University Of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and Okanagan in British Columbia, Canada. Established in 1908, it is the oldest university in British Columbia. With an annual research budget of $773 million, UBC funds over 10,000 projects a year.
The Vancouver campus is situated adjacent to the University Endowment Lands located about 10 km (6 mi) west of downtown Vancouver. UBC is home to TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, which houses the world’s largest cyclotron. In addition to the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and Stuart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, UBC and the Max Planck Society collectively established the first Max Planck Institute in North America, specializing in quantum materials. One of the largest research libraries in Canada, the UBC Library system has over 10 million volumes among its 21 branches. The Okanagan campus, acquired in 2005, is located in Kelowna, British Columbia.
Eight Nobel laureates, 74 Rhodes scholars, 65 Olympians garnering medals, ten fellows in both American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society, and 273 fellows to the Royal Society of Canada have been affiliated with UBC. Three Canadian prime ministers, John Turner; Kim Campbell, Canada’s first female prime minister; and current prime minister, Justin Trudeau have been educated at UBC.
History
Foundation and early years
In 1877, six years after British Columbia joined Canada, the Superintendent of Education, John Jessop, submitted a proposal for the formation of a provincial University. The provincial legislature passed An Act Respecting the University of British Columbia in 1890, but disagreements arose over whether to build the university on Vancouver Island or the mainland.
The British Columbia University Act of 1908 formally called a provincial University into being, although its location was not specified. The governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which created a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and to perform institutional leadership. The Act constituted a twenty-one member senate with Francis Carter-Cotton of Vancouver as chancellor.
Before the University Act, there had been several attempts at creating a degree-granting university with help from the universities of Toronto and McGill. Columbian College in New Westminster, through its affiliation with Victoria College of the University of Toronto, began to offer university-level credit at the turn-of-the-century, but McGill came to dominate higher education in the early 1900s.
Building on a successful affiliation between Vancouver and Victoria high schools with McGill University, Henry Marshall Tory helped establish the McGill University College of British Columbia. From 1906 to 1915, McGill BC (as it was called) operated as a private institution providing the first few years toward a degree at McGill University or elsewhere. The Henry Marshall Tory Medal was established in 1941 by Tory, founding president of the University of Alberta and of the National Research Council of Canada, and a co-founder of Carleton University.
In the meantime, appeals were 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, and Leonard Klinck as dean of Agriculture in 1914. A declining economy and the outbreak of war in August 1914 compelled the university to postpone plans for building at Point Grey, and instead the former McGill University College site at Fairview became home to the university until 1925. On the first day of lectures, September 30, 1915, the new independent university absorbed McGill University College. The University of British Columbia awarded its first degrees in 1916, and Klinck became the second president in 1919, serving until 1944.
In 1917 Evlyn Fenwick Farris became the first woman in Canada to be appointed to the board of governors of a university — a founding governor of UBC.She was also the first woman to be appointed to the UBC Senate. Active in its formation, the University Women’s Club of Vancouver considered UBC as its “godchild”.
