Adult Literacy and English as a Second LanguageCollege of New Caledonia Prince George, British Columbia

The main campus of the College of New Caledonia (CNC) is situated in Prince George, British Columbia, a city of 75,000. The Prince George economy relies heavily on the forest industry, with three pulp and paper companies providing the main employment in the region.

There are regional campuses of the College of New Caledonia located in Vanderhoof, Burns Lake, Quesnel, and McKenzie with approximately 1,000 students. The Prince George campus has 3,000 students. The student body is made up of adults from 18 to seniors, with the majority aged 19 to 35.

CNC has a division of Adult Basic Education with 285 full-time and 300 part-time students working at academic upgrading to high school graduation as well as GED. The English as a Second Language program offers beginner, intermediate, and advanced classes. CNC also offers trades, business, and university transfer programs, with the majority of students on the main campus enrolled in university transfer courses.

There is a Status of Women Committee at the Prince George Campus of CNC that includes faculty, administration, and support staff.

Involvement in the CCLOW research project

As members of the national Feminist Literacy Workers Network, Paula Davies and Mary Ann Tierney received information about the research and the report in a mail-out. They became interested in participating after reading Discovering the strength of our voices. Mary Ann works full-time in the English as a Second Language department at CNC and Paula works half-time as the coordinator of a one-on-one volunteer literacy tutoring program, also located at CNC. They have worked together in the past.

" Maybe a literacy classroom is not the place for feminist activity as we came to define it during this research project. But maybe it is the place for a woman-positive approach: an approach that supports women where they are, challenges them with new ideas about their lives and experiences. At this stage in our development as feminist literacy workers we are comfortable taking a woman-positive approach in the classroom. Our hesitancy to act feminist does not stem from lack of belief in feminist philosophy but rather from our inability to present these ideas in ways that are meaningful to our students. However, we view ourselves as at a stage in a process that will eventually help us develop the skills necessary to bring a pro-active feminist perspective to our classroom practice.

Paula Davies and Mary Ann Tierney, "More than semantics"