University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Canadian public research university with campuses in Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. The Vancouver campus is located on Point Grey, a peninsula about 10 km from downtown Vancouver. While the originating legislation created UBC on March 7, 1908, the first day of lectures was September 30, 1915. On September 22, 1925, lectures began on the new Point Grey campus.

www.ubc.ca

UBC was ranked as the fourth best university (Medical Doctoral Rankings) in Canada by Maclean's Magazine in 2008. In 2006, Newsweek magazine ranked UBC second in Canada and 27th in the world. In 2007, the Times Higher Education Supplement ranked UBC as second in Canada and 33rd in the world (Social Sciences 12th, Life & Biomedical 14th, Natural Sciences 20th, Arts & Humanities 18th, Technology 22nd).

The UBC library, which comprises 4.7 million books and journals, is the second-largest research library in Canada.

History

The University of British Columbia, a single, public provincial university created in 1908 was modelled on the American state university system, with an emphasis on extension work and applied research.

The University of British Columbia is a non-denominational undergraduate and graduate teaching and research institution. A provincial university was first called into being by the British Columbia University Act of 1908, although its location was not yet specified. In 1957, the first Canadian graduate program in adult education was established at the University of British Columbia.

The policy of university education initiated in the 1960s responded to population pressure and the belief that higher education was a key to social justice and economic productivity for individuals and for society. In 1961, the first doctoral program in adult education in Canada was introduced by the University of British Columbia. 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.

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 Provost and Vice-President (VP) Academic, is currently Dr. David H. Farrar. The Vice-President Students is Brian Sullivan; VP External and Legal is Stephen Owen, VP Research is John Hepburn and VP Finance and Administration is Terry Sumner.

The Chancellor of the University, who acts as the University's ceremonial head and sits on the academic Senate and the Board of Governors, is Sarah Morgan-Silvester (as of July 1, 2008). The UBC Okanagan campus is led by Dr. Doug Owram, 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. Enrollment 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 the Vancouver campus currently occupy 1,091,997 m² gross, located on 1.7 km² of maintained land.The Vancouver campus' 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.

Libraries

The UBC Library, which comprises 4.7 million books and journals, 5.0 million microforms, over 800,000 maps, videos and other multimedia materials and over 46,700 subscriptions, is the second largest research library in Canada.The library has twenty-six branches and divisions at UBC and at other locations, including three branches at teaching hospitals (Saint Paul's Hospital, Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre, BC Children's Hospital), one at UBC's Robson Square campus in downtown Vancouver, and one at the new UBC Okanagan campus. Plans are also under way to establish a library at the Great Northern Way Campus on the Finning Lands.

Reputation

UBC consistently ranks as one of the top three Canadian universities by Research Info Source and ranks as second in Canada and thirty-sixth in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities. In 2006, Newsweek magazine ranked the University of British Columbia second in Canada and 27th in the world. The Times Higher Education Supplement of the UK ranked UBC as second in Canada and thirty-third in the world in 2007. 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). The Department of Art History, Visual Arts and Theory has been recognized consistently for the world-class artists who teach there. In 2003 the National Post stated UBC had the highest entrance requirements for undergraduate admission out of all universities in Canada.

Faculties and Schools

UBC's academic activity is organized into "faculties", and "schools". There are also "institutes" and "colleges", which are research organizations, and some "residential colleges" which are residence-focused academic communities.

The primary faculties and schools are:
Faculty of Applied Science
Faculty of Arts
Sauder School of Business
Continuing Studies
Faculty of Dentistry
Faculty of Education
Faculty of Forestry
Faculty of Graduate Studies
College of Health Disciplines
College for Interdisciplinary Studies
Faculty of Land and Food Systems
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Medicine
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Faculty of Science

University of British Columbia was ranked 34th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking