University of British Columbia

One of UBC's oldest buildings: Chemistry
Motto: Tuum est (Previous official translation: "It's up to you"; now: "It's yours")
Founded	1908
School type	Public
Chancellor	Allan McEachern
President	Martha Piper
Location	Vancouver, British Columbia
Enrollment	28,893 undergrad, 6,489 grad
Campus surroundings	Forest, ocean, beach
Campus size	425 acres maintained
Mascot	Thunderbird

Facts and figures

In 2001, UBC had 1,740 full-time faculty, and 7,339 non-faculty full-time employees. It boasts 28,893 undergraduate students, 6,489 graduate students, and 180,000 alumni in 120 countries. UBC had an operating income of $366 million CAD in 2001. Buildings on campus occupy 1,091,997 gross m², located on 172 hectares of maintained land. The current UBC president is Martha Piper and the VP Students is Brian Sullivan.

In 2001/2002, UBC had one of the lowest undergraduate tuition rates in Canada, at an average of $2,181 CAD per year for a full-time program. This was due to a freezing of tuition rates by the New Democratic Party government. In 2002 the Liberal government came into power and removed the tuition freeze. In 2002/2003 UBC increased its undergraduate and graduate tuition rates by roughly 30%; give or take 10%, depending on faculty/school. This has led to increased enrollment and better facilites, but also to student unrest, union strikes, and population unrest. UBC plans to increase tuition fees by another 30-40% in the upcoming 2003/2004 Academic Year.

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 north of them.

Alumni

The most famous alumni from UBC include:

• Nobel laureate, economist Robert Mundell
• Supreme Court Justice Beverley McLachlin
• past B.C. premiers Ujjal Dosanjh and Mike Harcourt
• author and historian Pierre Berton
• opera singers Ben Heppner and Judith Forst
• composer Michael Conway Baker
• educator and Man In Motion, Rick Hansen
• writer William Gibson
• filmmaker Bruce Sweeney
• actor Nicola Cavendish
• astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason
• senator Pat Carney
• former Canadian prime ministers Kim Campbell and John Turner
• University of Victoria president Dr. David Turpin
• journalists Allan Fotheringham and Stevie Cameron

Famous instructors

• David Suzuki, biologist
• Nobel prize winner in chemistry 1993, Michael Smith

Brief History

• In 1877, the history of UBC actually begins, when a proposal for a provincial university was first made.
• 1899, Vancouver College is created and is affiliated with Montreal's McGill University.
• 1906, UBC was taken over by McGill and was called McGill University College of British Columbia.
• 1908, the University of British Columbia was formed.
• 1910, Point Grey is chosen as the location for the new campus.
• 1914 marks the first year of construction at the new Point Grey location.
• 1922 The Great Trek: students frustrated with over-crowded condtions, from the present downtown campus to the Point Grey location, after collecting 56,000 signatures for a petition to complete the new campus.
• 1925, UBC officially moves to the Point Grey campus.

Current Faculties and Schools

• Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
• Faculty of Applied Science
• School of Architecture
• Faculty of Arts
• School of Audiology and Speech Sciences
• School of Community and Regional Planning
• Continuing Studies Department
• Faculty of Dentistry
• Faculty of Education
• Faculty of Forestry
• Faculty of Graduate Studies
• College of Health Disciplines
• School of Human Kinetics
• School of Journalism
• Faculty of Law
• School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
• Faculty of Medicine
• School of Music
• School of Nursing
• School of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
• Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
• School of Rehabilitation Sciences
• Sauder School of Business
• Faculty of Science
• School of Social Work and Family Studies

Sites of interest

Gardens

• UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research [1]: the first UBC department, it holds a collection of over 8000 different kinds of plants used for research, conservation and education
• Nitobe Memorial Garden [2]: built to honour Japanese scholar Inazo Nitobe, the garden has been the subject of a 15+ year 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 lanterns 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 Center, whose roof features a glass and wood structure from Japan's exhibit at Tokyo Expo.

Museums and Galleries

• Museum of Anthropology at UBC (MOA) [3]: mostly First Nations collections, such as totem poles. Also antique Chinese and European ceramics collections.
• Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery [4]: exhibit mostly contemporary North American art. Has two rooms (often divided into three).

Libraries

• Asian Library: The Asian Library houses the largest research collection in Asian languages in Canada, its holdings in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian and Indonesian exceeding 500,000 volumes. 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 5th in North America.
• Main Library: After a recent renovation of the third-floor atrium in 2001, the Chapman Reading Commons [5] and the Chung Collection of immigration documents [6] were created. In autumn of 2003, one-third of it (formerly Ridington Computing Room, Fine Arts Library, and the Design Art Gallery at the basement) was demolished in preparation for new glass-walled study areas, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre [7], to be completed in 2005.
• Walter Koerner LIbrary: many newer (post-1980s) humanities books were moved here from Main Library after its creation. Its modern design (most walls are see-through glass) contrasts that of Main Library, which locates across from it through a plaza that contains a fountain and the 33.8-metre Leon Ladner Bell Tower (ringing every half an hour, sometimes with classical music). It was built on the site of Sedgwick Library.

Performance Arts Theatres

• Chan Centre for the Performing Arts: classical music; many high school students graduate here.
• Frederic Wood Theatre ("Freddy Wood Theatre"): mostly performed by UBC's own BFA drama students.

Student Services and Residences

• Student Union Building (SUB) [8]: offices of many clubs, half a dozen restaurants, and the inexpensive 425-seat Norman Bouchard Memorial Theatre ("The Norm Theatre"). The SUB Gallery contains mostly students' work. Beside the SUB, there is a small mound, about 2-metre, which is the content of the open pool dug near the Aquatic Centre.
• Totem Park: A residence primarily for first and second year undergraduate students.
• Place Vanier: A residence primarily for first and second year undergraduate students.
• Gage Towers: A residence primarily for third and fourth year undergraduate students.
• Fairview: A residence primarily for graduate students.

Sports Arenas and Recreation

• Aquatic Centre [9]: except for designated times, there is a charge for students and non-students alike.
• Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre: when unused during final exam periods (December and May), hundreds of chairs and tables are placed inside for students to take tests.
• In between Main and Koerner Libraries is an artifical 6-metre deep valley, whose massive amount of dirt was transported to a bog in the Pacific Sprit Park decades ago, now being criticized as an unenvironmental 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.
• SUB contains an arcade, where some students, mostly males, admit to be very addicted to. There is also a mountain-climbing wall in SUB, but it is behind a always-closed door to paying members.

External link

• UBC home page
• University Endowment Lands

Referenced By