A reflection upon Dr. Don Glendenning’s passing, Life CVA member

Don and I were colleagues and friends for over five decades. We first met in 1970 when he spoke at Algonquin College in Ottawa about the creation and leadership of Holland College in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Don did not so much deliver speeches as start conversations. In that first encounter he introduced me to competency-based curriculum, to the wider condition of vocational education across Canada, and to the DACUM process as a serious method for designing programmes. He also encouraged me to join the Canadian Vocational Association (CVA-ACFP), which at that time was the only national voice for vocational educators in Canada.

Don was a visionary educator. He sought education change in a variety of innovative ways during his long and distinguished career on Prince Edward Island, across Canada and around the globe.

While Don was active at CVA he was instrumental in developing our policy on supporting individual vocational education “practitioners” in secondary schools, the emerging community colleges, trades schools and union training centres across Canada. Up until his retirement as President of Holland College, he continued to write a column for the CVA Journal, identifying and encouraging best practices in the field, academic research and innovation wherever it emerged. He believed that schools should be primarily about learning and not accreditation. To this end, he and his Holland College staff created a “student warranty” an integral component of the Holland College graduation certificate which included a DACUM chart of all successfully completed program curriculum skills and the warranty that stated any employer who was not satisfied with the performance of any completed program curriculum skill, Holland College would retrain that skill at college expense. This was a challenge to everyone providing vocational education at the time and was an example of Don’s commitment to innovation and excellence in vocational education.

With a successful model already taking shape at Holland College, Don then encouraged the CVA to think more boldly about the future of secondary education. He challenged us to consider a major research initiative that would combine DACUM, individualised learning, competency-based curricula, computer-assisted learning, computer-managed learning, and year-round operation with continuous learner intake and graduation. The aim was to question the conventional teacher-centred, time-based school model and to explore another mainstream possibility. I had the privilege of serving on that CVA project team.

That project became the CRSP Model School initiative — the Canadian Restructured School Plan — and it attracted federal funding as well as strong interest from provincial authorities and vocational educators across the country. Don led that work, collaborating with jurisdictions and researchers across Canada and abroad. The CRSP model had never been developed before and was a truly impressive example of Don’s many talents as an administrator, innovator and consummate gentleman.

Funding was a major issue for the CRSP project. I still remember one Ottawa meeting at which a Deputy Minister in the Federal government, after reviewing our proposal and budget, asked Don and me what was “in it” for us. Don and I looked at each other and laughed. Then I simply answered “I’m a faculty member at Algonquin College and a board member of the Canadian Vocational Association”, and Don replied: “I’m the President of Holland College in Charlottetown and a board member of the Canadian Vocational Association”. That was enough. Don never approached this work in terms of personal advantage. We retreated still smiling and with our dignity intact. A month later we received the federal funding we had requested.

As many will understand, Don was much more to me than a professional colleague. He was a mentor and a friend for many years. The CVA played a pivotal role in keeping us connected over the years. Our last telephone conversation , about two weeks before he died, was still about education on Prince Edward Island — specifically a draft letter to the editor on the current state of education. That was Don to the very end: engaged, thoughtful and still trying to improve things.

In closing, I hope that one day a vocational educator, education researcher, CVA member or Canadian author will undertake Don’s biography. Few lives have so fully brought together the roles of classroom teacher, accomplished academic, civil servant, College president, community activist, Member of the Order of Canada and dear friend.

Wayne Wilson

CVA Life Member

February, 2026