotter’s commitment to enhancing programs and services for Indigenous students earned the college the name snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓, which means house of teachings, from the Musqueam First Nation in 2016, according to a statement from Camosun.
Before Trotter was at Langara, he was senior vice-president for academics at Fanshawe College in London, Ont., where he headed up an initiative to bring in 26 new programs and two new degrees.
Trotter also worked on developing and launching several new campus locations, including the centre for applied transportation technologies, centre for digital and performing arts, and the aviation centre, the statement said.
He served as a dean at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Burnaby.
While at BCIT, he helped develop the education and business plan for its aerospace campus, which opened in 2007.
