University of British Columbia

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The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university with its main campus located at Point Grey, in the University Endowment Lands adjacent to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and another smaller campus known as UBC Okanagan located in Kelowna, British Columbia. It also has three smaller campuses within Vancouver: a campus at Vancouver General Hospital for the medical sciences and the UBC Robson Square, a campus in Downtown Vancouver for part-time credit and non-credit programmes, and limited classes are offered at the Great Northern Way Campus.

Contents

Location

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A twenty-minute drive from downtown Vancouver, the Point Grey campus of the university is near several beaches and has views of the local mountains. The 7.63 km² Pacific Spirit Regional Park serves as a green-belt between the campus and the city. The campus, along with Pacific Spirit Regional Park and the residential community of University Hill, form the University Endowment Lands, which technically does not fall within Vancouver's city limits. UBC is part of Electoral Area A which is made up of the non-incorporated areas of the Lower Mainland. Since UBC is not part of the city of Vancouver, it is policed by the RCMP rather than the Vancouver Police. Vancouver Fire Department does service UBC under a contract.

The [Okanagan campus], formerly the North Kelowna campus of Okanagan College and later Okanagan University College, is located on the north-east side of Kelowna.

History

Early history

One of UBC's oldest buildings: Chemistry

The information in this section is taken from "The History of the University" by former UBC President N.A.M. (Norman) MacKenzie, originally published in "The President's Report", 1957-58, available online at [the UBC Archives].

A provincial university was first called into being by the British Columbia University Act of 1890. The Act constituted a twenty-one member senate with Dr. Israel W. Powell of Victoria as Chancellor.

Attempts at establishing a degree-granting university with assistance from the Universities of Toronto and McGill saw varying degrees of success. The McGill University College of British Columbia was set up as a private institution granting McGill University degrees until 1915.

In the meantime appeals were again made to the government to revive the earlier legislation for a provincial institution, leading to the University Endowment Act in 1907, and The University Act in 1908. In 1910 the Point Grey site was chosen, and the government appointed Dr. Frank Fairchild Wesbrook as President in 1913. The outbreak of war in August, 1914 compelled the University to postpone plans for building at Point Grey, and instead the former McGill college site at Fairview became home to the University until 1925. The first day of lectures was September 30, 1915.

World War I dominated campus life, and the student body was "decimated" by enlistments for active service, with three hundred UBC students in Company "D" alone. By the end of the war, 697 members of the University had enlisted. A total of 109 students graduated in the three war-time congregations, all but one in the Faculties of Arts and Science.

In 1922 the now twelve-hundred-strong student body embarked on a "Build the University" campaign. 56,000 signatures were presented at legislature in support, and on September 22, 1925, lectures began on the new Point Grey campus.

Except for the Library, Science, and Power House buildings, all the campus buildings were temporary constructions. Two playing fields were built by the students themselves, but the University had no dormitories and no social centre. Still, the University continued to grow by leaps and bounds.

Soon, however, the effects of the depression began to be felt. In 1932-33 salaries were cut by up to 23%. Posts remained vacant, and many faculty lost their jobs. Most graduate courses were dropped. Just as things began to improve, World War II broke out.

Canada declared war on September 10, 1939. Soon afterwards, University President Klinck wrote:

:From the day of the declaration of war, the University has been prepared to put at the disposal of the Government all possible assistance by way of laboratories, equipment and trained personnel, in so far as such action is consistent with the maintenance of reasonably efficient instructional standards. To do less would be unthinkable.

Military training on the campus became popular, and WWII marked the first provision of money from the federal government to the University. By the end of the war, it became clear that the facilities at Point Grey had become totally inadequate. The University needed new staff, new courses, new faculties, and new buildings for teaching and accommodation. The student population rose from 2,974 in 1944-45 to 9,374 in 1947-48.

Surplus Army and Air Force camps were used for both classrooms and accommodation. Fifteen complete camps were taken over by the University in the course of the 1945-46 session alone, with a sixteenth camp, situated on Little Mountain in Vancouver, converted into suites for married students.

Student numbers hit 9,374 in 1948; more than 53% of the students were war veterans in 1947-67. Between 1947 and 1951 twenty new permanent buildings were erected.

The university today

Rose Garden

UBC's current president is Dr. Stephen Toope, appointed on July 1, 2006. He succeeds Dr. Martha Piper, who was the University's first female president and the first non-Canadian born president.

The Vice-President (VP) Students is Brian Sullivan; VP External and Legal is Dennis Pavlich, VP Research is John Hepburn, and VP Finance and Administration is Terry Sumner. The Provost and Vice-President Academic, the academic head of the University, is Dr. Lorne Whitehead.

The UBC Okanagan campus is led by Dr. Richard Tees, Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor.

In 2003, UBC had 3,167 full-time Faculty, and 4,612 non-faculty full-time employees. It had over forty thousand students (33,566 undergraduate students and 7,379 graduate students), and more than 180,000 alumni in 120 countries. Enrolment continues to grow. The founding of the new Okanagan campus will increase these numbers dramatically. The university is one of only two Canadian universities to have membership in Universitas 21, an international association of research-led institutions. (McGill University is the other).

Buildings on campus currently occupy 1,091,997 gross m², located on 1.7 km² of maintained land.

The university's street plan is mostly in a grid of malls (for driving and pedestrian-only). Lower Mall and West Mall are in the southwestern part of the peninsula, with Main, East, and Wesbrook Malls northeast of them.

Wireless internet access is available at no charge to students, faculty, and staff inside and outside of most buildings at both campuses.

Tuition

Chancellor Place at UBC

In 2001–02, UBC had one of the lowest undergraduate tuition rates in Canada, at an average of $2,181 CAD per year for a full-time programme. This was due to a government-instituted tuition freeze.

In 2001, however, the BC Liberal party defeated the NDP in British Columbia and lifted the tuition freeze. In 2002–03 undergraduate and graduate tuition rose by an average of 30%, and by up to 40% in some faculties. This has led to increased enrolment and better facilities, but also to student unrest and contributed to a teaching assistant union strike.

UBC again increased tuition by 30% in the 2003–04 year, again by approximately 15% in the 2004-05 season, and 2% in the 2005–06 and 2006–07 years. Increases were lower than expected because, in the 2005 speech from the throne, the government announced that tuition increases would be capped to inflation.

In 2004-2005, the average BC tuition fee was $4735, compared to the Canadian average of $4172.

Quality of education

Poll rankings

The University of British Columbia consistently ranks as one of the top three Canadian universities by Research InfoSource and ranks as second in Canada and thirty-seventh in the world by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Times Higher Education Supplement of the UK ranked UBC as third in Canada and thirty-eighth in the world in 2005. According to Maclean's University Rankings, UBC has the highest percentage of Ph.D level professors among all public universities in North America (92%). It has received widespread recognition by Maclean's and Newsweek magazines for its foreign language program; the Chinese program is North America's largest, and the Japanese program is North America's second largest (after the University of Hawaii).

It was [announced on March 20, 2006] that Carl Wieman, a Nobel laureate in physics from University of Colorado at Boulder, will join UBC's Dept. of Physics and Astronomy in January 2007 to work on a $12 million science education initiative.

Recipients of honorary degrees

Flag Plaza

Famous instructors

Meryn Cadell, writer and performance artist
Steven Galloway, novelist and playwright
Michael Ignatieff, author and Canadian politician
Har Gobind Khorana, Nobel laureate in Medicine 1968
Richard J. Pearson, archaeologist and gardener
Michael Smith, Nobel laureate in Chemistry 1993
David Suzuki, biologist
Bill Unruh, physicist
Rudolf Vrba, Holocaust survivor and pharmacologist
Carl E. Wieman, Nobel laureate in Physics 2001
Cole Hilliard, scholar, award-winning novelist

Libraries

The university library

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UBC Library is the second largest research library in Canada, with twenty-six branches and divisions at UBC and at other locations, including three branches at teaching hospitals (St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre, and Children's and Women's Health Centre of BC), one at UBC's Robson Square campus in downtown Vancouver, and one at the new UBC Okanagan campus. Plans are also underway to establish a library at the Great Northern Way Campus on the Finning Lands.

The Library's collections establish UBC as a leading academic institution with 4.7 million books and journals, 5.0 million microforms, over 800,000 maps, videos and other multimedia materials and over 46,700 subscriptions. The UBC Library has the largest collection of Asian language materials in North America and the largest biomedical collection in Western Canada. It is a depository library for publications of the governments of BC, Canada, Japan and the United Nations.

The Library's collections of special and rare materials include the H. Colin Slim Stravinsky Collection (the largest collection of its kind in Canada) and the Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection (containing more than 25,000 rare and one-of-a-kind items relating to the discovery of BC, the development of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Chinese immigration to Canada).

Koerner Library

The Asian Library houses the largest research collection in Asian languages in North America. Its holdings in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Urdu and Indonesian exceeding 500,000 volumes. Subject material about Asia, in English and other European languages, is in Koerner Library and other branches. Law materials are located in the Law Library. Special materials include the valuable Puban collection (蒲坂藏書樓藏書), Swann collection, Song Xuepeng collection (宋學鵬藏書), Jing Yi Zhai (景頤齋藏書), Japanese government publications, research materials on Chinese Canadian settlement in British Columbia and Pearl Delta Area as well as Japanese Canadian studies collections. Its rare book collection, mainly from the Puban collection, ranks first in North America. The Chinese collection ranked third in North America in number of volumes at the time of publication of Endymion Wilkinson's Chinese History: A Manual in 2000.

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (known as Main Library) houses science, engineering and fine arts books, rare books and special collections, the University Archives, humanities and social sciences materials, and The Chung Collection of immigration documents, and is also home to [The Chapman Learning Commons]. Monographs in Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Rajasthani, Assamese, Nepali and Tibetan are shelved in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.

The original building was completed in 1948, but is currently undergoing major renovations and additions, with the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre scheduled for completion in 2007. Notable features include the first [automated storage and retrieval system] (ASRS) in Canada (referred to as the "library robot"). The system makes storage and retrieval of books easier, and increases the amount of storage space available, but has been criticized for preventing browsing. Outside Main Library is the 33.8-metre Leon Ladner Bell Tower which rings every half hour, sometimes with classical music or other special garillion sounds. The Main Library also houses the contents of the former Sedgewick library in its lower levels.

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Walter Koerner Library (known as Koerner) was built in 1997, adding to the Sedgewick Library. Koerner Library houses humanities and social sciences, government publications, journals and microforms, and numeric data files, and the Map & Atlas Collection, and is home to some 800,000 volumes. Its postmodern architecture (the entire front of the building is glass) contrasts the Gothic revival design of Main Library, from which it is directly across. Koerner is home to the University's Interlibrary loan programme.

Xwi7xwa Library, located in the First Nations Longhouse, houses collections relating to First Nations in British Columbia, resources on Indigenous peoples from across Canada and internationally. The name, pronounced "whei-wha," comes from the Squamish First Nation word meaning "echo."

The Okanagan Library serves the University's Okanagan campus in Kelowna.

Other UBC libraries

The Biomedical Branch Library is located at Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre
Crane Library is located in the Brock Hall Annex and is an academic resource centre for disabled students, staff, and faculty.
David Lam Library houses materials relating to commerce and business administration
The Education Library houses curriculum materials and other education materials, including children's books
Extension Library provides online, phone and mail service for off-campus UBC credit course and correspondence course students
Hamber Library is located at Children's & Women's Health Centre of BC, and is part of the Life Sciences Libraries network
The Law Library houses law-related materials, and occupies three floors of the Law Complex
The Mathematics Library houses mathematics and statistics related materials
The Music Library houses music materials, including many rare recordings
The MacMillan Library contains materials relating to forestry, agricultural sciences and food sciences
Robson Square (UBC Library at Robson Square) Collections support the needs of students, faculty, staff, and community researchers at UBC's downtown campus
Woodward Biomedical Library contains materials on health and life sciences.

There are also several theological libraries associated with Regent College and the Vancouver School of Theology.

Landmarks and attractions

Lobby of the UBC Life Sciences Centre, opened in 2005

Gardens

UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research [(website)]: the first UBC department, it holds a collection of over 8000 different kinds of plants used for research, conservation and education
Nitobe Memorial Garden [(website)]: built to honour Japanese scholar Inazo Nitobe, the garden has been the subject of more than fifteen years' study by a UBC professor, who believes that its construction hides a number of impressive features, including references to Japanese philosophy and mythology, shadow bridges visible only at certain times of year, and positioning of a lantern that is filled with light at the exact date and time of Nitobe's death each year. The garden is behind the university's Asian Centre, whose roof features a glass and wood structure from Japan's exhibit at Tokyo Expo.

Museums and galleries

Museum of Anthropology at UBC (MOA) [(website)]: mostly First Nations collections, such as totem poles. Also antique Chinese and European ceramics collections.
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery [(website)]: exhibit mostly contemporary North American art. Has two rooms (often divided into three).

Performance arts theatres

Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

Chan Centre for the Performing Arts: a concert hall and events centre; often the location of convocation ceremonies.
Frederic Wood Theatre ("Freddy Wood Theatre"): plays performed here, mostly performed by UBC's own BFA drama students.

Student services and residences

Student government

UBC students are represented by the Alma Mater Society, or AMS. The society's mandate is to improve the quality of educational, social, and personal lives of students of UBC. The executive - comprised of the president, vice-president external, vice-president administrative, vice-president finance, and vice-president academic - are responsible for lobbying the UBC administration on behalf of the student body, providing services, such as the AMS health plan, and maintaining the Student Union Building and the services in which it houses.

Student clubs

UBC has a vibrant campus community with over two hundred student run clubs, ranging from the Dance Club, to the Anime Club, to the Political Science Student Association, to Wine Tasting Club. The [AMS club directory] lists all of the clubs.

Other facilities

The Student Union Building (SUB).

Gage Towers

The Student Union Building (SUB) [(website)]: offices of many clubs, half a dozen restaurants and cafes, a pub ("The Gallery"), a nightclub ("The Pit"), the inexpensive 425-seat Norman Bouchard Memorial Theatre ("The Norm Theatre"), several shops and a post office. The majority of the outlets and shops in the SUB are run by the AMS, however the addition of major corporate outlets in recent years has generated some controversy. The SUB Art Gallery contains mostly students' work. Beside the SUB, there is a small mound called The Grassy Knoll, which was constructed from the contents of the open pool dug near the Aquatic Centre. The Grassy Knoll is slated to be removed for the planned construction of an underground bus loop, a plan that is unpopular with some students.
The Ladha Science Student Centre [(website)]: Funded through a generous donation from Abdul Ladha, a levy from all Science undergraduate students, the VP Students, and the Dean of Science, a new building is gradually taking shape on East Mall just north of University Boulevard. When finished later in 2006, the building will provide space for Science undergraduates to meet, to study, and to have fun. (http://www.escience.ubc.ca/)
Totem Park: A residence primarily for first and second year undergraduate students (houses 1163). It consists of 6 houses.
Place Vanier: A residence primarily for first and second year undergraduate students (houses 1370). It consists of 12 blocks constructed in 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1968, with two(Tec de Monterrey and Korea House) of the twelve houses constructed in 2002 and 2003. The buildings vary from Male and Female only, to alternating gender floors, as well as fully mixed floors. The residences have both single and double rooms, with each floor having a lounge and communal bathrooms.
Gage Towers: A residence consisting of three 17-floor towers (North, South and East) primarily for second, third, and fourth year undergraduate students. Gage houses the most students and is closest to the Pit Pub. It is considered by some to be the "loudest" of the residences. It consists of three interconnected towers(North, South, and West) as well as single student housing(both studio, and apartment) in a seperate adjacent building. The towers are composed of "quads" which consist of 4 seperate pods, each consisting of 6 individual bedrooms, a bathroom and a communal kitching/dining area
Fairview Crescent: A residence primarily for second and third year undergraduate students. Also houses many graduate students.
Thunderbird: A residence primarily for graduate students and fourth year undergraduate students.
Ritsumeikan-UBC House: A residence with a Japanese cultural setting, named for Ritsumeikan University. Houses Japanese exchange students and Canadian students, who participate in unique intercultural programmes. The residence's tatami room is used for practice sessions by the UBC Urasenke Japanese tea ceremony club. Two Canadian students are typically paired with two Japanese exchange students.
Marine Drive Residence: A new residence on the west side of campus. The first phase opened Fall 2005, and is the most expensive residence on campus. In February 2006, the Board of Governors approved plans for the second phase of Marine Drive, finally putting an end to the debacle caused by concerns over the view of Wreck beach (Phase I was reduced from 20 stories to 18 because of this). Phase II will be completed in time for students in September 2007.
Green College: A residential college for graduate students with an interdisciplinary focus.
St. John's College: A residential college for graduate students with an international focus.
The Beanery: A coffee shop located in the Fairview residence. It has study areas popular with students. There are numerous other coffee outlets on campus, including a Blenz, three Starbucks and a Tim Horton's.

Athletics

UBC is represented in Canadian Interuniversity Sport by the UBC Thunderbirds.

Sports and recreation

Place Vanier

The Student Recreation Centre (SRC).

UBC REC [(website)]: UBC's intramural program is one of the largest in Canada, including various leagues and the year-ending Storm the Wall.
Aquatic Centre [(website)]: offers swimming pools indoors and outdoors. At designated times students can use the facility for free.
Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre: during final exam periods (December and April), hundreds of chairs and tables are placed inside for students to take examinations.
In between Main and Koerner Libraries is an artificial 6-metre deep valley, whose massive amount of dirt was transported to a bog in the Pacific Spirit Park decades ago, now being criticized as an anti-environmental act. The valley was intended as a student gathering place for eating lunches, meeting and relaxing, but it is mostly unused due to its lack of visibility and dangerously slippery muddy grass.
There is a rock-climbing wall in the SUB, hidden behind the movie theatre screen, which is operated by the UBC Varsity Outdoor Club.[(website)]
The UBC Bike Hub, which houses the AMS Bike Co-op and the Bike Kitchen. The Bike Kitchen is a full service student-run non-profit bike shop, which also runs workshops and provides one-on-one instruction.[(website)]
The UBC Debating Society is the only debating team in Canada that is a part of a university's varsity athletics programme.[(website)]
The Student Recreation Centre houses a gymnasium, sports equipment shop, dojo, and climbing wall, in addition to rooms for special exercise programmes.
The neighbouring Pacific Spirit Regional Park has an extensive network of running trails. On the coast to the west of campus, the park includes Wreck Beach, one of the largest clothing-optional beaches in the world.

Student media

The Ubyssey [(website)], a twice-weekly student newspaper. Established in 1918.
The Graduate [(website)], a monthly magazine of news, opinion, and humour, by graduate students.
Discorder ("That magazine from CiTR") [(website)], a music and entertainment magazine produced by the campus radio station.
CiTR "Thunderbird Radio" [(website)], the campus radio station.
The Point, a weekly student paper of athletics, clubs, and what's happening at UBC.
The Underground, a satirical newspaper of the Arts Undergraduate Society with a vibrant arts and culture section, The Grounder.
The 432 [(website)], a satirical, biweekly publication of the Science Undergraduate Society.
The Cavalier , the official humour and events paper of the Commerce Undergraduate Society (CUS),
The nEUSpaper , a humorous, biweekly publication of the Engineering Undergraduate Society, or EUS.
The Paradigm [(website)], an academic, bi-annual publication of the Science Undergraduate Society.
Perspectives [(website)], British Columbia's first English-Chinese student newspaper.
The Knoll [(website)], a monthly magazine examining society from an activist/humanist point of view.

External links

[UBC Website]

References

	B.C. universities
Public universities
UBC \| UNBC \| Royal Roads \| Simon Fraser \| Thompson Rivers \| Victoria
Private universities
Canada West \| Fairleigh Dickinson \| Quest \| Trinity Western

G-10 Universities
Alberta \| UBC \| Laval \| McGill \| McMaster Montréal \| Queen's \| Toronto \| Waterloo \| Western

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