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Created in 2005 on the North Kelowna Campus of the former Okanagan University College, the 'University of British Columbia Okanagan' ('UBCO') represents a smaller, more intimate alternative to its larger sister institution in Vancouver, the University of British Columbia (UBCV). At present approximately 4,000 undergraduates (3,300 FTE's) attend classes at Okanagan. By 2010, the equivalent of 7,500 full-time students are expected to attend, including 500 graduate students. To accommodate this growth, UBCO has embarked on an ambitious building program with additions to existing buildings and construction of new residences and academic buildings. UBC Okanagan offers a wide array of both undergraduate and graduate degrees, small classes and intramural athletics.

Contents

Faculties and Schools

The evolution of university education in the Okanagan

Number of Full Time Faculty

Number of Full Time Equivalent Undergraduate Students

References

Faculties and Schools

★ The Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences (website)

★ Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (website)

★ Faculty of Education (website)

★ Faculty of Applied Science (website)

★ College of Graduate Studies (website)

★ Faculty of Health and Social Development (website)

★ The Faculty of Management (website)

The evolution of university education in the Okanagan

Prior to 1962, the University of British Columbia, with its satellite campus in Victoria (Victoria College), was the only public institution of higher education in the province. However by the late 1950s public pressure to expand post-secondary educational in the Okanagan and other regions outside the lower mainland was mounting. The president of UBC, Norman MacKenzie, proposed that more satellite campuses of UBC be established in selected rural population centres. This suggestion was not acted upon.
In the early 1960s John B. Macdonald, MacKenzie’s successor as the President of The University of British Columbia, undertook an enquiry into the provision of post secondary education in the province of British Columbia. The Macdonald Report (formally entitled "Higher Education in British Columbia and a Plan for The Future") was published in December 1962. Macdonald recommended that Victoria College be allowed to become an independent degree-granting university. He also recommended that two-year regional community colleges be established throughout the province, beginning in the Okanagan and Kootenay districts and in metropolitan Vancouver. These colleges would be under the control of local school boards, supported in part by local taxation and designed to meet local needs, be self-governing and not part of a unified provincial system. The two year regional colleges would offer a comprehensive curriculum, and provisions would be made for students of these two-year colleges to subsequently transfer to a university.
The government of the day responded to the MacDonald report in several ways, notably by introducing the University Act of 1963 which granted autonomy to Victoria College (renamed University of Victoria), by the creation of Simon Fraser University, and by amending the Public School Act to allow school districts to establish colleges in their region. In the process the government created the unique British Columbia university transfer system by which students could take first and second year university courses at one of a number of colleges and then transfer to one of the provincial universities for their final two years. One of the first of the new two-year community colleges to be established was Okanagan Regional College, which was established in 1965 and which enrolled its first university transfer and career students shortly thereafter.
During the early 1970s the government made the policy decision to meld the individual regional community colleges with provincial vocational schools. As the Minister of Education, D.L. Brothers reported to the legislature on February 16, 1972: “It's with a desire on our part to develop completely comprehensive institutions that our department moved during the last year to bring together or to meld five colleges in the province with five vocational schools. These amalgamations took place in Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Prince George, and Victoria. And the indications that I have to date are these arrangements are working extremely well… Now I want to take this opportunity to commend the work of the college councils, the principals, and the faculties of both of the various institutions that were brought together because this has been trying for them. But they have responded very enthusiastically and very positively to this experiment.”
In 1977 the Colleges and Provincial Institutes Act was passed. It signalled the end of local control and the beginning of a provincial college system in which the government would play more of a central coordinating role and would assume responsibility for both capital and operating costs at colleges.
While these newly created comprehensive institutions, like Okanagan College, had many advantages they were not without some problems. In particular, a certain amount of tension existed between the faculty of the former BC Vocational School, who were represented by the British Columbia Government Employees Union (BCGEU) and the faculty of the former Okanagan Regional College, who were represented by an independent Faculty Association.
In order to make the college programmes more accessible to students, multiple campuses are operated by a number of colleges, including Okanagan. By 1989 Okanagan College had four campuses, one each in Kelowna, Penticton, Salmon Arm, and Vernon.
By the late 1980s it had become apparent that British Columbia was lagging behind the rest of the country in the percentage of high school graduates who went directly to full-time studies in colleges, institutes or universities. In response, in 1987 the Social Credit government appointed the Provincial Access Committee (PAC) which was charged with evaluating access in the post-secondary system. The PAC made two critical proposals: First, it proposed adding a fourth university in the province, a “University of the North”. Second, it also proposed the introduction of a new type of institution, university colleges, that would offer full four-year university baccalaureate programs in partnership with one or more of the existing universities. In March 1988, Stan Hagen, the Minister of Advanced Education and Job Training announced the ‘Access for All’ initiative which would allow selected colleges to become university colleges, and in 1989 the government designated three community colleges as the first of this new breed of institution. One of the three colleges so designated was Okanagan College, which was expanded to provide baccalaureate degrees, in partnership with the University of British Columbia (Arts and Science), and the University of Victoria (Nursing and Education).
In January, 1993 Okanagan University College opened its second campus in Kelowna (the North Kelowna campus) across from the Kelowna International Airport.
In June of 1994 the provincial government introduced further amendments to the College and Institute Act which gave university colleges the power to grant baccalaureate degrees in their own name and had the effect of creating, for the first time, senates for the colleges and university colleges (called Education Councils).
A separate Order in Council came into effect on January 15, 1995 which granted OUC the authority to grant the degrees. By that time degrees in Social Work and Fine Arts had been added to the original degrees in Arts, Science, Education, and Nursing. Later the institution would also offer a degree in Business.
By 1998 OUC had evolved into a full undergraduate university plus a vocational, trades and developmental institute. However it was still governed by the College and Institute Act. Starting in the late 1990s the Faculty Association and individual faculty members began lobbying to have the institution removed from the College and Institute Act and placed under the University Act, and to have the name of the institution changed to Okanagan University. Ultimately this lobbying effort was joined by OUC’s administration, Board of Governors, Student Society, and a community group, University 2000.
These lobbying efforts exacerbated some of the tensions between the university faculty, represented by the Faculty Association, and the non-university faculty, represented by the BCGEU. Some faculty members in each group favoured splitting the institution into a two institutions: a university and a separate vocational, trades, and developmental institute.
The lobbying efforts also created significant tensions between the institution’s Board of Governors and the provincial government. In May of 2001, Okanagan University College’s Board accepted a committee report that said new legislation should give Okanagan full university status, including an unrestricted instructional and research mandate. In May of 2001, the Board signed a Collective Agreement with the Faculty Association which provided for traditional academic ranks for faculty and much higher pay for senior ranks, on the grounds that this is necessary to compete effectively with universities for faculty. In July of that year the Ministry fired OUC's Board for signing the Collective Agreement and for pursuing the goal of full university status too aggressively. According to Rod Church’s paper “A Brief History of the University College Mandate Issue” the Ministry also informally told other university colleges to learn the lessons of Okanagan: that enhanced status for university colleges was not a priority and continued pursuit of it during the next few years would not be appreciated. Nonetheless, the new OUC Board of Governors and the OUC President, Katy Bindon, continued aggressive lobbying efforts.
In December 2002 the British Columbia Progress Board submitted a report (pdf)to the provincial government, recognising the need to expand postsecondary opportunities in the Okanagan. The progress board, chaired by then UBC president Martha Piper, recommended that the province extend “the mandate of an existing provincial University to Kelowna. . .”. The provincial government responded by beginning secret negotiations with the University of British Columbia.

On 17 March 2004, BC Premier Gordon Campbell and the University of British Columbia President Martha Piper held an invitation only press conference at the Grand Hotel in downtown Kelowna, announcing that OUC would be dissolved. OUC’s university operations would be consolidated at its North Kelowna Campus and would come under the control of the University of British Columbia. The other programs and campuses of Okanagan University College would form a new community college, which would later take on the name Okanagan College. The OUC Board was not invited to the press conference and had not been told in advance of the imminent demise of OUC. Press accounts at the time relate how one of the Board members was able to slip past security guards in time to find that she and all but three of 14 OUC board members, including the president, had been fired. (e-peak, issue 4, volume 118 — September 27, 2004). This unusual and controversial event is the only example in Canadian history of a hostile takeover of one educational institution by another.
According the Ministry backgrounder released at the same time as the announcement was made, the affiliation between UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan would be “based on the highly successful University of California model” and that “UBC Okanagan and UBC Vancouver will each have an independent senate to set academic priorities for their respective institutions, based regional needs and priorities. At the same time, they will share a common board of governors, with strong representation from each region.”

Number of Full Time Faculty

Faculty	October 2005	October 2006
Applied Science	3	10
Barber School of Arts & Sciences	108	113
Creative & Critical Studies	47	48
Education	15	15
Health & Social Development	40	35
Management	1	1
TOTAL	214	222

Number of Full Time Equivalent Undergraduate Students

Faculty	November 2005	November 2006
Applied Science	78.00	169.80
Barber School of Arts & Sciences	1,996.10	2,237.35
Creative & Critical Studies	153.40	140.10
Education	220.17	226.03
Health & Social Development	361.93	383.93
Management	0	159.9
Unclassified	16.07	19.67
TOTAL	2,825.67	3,336.78

References

Capital News (1990-2005). Kelowna, British Columbia.
Daily Courier (1990-2005). Kelowna, British Columbia.
Freake, R. (2005). OUC Memoirs. Okanagan University College, Kelowna.
Source: UBC Planning and Institutional Research Office (website)