Samuel Perez
Pearson College Chapter: Courageous action. Personal example. Selfless leadership.
Words by Jessica Natale Woollard Photos by Aaron Lutsch
Courageous action. Personal example. Selfless leadership.
Through these guiding principles, Pearson College inspires its students to take bold steps in pursuit of peace and justice.
Part of the United World Colleges (UWC) conglomerate, Pearson College is one of 18 institutions on four continents and the only one in Canada. Educational experiences are designed to prepare students to become peaceful changemakers in communities around the world. This year marks the 50th anniversary for Pearson College. Founded in 1974, the college delivers its two-year, pre-university International Baccalaureate curriculum on a 75-acre seaside campus in Metchosin.
At Pearson, like all UWC schools, students and staff are culturally diverse, from different nationalities, backgrounds, worldviews, and experiences. Samuel Perez, an economist from Guatemala, immigrated to Canada in 2007 to teach at Pearson, drawn to the college’s values and approach to education.
“We consider ourselves part of a movement,” he says. “Our mission is to foster peace and understanding amongst different cultures, backgrounds, and peoples. We want to create a sustainable world, bringing people together to learn from each other.”
Perez, like some of the 22 faculty members, lives on the campus. For many, Pearson College is more than an employer; it’s a home.
A few years before the COVID-19 pandemic, the sense of community among the faculty started to erode, Perez recalls. Pearson’s faculty association had long represented teachers, but its voice needed to be strengthened. Post-pandemic, workplace concerns expanded. Questions about wages and the rising cost of living were not being suitably addressed by decision makers; faculty were burning out from the extra pressures placed on them during and after COVID. The association was finding it could no longer negotiate effectively.
“We reached a point at which we needed to have more support,” Perez explains, noting the college had three different heads of school between 2020 and 2024. “We needed to rebuild trust between employees and the leadership. To become a strong community, there was a need for collective action.”
In September 2023, the formal work to join the PEA began. An overwhelming majority of the faculty members signed their union cards.
The employer responded well, Perez notes. “We [the employer and faculty] have the same goal—we want to achieve the college’s mission.”
“Fostering leadership and speaking up for justice is what we strive to teach to our students by personal example,” he says. “Joining the PEA and working together with my colleagues to repair the bridges and rebuild the trust that has deteriorated with our employer is congruent with our ethos.”
As the Pearson chapter heads into bargaining for the first time, Perez hopes the organizing process has revealed to the employer what the faculty always knew: that faculty are the most valuable asset of educational institutions like Pearson.
“We are the ones who, every day, try to instill the college’s values in the students we bring together,” he says.
“My colleagues, they go the extra mile. We are passionate about this school.”
See article in the Professional, Spring 2024
