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. The enabling legislation are the University Act and the University Amendment Act, 2004. The university is the oldest in British Columbia and has the largest enrolment with over 54,000 students at its Vancouver and Okanagan campuses combined. The university library, which comprises 5.9 million books and journals, is the second-largest research library in Canada.
The University of British Columbia is ranked second in Canada and 37th worldwide in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, second in Canada and 22nd worldwide in the Times Higher Education rankings, third in Canada and 51st globally in the QS World University Rankings, and second in Canada and eighth overall in Newsweek's ranking of top universities outside of the United States . Additionally, the university has been affiliated with five Nobel laureates.
History
Establishment of a provincial university
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| The chemistry building, one of UBC's oldest, on a summer evening |
The University of British Columbia was founded on March 7, 1908 as a branch of McGill University. A provincial university was first called into being by the British Columbia University Act of 1908, although its location was not yet specified. The governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which established 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 establishing a degree-granting university with assistance 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 it was McGill that would come to dominate higher education in the early 1900s.
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| Henry Marshall Tory |
Building on a successful affiliation between Vancouver and Victoria high schools with McGill University, Henry Marshall Tory helped to 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 Henry Marshall Tory (1864–1947), FRSC, founding President of the University of Alberta and of the National Research Council of Canada, and a co-founder of Carlton University.
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. 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. The first day of lectures was September 30, 1915, the new independing university absorbing McGill University College. University of British Columbia awarded its first degrees in 1916.
Early years
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| The UBC Vancouver school of theology was built in 1927. |
The brick and mortar section of the Irving K. Barber library here (formerly the Main Library) on UBC's Vancouver campus was first built in 1925.
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 Faculty of Arts and Science.
By 1920, the university had only three faculties: Arts, Applied Science, and Agriculture (with Departments of Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Dairying, Horticulture and Poultry). It only awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.), and Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (B.S.A.). There were 576 male students and 386 female students in the 1920–21 winter session, but only 64 academic staff, including 6 women.
In the early part of the twentieth century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law and medicine. UBC provided no degrees in these areas, but was beginning to offer degrees in new professional areas such as engineering, agriculture, nursing, and school teaching. Graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis was introduced, with students completing M.A. degrees in natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
In 1922 the now twelve-hundred-strong student body embarked on a "Build the University" campaign. Students marched in the streets of Vancouver to draw attention to their plight, enlist popular support, and embarrass the government. Fifty-six thousand signatures were presented at legislature in support of the campaign, which was ultimately successful. 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 steadily.
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| View of the north part of the Point Grey Campus. |
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 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, insofar as such action is consistent with the maintenance of reasonably efficient instructional standards. To do less would be unthinkable.
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| View of the UBC War Memorial Gym |
The University was closed for 4½ 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, then mandatory. WWII marked the first provision of money from the federal government to the University for research purposes. By the end of the war, it became clear that the facilities at Point Grey had become totally inadequate to cater to the huge influx of veterans returning to their studies. 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. Most of the camps were dismantled and carried by barge or truck to the University where the huts were scattered across the campus. (A few huts remain in place today!)
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 War Memorial Hall (more generally known as Memorial Hall) and War Memorial Gym are landmark buildings on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The lecture hall, theatre and gym honour students who had enlisted and died in the First World War, and in the Second World War.
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.
On February 10, 1964 Harvey Reginald MacMillan donated $8.2 million for postgraduate education to the university.
The museum of anthropology at UBC was announced on July 1, 1971 by Prime Minister Trudeau. At a construction cost of $2.5 million, the museum building designed by Arthur Erickson opened in 1976.
The university today
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| University of British Columbia |
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 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. All three founding faculties remain, but the Faculty of Agriculture is now known as the Faculty of Land & Food Systems.
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