Image: UFV / Provided / Dr. Alan Cameron greets students in 2025.

By Alyssa Conti

GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

Professor marks one of Canada’s longest university careers with 50 years at UFV

Sep 14, 2025 | 12:46 PM

ABBOTSFORD — Dr. Alan Cameron was 29 when he taught his first class at the year-old Fraser Valley College in September 1975.

Half a century and one year’s sabbatical later, and he’s happily back inside University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) classrooms to teach the next generation of French and Russian language students.

The Modern Languages department senior’s five decades of teaching saw him raise two children, several generations of students and significantly, two bouts of cancer.

“I was very weak, but I knew I had to fight and endure the treatments for the sake of my wife and kids, and every fibre of my being forced myself to complete those treatments,” he said.

“But I also decided that I was not going to let the cancer define me. If I survived, I was going to continue to do what I love to do, and teaching was at the core of that. Working and engaging in teaching always gave me a sense of purpose.”

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There were 25 other full-time faculty members when Cameron joined the first generation of UFV staff.

“We really were pioneers. We didn’t always agree on everything, but we had a great deal of respect for what we were trying to build. We were at the start of something exciting.”

Dr. Alan Cameron in the classroom in the 1980s / UFV / Provided

As a language-learning advocate, one of his most significant initiatives at UFV involved arranging cultural exchanges and study tours to Quebec and France during a time of anti-French sentiment in Western Canada.

“Languages teach us so much about people. I tell my students that going to someone else’s linguistic space shows that you are making a real effort to know them.”

The 79-year-old professor’s current challenge is to learn his twelfth language this semester: Halq’eméylem, the language of the Stó:lō people.

As for retirement plans? That would be up to his students.

“I always ask my students at the end of the semester if I’ve still ‘got it’ and so far, the answer has been an enthusiastic yes.

“I still owe UFV two years of service after sabbatical and I’ll take it semester by semester after that. I still have lots of energy and I’m always pumped up in August when the fall semester is approaching and I’m getting back in the classroom.”