The story
Foundation and early years
In 1877, six years after British Columbia joined Canada, the Superintendent of Education, John Jessop, submitted a proposal to form 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 21-member senate with Francis Carter-Cotton of Vancouver as chancellor.
Before the University Act, there were several attempts at creating a degree-granting university with help from the universities of Toronto and McGill. Columbia 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.
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 on May 4, 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 its "godchild".
Move to Point Grey
World War I dominated campus life and the student body was "decimated" by enlistments for active service, with three hundred male UBC students in Company "D" alone. By the war's end, 697 male members of the university had enlisted. 109 students graduated in the three war-time congregations, all but one in the Faculty of Arts and Science.
By 1920, the university had only three faculties: Arts, Applied Science, and Agriculture (with the Departments of Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Dairying, Horticulture, and Poultry). It only awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) and Bachelor of Science in agriculture (BSA). There were 576 male students and 386 female students in the 1920–21 winter session, but only 64 academic staff, including 6 women.
Read the full text
In the early part of the 20th century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law, and medicine. Although UBC did not offer degrees in these fields, it began to offer degrees in new professional areas such as engineering, agriculture, nursing, and school teaching. It also introduced graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis, with students completing M.A. degrees in natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
By 1922, the student body numbered over 1200 and embarked on a "Build the University" campaign. Students marched through the streets of Vancouver to draw attention to their plight, enlist popular support, and embarrass the government in what is now known as "The Great Trek". Fifty-six thousand signatures were presented at the legislature in support of the campaign, which was ultimately successful. On September 22, 1925, lectures began at the new Point Grey campus. Except for the library, science, and Power House buildings, all the campus buildings were temporary buildings. Students built two playing fields, but the university had no dormitories and no social centre. However, the university continued to grow.
Soon, however, the effects of the depression began to be felt. The provincial government, upon which the university depended heavily, cut the annual grant severely. In 1932–33, salaries were cut by up to 23%. Posts remained vacant, and a few faculty lost their jobs. Most graduate courses were dropped. In 1935, the university established the Department of Extension. Just as things began to improve, World War II began, and 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, insofar as such action is consistent with the maintenance of reasonably efficient instructional standards. To do less would be unthinkable. '
Heavy rains and melting snowfall eroded a deep ravine across the north end of the campus, in the Grand Campus Washout of 1935. The campus did not have storm drains and surface runoff went down a ravine to the beach. When the university carved a ditch to drain flooding on University Avenue, the rush of water steepened the ravine and eroded it back as fast as 10 feet (3.0 m) per hour. The resulting gully eventually consumed 100,000 cubic yards (76,455 m3), two bridges and buildings near Graham House. The university was closed for four and a half days. Afterwards, the gully was filled with debris from a nearby landslide, and only traces are visible today.
Military training on the campus became popular and was later made mandatory. WWII marked the first provision of money from the federal government to the university for research purposes. This laid a foundation for future research grants from the federal government of Canada.
Post-war years
By the end of World War II, Point Grey's facilities could not meet the influx of veterans returning to their studies. The university needed new staff, courses, faculties, and 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 accommodations. The university took over fifteen complete camps during the 1945–46 session, with a sixteenth camp on Little Mountain, in Vancouver, converted into suites for married students. Most of the camps were dismantled and carried by barge or truck to the university, where the huts were scattered across the campus.
Student numbers hit 9,374 in 1948; more than 53% of the students were war veterans in 1947–67. Between 1947 and 1951, the university built twenty new permanent buildings. Those included the War Memorial Gym, which was built with money raised primarily by the students and dedicated on October 26, 1951. The first student residence on UBC campus, Robson House, opened in 1959.
In the 1961–62 academic year, the university had an enrolment of 12,602 students, including 798 graduate students. The next year, the single-University policy in the West was changed as existing colleges of the provincial universities gained autonomy as Universities – the University of Victoria was established in 1963.
Recent history
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced the creation of the Museum of Anthropology at UBC on July 1, 1971. At a construction cost of $2.5 million the museum building, designed by Arthur Erickson, opened in 1976. That same year, the university launched a normal school program under the direction of Sally Rogow to train educators on methods to teach students with multiple disabilities or who were visually impaired.
UBC was the host for the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1974. The Proceedings of the Congress were edited by Ralph Duncan James in four volumes.
In 1993, UBC concluded its "World of Opportunity" capital campaign that started in 1988. In total the university raised $262 million for the campaign. An additional $72 million in "non-campaign fundraising" was also raised. During the administration of President Strangway, UBC abandoned its previous design and planning process and private donors started to have more influence on building design.
In 2015, UBC concluded its "Start an Evolution" capital campaign. The campaign's quiet phase started in April 2008 and it launched publicly in September 2011. The initial goal was to raise $1.5 billion. The campaign surpassed that goal and raised $1.624 billion.
UBC's 15th president was Professor Santa J. Ono. He assumed the presidency on August 15, 2016. He served previously as the 28th president of the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Martha Piper – who served as the 11th president of the university – served as interim president from September 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016, following the resignation of Dr. Arvind Gupta.
In early May 2020, UBC announced it would be holding a virtual graduation for the class of 2020 amid concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. The university received $419,248 from the Government of Canada to promote uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among public health leaders, community figures, Indigenous peoples and leadership in municipal government.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of British Columbia, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5