Blanche Macdonald has implemented all standards and protocols required for private training institutions, offices, retail stores, and personal service establishments as directed by WorkSafe BC, the Provincial Health Officer, and the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education & Future Skills.
We have also added many of our own additional measures to increase the health and safety of our Blanche Macdonald community.
Updated Friday, January 7, 2022
Please click here to view our new Communicable Disease Prevention Plan and COVID-19 Safety Guidelines.
Updated Wednesday, August 5th
On Monday, August 3rd, 2020, we learned that one of our Part-time students at City Square who attends classes once a week, contracted Covid-19 when she was away from the school.
She did the responsible thing and has been staying home. She has not been in class for almost two weeks. When she was notified of her results, she contacted the school immediately.
The Communicable Diseases/Provincial Health Officer Team determined that no one in the school was considered to be at risk and therefore no action was required by the school.
The student will remain at home until she is cleared to return to school.
While the medical and health authorities have not required any action or communication by the school, the school decided that we wanted to share this information and take extra precautionary measures to support our health and safety protocols.
As such, we are deep cleaning the City Square Campus for three days. The professional cleaners have deep cleaned the entire campus and are using a special “fogging” machine over every surface, corner, and cranny that kills Covid-19. The City Square Campus will reopen on Friday, August 7th, 2020.
We especially want to commend our student for doing what is right. She took responsibility for her health and she ensured that she stayed home when she was feeling ill. She is taking care of her own health, as well as safeguarding the health of everyone in her family, community, and at the school.
As Dr. Bonnie Henry continues to remind us, “We are all in this together.”
Thank you to each of our students, faculty, and staff who continue to support our health and safety measures including daily temperature checks, mandatory face masks, face shields, copious hand washing and use of hand sanitizer, physical distancing, and staying home when you are ill.
We are exceptionally grateful for everyone’s support and consideration.
Updated Thursday, June 4th
We have carefully integrated health and safety measures to protect the well-being of our Blanche Macdonald community.
We look forward to seeing you soon.
—Blanche Macdonald Centre
Update from Tuesday, June 2nd
These have been unprecedented times, and as our Prime Minister has shared, getting back to normalcy will not be possible until there is a vaccine.
In the interim, we can work together to create a “new normal” that respects and adheres to health and safety guidelines, that supports the needs of our country and the world to do what’s right, while allowing us these moments where we can come together (while physically staying safely apart), to learn, to connect and to create.
And in this spirit of focusing on the future, on delving into education, we are implementing a gradual return to onsite learning.
In the words of Martha Beck, “We’re sharing challenging things and we’re also sharing beautiful things: compassion, courage, kindness.”
This is our Homecoming, a return to home base and our Blanche Macdonald Community.
Beginning Monday, June 15th 2020 to Friday, July 3rd 2020, there will be a gradual re-entry of each department and classes.
Each Department Director will be notifying their classes as to when your specific re-entry date and schedule will be.
By structuring a gradual re-entry, we can take the time to help each class acclimate and adjust to the new school protocols, health and safety requirements, and specific needs of their class and department.
By Friday, July 3rd, all classes from all Departments will be back on site.
The majority of program delivery will be onsite learning, supplemented by online support and virtual classes as needed.
Blanche Macdonald Centre is committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, staff, clients and the communities we serve.
In order to return to a “new normal” we have developed a plan to ensure we are maximizing infection control and that BMC can operate safely.
We will be implementing all standards and protocols required for private training institutions and personal service establishments as directed by WorkSafe BC, the Provincial Health Officer, and the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education & Future Skills.
These enhanced protocols are intended to protect all of us while we are on campus so we can, in turn, protect our families, friends and communities.
And in the beautifully expressive words of Debbie Nickel, our Executive Director:
Silence in the halls and classrooms. The place where we do our soul filling work empty.
Nothing in the rooms usually filled with the buzz of creativity and learning.
With eager learners and guides. Fellow magicians and alchemists.
Another silent retreat.
And so, in true BMC fashion, we’re going to adjust and reframe.
Conquer another curve. The learning curve.
We make meaning out of mess—transform mess into meaning.
We’ve been in a holding pattern.
We can pivot. Because these are pivotal moments.
So can we transform fear to fascination? Re-arrange our stars and our values?
Make new currencies: time, connection, flexibility, freedom, and purpose?
Let’s pause and take a breath. Release it and let the stress out.
We’ll be ok.
Breathe in and notice every extraordinary ordinary thing. And each other.
We don’t know when but we need to remember this worry, this fear, and this virus will eventually go away.
Breathe and believe.
It’s time to re-calibrate the learning journey—to use our heart compasses to find the path.
Time to reconnect with the power of our choices. To take another perspective—choose another strategy—another direction. Let us share the paths we took to help you map out yours.
We are still here. It’s time to come back home.
Update from Tuesday, March 31st
To our Blanche Macdonald community,
We hope you are safe and well wherever in the world this message finds you as we all move through the intensity and heartbreaking difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic together.
Each of us is facing the impacts of this challenge on a deeply personal level. And yet we’re doing this together. Our new normal involves mandatory time at home, physical distancing and many changes to our work and school life. We are all choosing to take action today that will impact our tomorrow.
As Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s Provincial Health Officer has shared, “there is a glimmer of hope” that BC may soon start flattening the curve. Thank you to Dr. Henry and all the Health professionals in Canada and worldwide, for their endless dedication and superhuman efforts in battling Covid-19. To see the world fall apart and then come together is a breathtaking thing.
The pandemic and its impact remain fluid, and our responses evolve based on the situation itself and the feedback we are receiving from our Blanche family of students.
We want to take this time to thank you for calling and sending us messages of concern, hoping we are keeping ourselves as safe and healthy as possible. That you appreciate what we are trying to do for you and your education while also working to interrupt the momentum of this global wave means the world to us.
This situation will take time to resolve and everyone here is working to adapt to the challenges as they arise. We are choosing to welcome these challenges as opportunities for new perspectives and approaches.
To support academic quality and student success, our intention is to press “pause” on your program and then press “play” once the Provincial Health authorities deem it safe for school to resume onsite. At whichever point you stopped your studies prior to our Spring Break, when you return to in-class studies, that is the point you will resume your program.
The online resources that will be provided for each Program during this suspension are additions to our onsite training – ways to keep us all connected and inspired. To create value in a different way. We will be meeting in Google Classrooms instead of our regular spaces. Our new virtual learning labs.
We will be contacting each of you during the week of April 6, when our Spring Break ends. At that time we will be sharing the plan for your particular program of study. There will be different approaches to our supplemental learning ranging from video-streaming with your instructors, featured guest artists and industry leaders, interactive demos, assignments and projects.
Please make sure to check your email – you will be receiving instructions on how to join your Google classroom. Don’t worry if you don’t have access to a desktop or laptop. You’ll be able to reconnect with us using your phone.
Thank you for your patience while we try to figure this out. Every educational institution in Canada is also trying to figure this out. There is no book to consult. No map to follow.
For our students in “Personal Service” programs (Makeup, Esthetics, Nails, Hairstyling and Barbering), the current provincial health directions restrict you from working with, and on, others. But you can practice on yourself and we’ll be sharing what that looks like.
For your remote learning support, we will be delivering a variety of live streaming theory classes, featured guest artists demonstrations with Q and A sessions, creative projects, or wellness sessions. These will be customized to each program. Our goal is to create a virtual space for us to reconnect and support each other during this extremely challenging time.
1. For our students in the Professional Hairstyling, Professional Hairstyling Foundations, Professional Barbering and Professional Barbering Foundations programs, we will be working with Pivot Point LAB. This is a groundbreaking social learning platform designed for the hair industry. LAB combines our first class educational content with creativity to provide a collaborative environment and enhance your remote learning experience.
2. For our students in the Professional Esthetics/Spa Therapist program, we will be delivering live streaming theory classes and treatment demonstrations led by your instructors. Stay tuned for creative assignments and wellness sessions.
3. For our students in the Nail Studio program, we will be delivering instructor led live streaming theory classes. For those of you close to graduation, we’re working to have you complete final theory exams online, with practical exams to be held when we can return to class. For those of you starting in April, there will be instructor led sessions.
4. For our students in the Global Makeup, Freelance Makeup Artistry and International Makeup Studio programs, we will be creating featured guest artist demonstrations with Q and A sessions. Tune in for connection with our inspiring instructors and industry leading alumni. We’ll also be inviting our Makeup Career team to share their support and ideas to keep your new careers moving forward. For classes that just started before the Spring break and are starting on April 1st, there will be interactive instructor-led classes.
5. For our students in the Global Fashion Marketing and International Fashion Marketing programs, we will have a series of twice weekly, interactive seminars where you will engage remotely with faculty and industry leaders. Lectures, group discussions, Q&As, mini challenges and at home projects exploring everything from Archival Research, Life Behind the Scenes at New York Fashion Week to Secret Stain Removal Techniques will be shared.
6. For our students in the Fashion Design program, we will have a period of guided study devoted to the research and development of your individual collections. Through a series of remote lecture demos, group conversations and interactive assignments we will discuss and explore subjects ranging from Surface and Texture Innovations to Embroidery, Garment dyeing, Designing with Reusable and Recycled Materials and Technical Design for Accessories. In addition, your One on One Mentoring sessions will continue through this period of guided study.
We are so grateful for our learning community, and for the spaces we’ve created for people to share what they’re learning. You continue to inspire us to lead from wholeness and compassion.
We are all in this health storm together and we are riding it out right along with you. We are all struggling to keep ourselves and our families safe and afloat – financially, mentally and emotionally.
To those who are deeply struggling right now, please know that we are holding you in our thoughts. We have made space in our hearts to love large.
While we cannot control COVID-19 and all that it brings, we CAN control who we are and what we want to stand for in the face of it. Emotions are contagious, too, so let’s invite each other to practice spreading love, connection, and compassion. Together.
This is such uncharted territory and a time of intense emotions. And yet within this darkness, still a desire among us to lean into the light and the invitation. To take the time to reflect on the lives we want to live and the world we want to live in when we’re on the other side of this crisis.
We need to hold on to that. We need to dream and believe in a new way.
The classrooms at BMC are filled with dreams. Your dreams. Graduates’ dreams. It’s the fuel that inspires us to keep going through these hard times.
Please keep checking our website and your emails for information updates.
Keep Your Joy ☀️
From all of us at Blanche Macdonald
Program Directors:
Esthetics and Nail Program – Simona Gozner, Program Director [email protected]
Global Fashion Marketing Program – Peggy Morrison and Donna Baldock, Executive Directors [email protected] and [email protected]
Fashion Design Program – Tyler Udall, Executive Director [email protected]
Hair Program – Phil Loiselle, Executive Director [email protected]
Makeup Program – Tracey Payne, Program Director [email protected] and Darcy Madrigga, Associate Director [email protected]
Managing Directors/Executive Directors
Barbara Johnston – Managing Director [email protected]
Debbie Nickel – Executive Director [email protected]
Jaye Wong Klippenstein – Executive Director, International Admissions [email protected]
Lise Graham – Managing Director [email protected]
Admission Directors:
| Artika Sharma – Associate Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Celia Bica – Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Jennifer Dott – Associate Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Jill Wyness – Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Josephine Lee – Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Mary Hombrebueno-Hardy – Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Miko Sakashita Barber – Associate Director, International Marketing and Admissions | [email protected] |
| Pag Yang – International Admissions, Regional Representative, Taiwan | [email protected] |
| Pamela Chong – Director, Admissions | pamela@blanchemacdonald.com |
| Pearle Jung – Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Suggi Zhou – Associate Director, International Marketing and Admissions | [email protected] |
| Tina Wu – International Admissions Manager | [email protected] |
| Susan Lee-Shipley – Director, Admissions | [email protected] |
| Venus Ko – Director, International Marketing and Admissions | [email protected] |
Update from Monday, March 16th
In support of the global response to “flattening the curve”, the Blanche Macdonald Centre is issuing an unscheduled two week Spring Break from Thursday, March 19, 2020 to Sunday, April 5, 2020. Campuses remain open during this Spring break.
After the Spring Break, classes will be conducted through temporary online studies until it has been determined to be safe for our students to return to class.
Our first priority is for everyone’s safety and health. Again, online training is a temporary measure.
If the situation improves with Covid-19 and it is safe to resume onsite training, we will do so immediately. In many countries around the world, and in Canada as well, they have closed down all schools and universities for a period of time.
This is our way of helping you keep connected until the world is in a better place. We will work with you.
When the government determines it is truly safe, we will resume classes on-site.
Program Directors, Admissions and Support Staff are available to assist you and your families. We understand that there is a lot of information out there and stress levels are high as people determine the best ways to look out for their own safety and that of their loved ones. We at Blanche Macdonald, like everyone else, are keeping close tabs on the developments and following the recommendations of the BC Health Authority and BCCDC as they evolve.
While government authorities have not yet mandated the closure of schools, we believe it is in the best interest of our students, faculty, and staff to have an unscheduled 2-week Spring break. After this, we will help our students move to online studies at home. Our focus is on providing accessible education in a safe environment, increasing social distancing and “flattening the curve”.
The safety of our students and staff is our highest priority and we are taking added precautions. During this Spring Break, all three campuses will be thoroughly deep cleaned by environmentally-safe “virus busters”, a specialized cleaning service that uses a high charged vaporizer and special products to eliminate viruses.
We’ll get through this together.
Lots of love,
your Blanche Macdonald family
https://covid19.thrive.health/
This self-assessment tool, developed with the BC Ministry of Health, will help determine whether you may need further assessment or testing for COVID-19. You can complete this assessment for yourself, or on behalf of someone else, if they are unable to.
Update from Monday, March 9th
We want to provide as healthy a learning environment as possible. We do not want you to come to school if you are sick. If you are coughing, have a bad cold, a fever, or flu-like symptoms, please go to a clinic and get checked. Please do not come to school.
If you miss class because you are sick, you will not be deducted attendance marks.
We will help you catch up after you are well and ready to return to school.
At this time, the Public Health Agency of Canada has assessed the public health risk associated with the virus as “low for Canada”.
The BC Centre for Disease Control advises the following:
Please refer to the following sites for more information:
The advice from health agencies is: