Brian Storey
“…[I]n that nine years when I was chair, we [the faculty] had overseen the GDPE, the BPEC development, put three streams in [the BPEC program], developed a second lab upstairs, rearranged the classroom spaces…It was very much a growth time.”
brian storey
Creating the Graduate Diploma
Brian was hired as a SPSC faculty member in 2004. In the same year, he became the driving force behind a new diploma that would be introduced just a year later: the Graduate Diploma in Physical Education (GDPE).*
When Brian arrived in 2004, the SPSC department was noticing an emerging concern in sport education: teachers in the K – 12 school system did not have enough background in physical education, and often did not know what to do to help their students learn physical literacy. Being a new faculty member that had just come from the elementary school system, Brian decided take up the task of finding a solution.
“…I said: ‘Why don’t we create a graduate program for them [the teachers]?’”
brian, on how he suggested creating the Gdpe
And so, Brian became the development coordinator for the GDPE; under his lead, the Diploma was established in the following year of 2005.
Read more about the GDPE here.
*Now called the Graduate Diploma in Physical and Health Education.
Coordinating the BPEC Degree
In the same year the GDPE was introduced, the SPSC department began buzzing with plans for the development of the BPEC program – one of the first four-year degrees to be offered at Douglas College. During the development process, Brian worked as the BPEC program’s development coordinator from 2005 to 2006; he worked closely with Ken (who took on Brian’s role in late 2006), along with the rest of the SPSC faculty, to bring the program to fruition.
Apart from overseeing the degree’s overall development, Brian also focused on specific sections – such as developing Fieldwork along with Tim and Kathryn. In particular, the group sought to incorporate emotional intelligence training into Fieldwork curriculum. As emotional intelligence underpins notions of personal and social responsibility (which are essential in mentorship roles like coaching and teaching), it was important that students learned and understood the concept.
Read more about the development of the BPEC program here.
Brian became the third chair of the SPSC department in 2008.
“I think, if you look at it from eras – like if there were eras of different chairs – my era was the growth era. We went from…[about] six faculty [members] when I started to seventeen faculty [members] when I handed the department over to Lara Duke. And in that nine years when I was Chair, we [the faculty] had overseen the GDPE, the BPEC development, put three streams in [the BPEC program], developed a second lab upstairs, rearranged the classroom spaces…It was very much a growth time.”
Brian, reflecting on his time as chair
Switzerland Field School
In his later years with the SPSC department, Brian also acted as the program lead for the Switzerland Field School.
The field school is a summer exchange program that allows SPSC students to travel to the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen (SFISM) to complete SPSC credits and participate in intercultural learning. The program has occurred every other year since 2013 (with the exception of 2021, due to COVID-19), with Brian overseeing and going on all of the exchanges.
Read more about the Field School here.
Brian left the SPSC department in 2019. He currently works as the Director of Global Engagement & Int’l Student Services at Douglas College.
“Ultimately, we grew…into a four-year graduate level program from the time I started to the time I left, and I think that was reflected in the faculty that were hired. [They] were often very accomplished – maybe researchers or writers already, strong academics – but also mixed with [the] strong history and strong practitioners [that already made up the SPSC faculty]. So, really, the program matured as an undergraduate program instead of a transfer program.”
– Brian, on the growth of the SPSC program
Sport Science: A Trek Through Time 