THE INFORMER PAGE 7

MAY 27, 1992

Westcoast Reader wins Increased Support

Thanks to a grant from the Ministry of Advanced Education,
Training and Technology, and some help from the Education
Ministry and help from The Vancouver Sun, The Westcoast
Reader will continue to offer ESL and literacy students a
window on the news.

“Tt (the grant) allows us to offer The Reader as a valuable
teaching resource to ESL students all over the province, both in
K-12 and in the colleges,” said Greg Lee, Vice-President,
Career/Vocational.

The 10-times yearly newspaper, established in 1981, serves
as a “bridge between being able to read only a few words to
being able to read a regular newspaper,” said Joan Acosta, editor
and ESL instructor at Cap.

The paper takes stories from The Vancouver Sun and The
Province and simplifies them at three levels of readability,
providing entry points to reading for a variety of learners.

Joan became editor in 1982. The next year the publication
moved from Douglas College to Capilano.

The Westcoast Reader has won a number of national and
international awards, including a citation from U.S. President
Ronald Reagan and a Leader of Reader award, presented to Joan

in Washington D.C., where she also met then vice-president
George Bush.

With readership now at 100,000, The Reader has become
the fifth most read newspaper in the province, having branched
into many programs with learners with low reading skills.

The main problem the paper faced throughout the years was
that its funding was getting tighter and tighter, said ESL
Coordinator Nick Collins.

The recent grant announcement “seems to be a win, win,
win,” Nick said.

In addition to getting funding, The Westcoast Reader has
received a commitment from The Vancouver Sun to print the
paper for free.

It is now certain the paper will continue for at least another
year, and it will probably expand, said Greg, who was
instrumental in obtaining the grant.

Said Nick: “The Westcoast Reader has been out there in the
literacy world for a long time, but it was bootstrap and shoelace
stuff. Now Greg’s put it on a good footing. It reflects well on the
College.”

Rapunzel, Rapunzel...

A former Capilano College student has hit it big in the
world, of fiction writing with her first short story collection,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair.

Jancis M. Andrews, according to the Globe and Mail,
“writes with astounding emotional intelligence...She goes
beyond coming-of-age fiction into being-of-age, and shows off
the advantages of adulthood to dazzling effect.”

Andrews, who went on from her studies at the College to
gain a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UBC, recently donated a copy
of Rapunzel, Rapunzel to the College Library.

Andrews says she spent many happy years at Cap, where
she was greatly stimulated by all her instructors. “I am
particularly grateful to Pierre Coupey, who actually was the first
person to make me think that maybe—just maybe—I might
become a writer. Capilano College will always be very special to
me.”

Writers Series

The Media Resources program is one step closer to
producing a Writers Series for radio broadcast, funded in part by
the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation.

With a $1,200 donation from the Koerner Foundation, the

Media Resources program early this year recorded lectures by
four West Coast writers: Judy Radul, Dorothy Livesay, Jeannette
Armstrong and George Bowering.

The program is now seeking additional funding to record
more writers and to produce the entire series for instructional
radio programming. On April 26, the program received
notification from the Department of the Secretary of State that it
would receive a grant for about half of the $40,000 to $50,000
required to complete the project.

Jim Bizzocchi, of the Media Resources faculty, says he has
little doubt the Capilano College Foundation will inspire further
donations that will allow the series to proceed.

“We hope we will have the funding to do it, in place within
another four months,” said Jim.

In addition to the Koerner donation, the original lectures
(organized by English instructor Dorothy Jantzen) received
funding from the Open University Fund and Canada Council.

Cap Review wins mention in
National Magazine Awards

Robert Keziere's photo essay "Untitled Suite,” published in
The Capilano Review, Series II, Number 5, received an
honourable mention in The National Magazine Awards. TCR is
the College's interdisciplinary magazine of the arts. The 20 year
old magazine has won four national magazine awards.