University of British Columbia Canada

The University of British Columbia (commonly referred to as UBC) is a public research university located in Vancouver, Canada. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley. UBC operates smaller speciality and satellite campuses located at Great Northern Way Campus and Robson Street, both in Vancouver proper. The 4.02-square-kilometre (993-acre) main campus is located within the the University Endowment Lands, an unincorporated community on Point Grey, 10 km (6.2 mi) from downtown Vancouver. The 2.09-square-kilometre (516-acre) Okanagan campus is situated about 20 minutes from downtown Kelowna.

Official Site:  British Columbia

A body politic and corporation by the name of The University of British Columbia was first incorporated April 26, 1890. Subsequent enactments culminating on March 7, 1908 with another University Act gave the University its current form. 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.

Governance and academics

The administration of UBC, as mandated by the University Act, is composed of a chancellor, convocation, board, senate, and faculties of the university. The Board of Governors is responsible for the management of property and revenue, while the Senate is vested with managing the academic operation of the university. Both are composed of faculty and students who are elected to the position. Degrees and diplomas are conferred by the convocation, which is composed of alumni, administrators, and faculty, with a quorum of twenty members. UBC also has a President, who is a chief executive officer of the university and a member of the Senate, Board of Governors, Convocation, and also serves as Vice Chancellor. The President of the University is responsible for managing the academic operation of the university, including recommending appointments, calling meetings of faculties, and establishing committees.

Faculties and schools

UBC's academic activity is organized into "faculties" and "schools". Currently, UBC has twelve faculties and eleven schools on its Vancouver campus and eight faculties. UBC Vancouver has two academic colleges: Interdisciplinary Studies and Health Disciplines, while UBC Okanagan has a College of Graduate Studies. At the Vancouver campus, the Faculty of Arts, which dates back to the 1915 Fairview Campus, is the largest faculty with twenty departments and schools. With the split of the Faculty of Arts and Science in 1964, the Faculty of Science is the second largest faculty with nine departments. The Sauder School of Business is UBC's Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration. The School of Architecture offers a program in architecture accredited by the Canadian Architectural Certification Board at both the bachelor level (B.Arch.) and the master's level (M.Arch.). 

Enrolment

In 2010, UBC had 3,694 full-time Faculty, and 9,727 non-faculty employees. It had over fifty thousand students (44,496 undergraduate students and 9,629 graduate students), and more than 250,000 alumni in 120 countries). 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). and the only Canadian member of the prestigious Association of Pacific Rim Universities, a consortium of 42 leading research universities in the Pacific Rim.