Current Students

In October, Vancouver Island University shared its plan to manage a $20.2-million deficit for the 2023-24 academic year. It lays out how VIU will return to a balanced budget in three years.

We sat down with VIU’s Provost, Dr. Mike Quinn, who oversees all academic programming at VIU to ask him about VIU’s deficit and what impact it will have on your programs and courses. 

As temperatures get colder, VIU’s Health and Safety Services team has some tips to keep you on your feet. Snow and ice can present a greater risk of slipping and falling. Here are some best practices:

As a student, you are probably juggling many classes, jobs and activities. When mid-term time rolls around, stress levels can reach a peak. The best solution is to do more with the time you have, not try to make more by skipping on sleep.

Emma Peterson and Lizzy Schafers visited remote BC parks this summer to count and catalogue plants. Their work was part of a biodiversity survey research project overseen by Dr. Jasmine Janes, a VIU Biology Professor.

The summer research experience allowed both students to gain hands-on skills outside a classroom setting. For Lizzy, a Bachelor of Science student majoring in Biology, the experience reinforced her plans to go to grad school and study botany. 

A new collection of academic essays published by VIU’s Liberal Studies program examines issues of morality, love and death. 

The Compass Rose: Explorations in Thought is an online collection of essays written by undergrad students at VIU and at other institutions. 

It’s a joint project between the Liberal Studies Department and the Alexandro Malaspina Research Centre. The goal is to help students gain real-world work experience that relates to what they learn in class.

The semester is ramping up and mid-terms are in full swing for many. Are you making your mental health a priority?

Now that we’re well into the term and back into the study routine, I wanted to take a moment to talk about mental health. While this time is exciting and busy, it can also get overwhelming and stressful. Balancing school with work, extra-curricular activities, a social life and other commitments is not easy. In honour of World Mental Health Day (October 10) and World Mental Health Month, I’m here to remind you to take some time for yourself.

If you’ve moved into new rental housing this fall, chances are everything is working out fine. For some of us, however, the maintenance and condition of the property may be becoming an issue. Household pests could also be, well, a pest. A recent Academica survey reveals that 8 per cent of student renters were dissatisfied with property maintenance and 6 per cent complained of cleanliness or pest-related issues.

I spent three months in Bali this summer interning with a non-profit organization called Yayasan Peduli Kemannusian (YPK). It’s an organization that focuses on helping people with disabilities become more independent through physical rehabilitation. Located in the city of Denpasar, YPK also offers a mobile clinic program to assist clients that live in rural areas.

I arrived in Nelson, New Zealand at the end of June, eager and excited for my internship to begin at the Brook Waimarama Ecosanctuary. For the first time, I was combining my passions for community development and the Earth. When I was searching for internship placements, stumbling upon “the Brook” was a complete accident. I now know I couldn’t have picked a better placement for what I was hoping to both give and get out of this internship.

About the Brook

To understand what the Brook is all about, you first need to understand a bit about the ecology of New Zealand.