The site at Point Grey was to him the loveliest in the world and the University which was to move and grow there must be worthy of it" UBC lOO UBC's first president, Dr. Frank Fairchild Wesbrook, visiting Point Grey, ca. 7976. THE UNIV'E 28 29 UBC'S FIRST CENTURY Did you know that UBC offered the first nursing degree in the British Empire? Or that it opened the first campus sustainability office in Canada? Discover UBC with this timeline of significant events. HOW THE THUNDERBIRD CAME TO UBC The Thunderbird is a supernatural creature from Aboriginal mythology that beats enemies with its wings and rends them with its talons. It's also a potent symbol for UBC's sports teams. UBC'S HIDDEN HISTORY UBC's Point Grey and Okanagan campuses are located, respectively, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam and Okanagan peoples. 30 37 38 TEN YEARS IN THE OKANAGAN UBC's Okanagan campus has grown dramatically since it opened a decade ago - but is only just getting started. FROM SAGE TO GUIDE A teaching revolution is transforming student learning at UBC. I PRANK, THEREFORE I AM A tenacious writer manages to get the inside scoop on one of the most ambitious student pranks ever attempted. 42 48 50 RESEARCH EXCELLENCE UBC is regarded as one of the top research institutions in the world. Here are some of the reasons. A NEW HOME ON CAMPUS The official opening of the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre on September 30 kicks off UBC's Centennial year. FAMOUS UBC VISITORS From royalty and rock stars to playwrights and politicians, UBC has welcomed an eclectic mix of visitors over the years. DEPARTMENTS 2 EDITORIAL 3 CENTENNIAL EVENTS 12 PRESIDENT'S COLUMN 27 MESSAGE FROM ALUMNI UBC 41 ALUMNI UBC EVENTS 50 UBC IN NUMBERS COVER image: Courtesy UBC Archives quote: Isobel Harvey, BA'18, MA'19, in a commemorative article that ran in the 1932 Graduate Chronicle. editor's note FOREWORD TO THE PAST UBC's first construction on the Point Grey campus site was a modest shack used to store dynamite for clearing the land of tree stumps. The shack was later commandeered for an office by Leonard Klinck, first dean of Agriculture and later UBC's second president, as he oversaw the establishment of agricultural experimental plots in 1915. Looking out at today's campus from the comfort of the climate-controlled Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre -only five minutes' walk from where the shack stood on what is now Main Mall - you can see buildings old and new stretching to the horizon, and the omnipresent cranes are evidence of more growth to come Having spent the last few months engrossed in MK0 amite shack was d on what is now Main Hall. If it were still around ; today, it would be dwarfed - (and upstaged) by the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on one side, and the Applied Science building on the other. dents liked to have as much fun then as they do now. archival UBC images and footage, and nosing through boxes of decades-old university correspondence, see striking contrasts with the past all around This month, for example, students returned to campus in their thousands - lugging backpacks, riding skateboards, texting friends, acclimatizing to student life. Judging by some candid black and white photos of early students on UBC's original Fairview campus (there were fewer than 400 of them back then), it's clear they indulged in as many antics as students do today - only they did it in long skirts and three-piece suits. Fashion isn't the only thing to have changed: the classroom setting has gone from straight-back-and-chalkboard to interactive and hi-tech, and the university's campuses are far more culturally diverse The passage of time is also apparent from the type and volume of research discovery. The first recorded invention disclosure at UBC was for a device to allow the more efficient planting of trees. More recently, forestry researchers have mapped the genomes of the spruce tree and the mountain pine beetle, and are also exploring how trees might best adapt to climate change Hand-in-hand with new areas of research, the university now has a staggering number of courses on offer in almost every subject imaginable - not only on campus but out in the community as well So UBC evidently started with a lot of big bangs (if the shack's anything to go by) and has been rapidly expanding ever since. There's a lot to cover in one Centennial issue, which is why we decided to have two: This one focuses on UBC's first century- covering some of the institution's earliest stories, examining how student life and politics have helped shape its cultural identity, and highlighting just a few of the research areas in which it now enjoys a commanding reputation The less introspective spring 2016 issue, which coincides with the 100th anniversary of UBC's first graduating class, will check in with some of UBC's 305,000 alumni living and working in approximately 140 countries, and look ahead to a different world hinted at by emerging fields of research. It will also delve into some of the university's roles in the community, as well as its fast-expanding international activities and partnerships We'll never know exactly what Frank Wesbrook was envisioning as he looked out over Point Grey on a chilly day in 1916, or thereabouts, but it's safe to say he'd be mightily impressed by what UBC has become in just a hundred years. Vanesssa Clarke Editor EDITOR Vanessa Clarke, BA ASSISTANT EDITOR Alison Huggins,B/l GRAPHIC DESIGNER Pamela Yan, BDes BOOKS AND FICTION Teresa Goff, BA CONTRIBUTOR Michael Awmack.B/Voi, MET'09 TREKONLINE WEB COORDINATOR Elizabeth Powell, BSc BOARD OF DIRECTORS ELECTED CHAIR Michael Lee, BSc'86, BA'89, MA'92, LLB VICE CHAIR Faye Wightman, BSC'8l (Nursing) TREASURER Ian Warner, BCom'89 MEMBERS AT LARGE [2012-2015] Blake Hanna, MBA'82 David Climie, BCom'83 Judy Rogers, BRE'71 an Warner, BCom'89 Faye Wightman, BSC'8i (Nursing) MEMBERS AT LARGE [2013-2016] Valerie Casselton, BA'77 Michael Lee, BSc'86, BA'89, MA'92, LLB Gregg Saretsky, BSc'82, MBA'84 MEMBERS AT LARGE [2014-2017] Robert Bruno, BCom'97 Ross Langford, BCom'89, LLB'89 Barbara Anderson, BSc'78 EX-OFFICIO PRESIDENT'S DESIGNATE Barbara Miles, BA, PostGradinEd. INTERIM UBC PRESIDENT Martha C. Piper, OC, OBC, PhD UBC CHANCELLOR Lindsay Gordon, BA'73, MBA'76 ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, ALUMNI/ EXECUTIVE D\K£C10K, ALUMNI UBC Jeff Todd, BA Trek magazine (formerly the UBC Alumni Chronicle) is published two times a year by the UBC Alumni Association and distributed free of charge to UBC alumni and friends. Opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of the Alumni Association or the university. Address correspondence to: The Editor, alumni UBC 6163 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T1Z1 email to trek.magazine@ubc.ca Letters are published at the editor's discretion and may be edited for space ADVERTISING Jenna McCann jenna.mccann@ubc.ca 604.822.8917 CONTACT NUMBERS AT UBC Address Changes 604.822.8921 via email alumni.ubc@ubc.ca alumni UBC/ Discover UBC 604.822.3313 toll free 800.883.3088 Volume 71, Number 2 | Printed in Canada by Mitchell Press Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40063528 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Records Department UBC Development Office Suite 500 - 5950 University Boulevard Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3 SEPT- MAY SEPT 30 SEPT 30 OCT 1 £> Paper from _ responsible sources JS£ FSC* C011267 OCT 2 OCT 6 OCT 8 UBC Centennial Event Highlights This is just a small sampling of the events on offer during UBC's Centennial year. Visit ubclOO.ca for a full listing of events and regular updates. One Day «UBC Centennial Lectures Vancouver - September 2015 through May 2016 UBC Continuing Studies is offering 20 free lectures over 10 Saturdays at the UBC Point Grey campus to anyone 15 years of age or older. Live Webcast: Centennial Launch and Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre Opening Ceremony Watch a live webcast at: ubcwo.ca/live (10:00am to 11:00am) Distinguished Lecture Series - Wab Kinew: The Reason You Walk Kelowna CBC host Wab Kinew offers an inside view of what it means to be an educated Aboriginal living in a country that is just beginning to wake up to its Aboriginal history and living presence. 2015 Allard Prize for International Integrity & Conferral of Centennial Honorary Degree Vancouver Created and funded by alumnus Peter A. Allard, Q.C., the $100,000 prize is one of the largest awards in the world recognizing efforts to combat corruption and promote human rights. The same evening, an honorary degree wil be conferred upon Lieutenant-General, the Honourable Romeo Dallaire (Ret'd). Wharton Lecture: 'Queen of the Canopies' Dr. Meg Lowman Vancouver Dr. Lowman is a renowned biologist, educator and forest champion who has pioneered the science of treetop canopy research. 2015 Vancouver Human Rights Lecture, featuring Richard Goldstone Vancouver Richard Goldstone discusses the successes and failures of reconciliation in post-Apartheid South Africa. UBC Symphony Orchestra Vancouver The orchestra will open its concert with a Centennial fanfare composed by alumnus Jared Miller, BMus'10. NOV 7 NOV 20 NOV 21 DEC 10 JAN 21 WALL Exchange with Eyal Weizman: Forensic Architecture Vancouver Can architecture provide new tools of political analysis and intervention? This question is central to the work of Eyal Weizman, Israeli architect and scholar. Earthquake Day Vancouver A day-long, city-wide effort to raise earthquake awareness and achieve earthquake resilience. Janusz Korczak and the Importance of Listening to Children's Voices in Education Vancouver This presentation will focus on the aspects of Janusz Korczak's work that can inform both present and future efforts to bring children's voices into schools. Brock Talks: Earth's Astonishing Climate History Vancouver A presentation by preeminent geologist Professor Paul F. Hoffman. Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz - The Great Divide: I The Causes and Consequences of Inequality and What We Can Do About It Vancouver Professor Stiglitz, who visits UBC this fall, is one of the world's foremost thinkers on the problem of inequality and wrote the article "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%" that helped give the Occupy movement its slogan "We are the 99%." Vancouver Institute Lecture: The Astonishing Simplicity of Everything Vancouver A presentation by Dr. Neil Turok, one of the world's leading theoretical physicists. alumni UBC Hong Kong Centennial Gala Hong Kong Join special guests, along with alumni and friends from across Asia, to celebrate UBC's Centennial in style. The Human Rights of Aboriginal Children Vancouver Despite protection under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many young people remain marginalized in our society. Aboriginal children are among those most at risk. UBC IOO UNIVER mtasss AT LAST Frank Wesbrook, By Erwin Wodarczak There is only one thing necessary now to make the University of British Columbia blossom into a full-fledged university with perfect credentials, and that is a' Varsity ayelY\ **"* leptember 1915) • When he first arrived in Vancouver in 1913 to assume the presidency of the University of British Columbia, Frank Fairchild Wesbrook was promised that the provincial government would spare practically no expense to establish the university and ensure that its facilities and academic programs were comparable to other Canadian universities. He was told at a meeting with Premier Sir Richard McBride on May 30 that UBC would receive $2.8 million over its first two years, plus an additional "ten million if need be... [and] whatever [additional] sums were necessary from time to time." The campus designs proposed by the firm of Sharp & Thompson (see next page), chosen as university architects that same year, promised facilities as impressive as any in North America. The first buildings at Point Grey, which had been selected as the location of the campus in 1910, were due to be completed in time for the start of classes in 1915. Wesbrook's dream of a "Cambridge on the Pacific" -for which he had given up his position as Dean of Medicine at the University of Minnesota - looked well within reach. Two years later, the dream had given way to a harsh reality. An economic slump starting in 1913 and the beginning of the First World War the following year had combined to divert money, resources, and political will away from the university project. In January 1915 the initial budget was set at only $175,000. Proposed courses of study were cancelled or postponed indefinitely. The Point Grey campus would not be finished, although land-clearing and construction of the Science Building had begun. It was still expected that UBC would open its doors to students in September 1915 - but where? Since 1908, McGill University College of British Columbia had provided post-secondary education for the province. It was based in the Fairview neighbourhood of Vancouver, in two buildings erected three years earlier at 10th Avenue and Laurel Street, adjacent to Vancouver General Hospital. Only the first two years of arts and science instruction were offered; students wishing to complete their degrees had to go to McGill University in Montreal, or some other institution. Premier McBride's government insisted that UBC would have to begin operations in the buildings of McGill BC, which would cease operations upon the inauguration of the university. The president and Board of Governors protested strenuously, insisting that at the very least temporary facilities should be erected at Point Grey for 1915, with operations moving into the Science Building upon its completion. But the government was adamant. Only current work on the concrete skeleton of the Science Building would be funded to completion. UBC would have to make-do with the McGill BC facilities and whatever additional temporary structures could be erected at the Fairview site. With the circumstances of the university's immediate future out of their hands, Wesbrook and his staff proceeded with planning for its inauguration as best they could. Faculty were recruited from other institutions, sometimes after being interviewed by Wesbrook himself. In addition, many of the academic and administrative staff from McGill BC were retained by UBC. Altogether, for its first year of operation UBC would have a teaching staff of 34 - of whom two, classics professor Harry T. Logan and dean of Applied Science Reginald W. Brock, were on leave for overseas military service - and 12 administrative staff. Registration for classes was scheduled to begin on September 27. McGill BC students were allowed to continue their courses of study at the new university, with those who had already completed their third year of study coming back for the fourth year and expected to finish as UBC's first graduates in 1916. At the same time, more than half the projected student body would consist of first-years. Most new universities begin with a freshman class and perhaps a handful of older students. By contrast, UBC would boast a full complement of undergraduates from all years, in the faculties of Arts and Applied Science: WOMEN TOTAL 4TH YEAR 3RD YEAR 2ND YEAR 40 APPLIED SCIENCE! 3RD YEAR The third faculty, Agriculture, existed on paper only. Although Dean Leonard Klinck would offer an introductory course in agriculture that year, a full program of agriculture classes would not be offered until 1917. In addition to those listed above, 56 McGill BC students who had enlisted - many of whom were already serving in the front lines in France - had declared that they would continue their studies at UBC at the end of their military service. Wesbrook and his colleagues decided that, as their college had ceased to exist, these soldier-students were without an "alma mater," and so should be included in the UBC student body - in addition, any fees they might owe would be waived. With these overseas men included, the student body for 1915/16 would eventually total 435. Students and staff would launch their academic careers in facilities that were a far cry from what Wesbrook had originally been promised. McGill BC had left its two buildings in Fairview to its successor: a two-and-a-half storey wood-frame building at the southeast corner of 10th Avenue and Laurel Street, and a single-storey structure, also of wood construction, immediately beside it. These would become known as the Physics and Chemistry buildings, respectively. Also included among the college's assets left to UBC were its library collection of 1,910 volumes, and assorted laboratory and office furniture and equipment. In addition, the Vancouver School Board agreed to loan the chairs and desks that had previously been used by McGill BC. The board also granted university students access to laboratory and workshop facilities at nearby King Edward High School. Perhaps most importantly, Vancouver General Hospital was very generous in allowing the university to expand its presence across its property. VGH board chairman J.J. Banfield agreed to the construction of two additional "temporary" buildings, each single-storey and of wood-frame-and-shingle construction, on Laurel. Completed that summer, these would house classes and laboratories for geology and mining. FEATURE • first day The Library collection was not yet fully catalogued - the books were simply grouped on the shelves according to general subject area. Finally, the provincial government had paid for the construction of a new, permanent building for VGH's use as a tuberculosis control and treatment centre, on the condition that it be loaned to the university for as long as it was based at the Fairview campus. For UBC it would serve as space for the university administration, the Library, and the Faculty of Arts -the latter gave it its unofficia name of the Arts Building By September the Library collections had grown to 30,000 volumes. The Library itself was located on the first floor of the east wing of the Arts Building. A small reading room, with seating for about 35 students, was established in space originally intended as a south-facing deck for hospital patients The bookstacks were located in a larger room next door. The Library collection was not yet fully catalogued - the books were simply grouped on the shelves according to general subject area. Acting librarian John Ridington had been hired on a temporary basis in August 1914 only to unpack and catalogue books. He was officially appointed in December 1914, "in charge of cataloguing Library," although he had no formal training as a librarian August and September of 1915 presented a picture of controlled chaos in and around Fairview. The university's offices were still downtown; the new space in the Arts Building had to be made ready. Office walls and partitions were put up, and telephone lines installed. Wesbrook's attention to detail was such that the itemized costs of each project were noted in his diary. His diary was full of to-do lists, appointment reminders, and notes to see so-and-so re. such-and-such. A reminder of his wife's birthday on August 7 was written in red ink. The finalized text for the first UBC calendar was sent to the King's Printer on August 2. When it was published the following month, Wesbrook made sure complimentary copies were sent to government officials, local dignitaries, and other university supporters. Demand for this first tangible product of the university became so great among the general public that copies of the calendar disappeared as quickly as they were produced The move of the university's offices from Hastings Street to Fairview happened on September 13 President Wesbrook wasn't even in town that day - the minister of education had delegated him to speak to a meeting of school trustees in Chilliwack. His first day at work in his new office was September 16. As he wrote in a letter a few days later: "We have left the Hastings Street offices and moved in on the workmen which hurried them and inconvenienced us but I think on the whole the results will be satisfactory." Even in the middle of such a period of unremitting activity, Wesbrook still had socia obligations to fulfill. Perhaps the most important of these came on September 18 when he and his wife had the opportunity to meet Canada's Governor General, His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught. The Duke was very interested in military affairs and Canada's role in the war. Wesbrook took the opportunity to tell him about UBC's plans for an officers'training corps Other visitors to Vancouver had to be met and shown around. Local friends, colleagues, and dignitaries were invited for dinner. As new university staff arrived to assume their posts, Wesbrook would often meet them in person Another milestone came on the afternoon of September 27 when Wesbrook presided over the first meeting of the faculty. The president declared that he did not want the university administration decentralized among the faculties and departments, and preferred a unitary system. He proposed an administrative body consisting of the deans and department heads Details of management would be assumed by committees, the functions and membership of which Wesbrook had already carefully considered before the meeting. Wesbrook's centralized system would persist until 1921, when administrative responsibilities were devolved to the academic units. The university's actual opening was to be a quiet and understated affair. No special ceremonies were planned for Thursday, September 30. Wesbrook's diary entry for that day was brief: "9 a.m. - Students assembled meet classes in 4 groups with 1 Registrar & Mr. Klinck." One reason for the lack of fanfare was that there was no auditorium or other space large enough to hold the more than 300 students who were present that first day. nstead, they were organized into four groups in four classrooms. Each in turn was visited by the president and members of the university staff. To each group Wesbrook read a letter he had received from Premier McBride This being the week upon which University work in this Province begins, I take this opportunity of writing to you and expressing my pleasure at the fact that in educational matters we have reached another milestone of progress. I want to congratulate you upon having entered upon the actual duties for which you have for some time been so assiduously preparing, and to congratulate the people of British Columbia upon their at last possessing an institution that will some day rank with the great Universities of the Continent... I want you, on my behalf, to extend greetings to your Colleagues and welcome the Students, many of whom will undoubtedly occupy positions of great responsibility in British Columbia, to fit them for which is one of the objects that gave the University being. It was also felt that owing to wartime conditions and the general public anxiety regarding the war, then entering its second year, it would not be appropriate to hold any formal ceremony or celebration. Instead, Wesbrook looked to the future. Opening day was only the beginning for UBC - there would be opportunities ahead to celebrate the university's accomplishments As he wrote to Premier McBride later that day, We shall hope that when next spring we are able to present candidates for the first degrees granted by the University of British Columbia, there will be opportunity for some formal demonstration, at which time the people of the Province may see something of the work undertaken and accomplished, and that on such an occasion, they may have some right to congratulate themselves upon their determination to establish a people's university. UBC's relatively low profile on opening day did not mean that it escaped media attention. Newspapers from Vancouver to Victoria to Vernon all reported on the university's launch. An editorial in the Vancouver News-Advertiser noted its modest beginnings and the difficulties of launching such a major enterprise in wartime, but concluded that [President Wesbrook] is a resourceful and capable organizer and finds himself now at the head of a school which starts out much better equipped and manned, and with a far larger attendance, than the other universities of Western Canada. It is only just to say that the university would not have been in this position if it had not fallen heir to educational assets of McGill University College, which has laid a substantial foundation for the larger enterprise now undertaken by the provincial university. A separate article in the News-Advertiser concluded, "the enthusiasm of the faculty is dominated by their desire to see that the university fills its proper place in the intellectual and industrial progress of the province... Its great future can but dimly be divined." That day's feature article in the Vancouver World paints the most vivid surviving picture of UBC's inauguration There is only one thing necessary now to make the University of British Columbia blossom into a full-fledged university with perfect credentials, and that is a 'varsity "yell". ... There were the fresh-faced and somewhat unsophisticated freshman, the sophomore with his year of college tending to make him regard the "new man" with mixed feelings of kindliness and pity, the studious third-year man and the fourth-year student, eagerly waiting for the degree that shall be the "open sesame" to the great world of struggle and fame. H CALENDAR ielnibrrsitti •r British (Eolnmbm FIRST MWiON ■nt.10 Copies of UBC's first calendar disappeared as quickly as they were produced. The university's actual opening was to be a quiet and understated affair. No special ceremonies were planned for Thursday, September 30. Wesbrook's diary entry for that day was brief: "9 a.m. - Students assembled meet classes in 4 groups with l Registrar & Mr. Klinck." When the representative of The World crossed the threshold of the Arts building at 9 a.m. over zoo eager students were crowded together in the atrium waiting for the door to their respective class-rooms to be thrown open. The buzz of conversation, such as is only heard on first days, droned through the vestibule. In one corner a group of girls were enthusiastically examining new text books. In another two fourth-year men were debating the war and military training. Two Japanese students sat as motionless as statues on a long bench, while a group of young ladies and young men eagerly reviewed the names of the successful candidates at the recent supplemental examinations, published on the announcements' board on the wall. After the president addressed each of the assembled student groups, the professors gave general outlines of study for each of their courses, and advised students as to where to purchase textbooks and other essentials The students were then dismissed. Classes would start in earnest the next day. With that, the University of British Columbia was launched as the country's newest post-secondary institution. Its beginnings were far more modest than had been imagined just two years before. Thoughts of the war weighed heavily on students and faculty alike. At spring convocation - which President Wesbrook intended as UBC's "real" coming-out party - the graduation gowns would be trimmed with khaki thread to honour those students who had enlisted Nevertheless, optimism and enthusiasm pervaded the Fairview campus Those feelings would be embodied by President Wesbrook when he wrote aterto his friend, provincial forester H.R. MacMillan: "If we do not accomplish good work, it will not be because we do not have good timber. I am delighted with the students individually and think they will develop the University spirit although as yet they have not had a chance." Wesbrook's optimism for the future of UBC would be justified over the next century. D On September 22,1925, the university held its first classes at the new Point Grey campus. The move from the site of what is now the Vancouver General Hospital to Point Grey was an important part of UBC's history, but that was not in and of itself the story. The real story was the massive student-conceived and executed publicity campaign that convinced the government to provide funds to build the university and move it from its overcrowded facilities at the Fairview site. The campaign culminated in the Pilgrimage, or what we now call the Great Trek. The Legislature had approved funds to clear the 175-acre site at Point Grey in 1913, and work began on the Science Building the following summer. However, the First World War began soon after the concrete and stee framework began to take shape, and with the diversion of resources to the war effort, the government stopped construction. The bare girders of the Science Building would serve as a monument to the unrealized vision of the Point Grey campus for almost a decade Everyone viewed the use of the shacks at Fairview as an exigency measure and hoped that work would soon resume at Point Grey. But with a depleted treasury, the provincial government did not consider the university a high priority. UBC spent its first decade at Fairview. Unfortunately, President Wesbrook died shortly before the armistice in 1918. He was replaced by Dean of Agriculture Leonard Klinck. The inadequacy of the Fairview facilities became increasingly apparent with each passing year. Between 1916 and 1922 UBC enrolment expanded by 211 per cent (from 378 to 1,178), while the capacity of the buildings grew by only 25 per cent. The wards of a small three-floor former hospita building made reasonably good classrooms, while the rest of the facilities, including the Auditorium, offices and lecture rooms, were housed in old army shacks. Additional space had to be found as the number of students grew. Professors held agriculture classes in a private residence, French classes in the basement of a church unused by its congregation during the week, and chemistry classes in the famous chemistry tent erected on the site. Professors often had to repeat their lectures several times because not enough adequate classroom space existed and neither students nor faculty members had proper laboratory facilities. The Auditorium, used for genera assemblies, held only 650 people. But the close quarters and relatively smal student numbers produced a cohesive and united student body, and a strong sense of community between students and faculty. This spirit set the stage for the events of 1922 By the spring of 1922, students began organizing a campaign to generate support for the resumption of construction at Point Grey. Returned war veteran and AMS president-elect Albert "Ab" Richards (Class of '23) became leader of the "Build the University" campaign. As a first step in what would become a massive and well-organized undertaking, students were asked to take petitions back to their hometowns in the summer and collect at least 25 signatures. The petition read, in part:"... we the undersigned humbly petition the Government of the Province of British Columbia to institute a definite and progressive policy toward the University of British Columbia, and to take immediate action toward the erection of permanent buildings on the chosen University site at Point Grey." While students collected signatures at home, the Publicity Campaign Committee consisting of Richards, Marjorie Agnew, Percy Barr, J.V. Clyne, Allan H. Finlay, Jack Grant, and Aubrey Roberts co-ordinated activities in Vancouver and organized meetings with service clubs and business leaders to promote their cause Students returned in the fall with 17,000 signatures on their petitions Leaders felt that the numbers, though impressive, were not enough to convince the government to take action. As part of Varsity Week (October 22-28), the students conducted a door-to-door canvas in Vancouver to increase the number of signatures. They divided the city with each class responsible for canvassing in specific sections. Just prior to the Vancouver canvas, a specia edition of the Ubyssey provided students with facts and figures they could use in promoting the cause. The instructions also made clear that the success of this exercise depended on every student doing his or her part, and reminded them that as representatives of the university their behaviour would have an effect on public opinion. At the end of the organized petition blitz, students had collected 56,000 signatures. Students also solicited support from service agencies and other organizations. During Varsity Week, many store windows included displays and posters supporting the campaign. Newspapers, too, Students form 'UBC in front of the Science Building. All photos courtesy of UBC Archives. ULL* feature • great trek — »•- •**-'# >* *, €%*<* Marchers stream along the path of the ' future University Boulevard at the end of their pilgrimage. The barn and poultry pens can be seen in the distance. V i' ■ jtJMtti Professors held agriculture classes in a private residence, French classes in the basement of a church unused by its congregation during the week, and chemistry classes in the famous chemistry tent erected on the site. Professors often had to repeat their lectures several times because carried stories about the campaign as the students established their own news service to send regular campaign updates throughout the province. President Klinck observed No effort on the part of the authorities has ever attracted the attention of the public as has the campaign now being carried on by the students for removal of the University to Point Grey. Their enthusiasm is contagious. Everywhere one goes questions are asked as to the progress of the campaign and the best wishes are expressed for the success of the movement. The initiative, resource and energy with which the canvas is being prosecuted has caught and fired the imagination of men and women in all parts of the province." (The Ubyssey, 77 October 1922) As the student campaign neared its end, only one critical event remained. The Pilgrimage (the term Great Trek would be coined some 25 years later) was set to end Varsity Week on Saturday, October 28. Nearly 1,200 students showed up, along with banners and placards, floats and a marching band. The procession began at the east end of the Georgia viaduct and made its way through downtown Vancouver along Main, Hastings and Granville. At Granville and Davie, the students boarded trolley buses provided by BC Electric Railway and rode to the end of the line at 10th Avenue and Sasamat. They continued on foot along what was little more than a wagon trail to the Point Grey campus. Along the way students continued to sing and chant. Lyrics for one of the official marching songs composed for the event conveyed their sentiments. We're through with tents and hovels, We're done with shingle stain, That's why we want you to join us And carry our Campaign. The Government can't refuse us, No matter what they say, For we'll get the people voting For our new home at Point Grey. The students gathered on the west side of the skeleton of the Science Building and then climbed the concrete stairs to take their place. That symbolic occupation and the familiar formation of the letters "UBC" with student bodies were staged so they could be recorded for posterity by newsreel cameramen conveniently attending the event The Pilgrimage ended with the dedication of the cairn that still stands on Main Mall in front of the Chemistry Building. Students threw stones in the hollow centre of the structure that had been designed by the university architects and built from rocks gathered on the campus site. It was fitting that the students completed the first structure at Point Grey. Richards expressed the hope that "very soon around our Cairn of rock buildings will rise and a university will be established which will bring honour and glory to our Alma Mater and renown to our Province and Dominion." In the week following the Pilgrimage, a student delegation of Richards, Grant, Clyne and Barr packed the 56,000-name petition in seven suitcases and on November 1 met with the cabinet and the Legislature in Victoria. Captain Ian Mackenzie, a Vancouver MLA and an active supporter of the campaign introduced the delegation, and six page-boys hauled the petition roles into the House. Then Richards addressed the Legislature This persuasive presentation and obvious public support helped convince the provincial government to resume work on the Point Grey campus and within a week the premier announced that the government would secure a $1.5 million loan to proceed. These funds completed the Science Building and built the Library and powerhouse according to the original plans Completed in 1923 and 1925 respectively, the Science Building and Library stood as impressive but isolated structures on the stark campus In the spring of 1924, work began on six new frame and stucco "semi-permanent" buildings to house Agriculture, Applied Science, Arts, the Auditorium, and the administration On September 22,1925, 1,400 students crowded into the Auditorium and stood for the university's first inaugural general assembly. The campus to which the students travelled on that day was significantly less grandiose than that envisaged in the original 1914 plans. Only a few modest buildings dotted the landscape, there were no trees or grass, and roads and sidewalks were still under construction Students had no playing fields or gymnasium, piles of construction debris littered the campus and mud and dust were everywhere. Despite these shortcomings, this was the university campus that the students had, with single-minded determination, worked so hard to achieve Student involvement in the Great Trek and the entire publicity campaign represents a remarkable, but not isolated, chapter in UBC's history. The events of 1922 should be viewed as the beginning of a trend Subsequent student initiatives led to the construction of several campus buildings including the Gymnasium (1929), Brock Hall (1940), Armoury (1941), War Memorial Gymnasium (1951) and the Student Union Building (1968) Although perhaps not on the scale of the Great Trek, these initiatives too, helped define the university. D A version of this article was published in the inaugural issue ofTrek magazine in 2001 (IS ^p ^ffli 1 1 * _ . * Crowded students on the Fairview campus. message from the president Dr. Martha C. Piper Interim President and Vice-Chancellor, University of British Columbia AN INAUSPICIOUS START, BUT A GRAND FIRST CENTURY Ours were modest beginnings - which is never how it was supposed to be. In the decades before the University of British Columbia accepted its first students, BC's intellectual and political leaders had ambitious designs There were plans for a substantial new campus at Point Grey, and in 1913 the provincial government committed to the kind of budget that would put UBC immediately on the international academic map Yet a year later, the world slipped into war and the provincial treasury into deficit. With virtually none of the promised funding forthcoming, UBC opened its doors on September 30,1915, in the "Fairview Shacks," a clutch of rundown buildings on the grounds of what is now Vancouver General Hospital (see page 4) In the opening pages of UBC: The First loo Years, a wonderful book by Eric Darner and Herbert Rosengarten, the authors offer a compelling, if uninviting, picture of a university in its infancy "The institution had no history, no alumni, and no benefactors; its physical plant was embarrassingly inadequate and its budgetary situation precarious." Perhaps worse, the rousing ambition also seemed to have faded away. As Darner and Rosengarten report, our founders welcomed UBC's charter students with a promise to "provide a satisfactory education... comparable to that offered by other Canadian universities." We were going to validate that "satisfactory" standard by conducting "respectable" research Nothing special. And not nearly enough Seven short years later, the city, the region and the world got its first big UBC wake-up call when 1,178 UBC students, a handful of professors and a surprising number of alumni launched a protest march to demand that the province keep its old promise and build the university. It would come to be known as the Great Trek (see page 8) The next week, the AMS President delivered a petition to the Legislature with 56,000 names - an impressive proportion of the city's population We know what followed: a century of innovation in everything from traditiona sectors like forestry and mining to the most advanced industries like clean energy and biotechnology; a century of top-quality education in every discipline; and a century of athletic, artistic and cultural accomplishment. From its first 379 students in those cramped shacks, UBC now has 60,000, on Point Grey, in Kelowna, at Robson Square and Great Northern Way, in the Downtown Eastside Learning Exchange, and in co-op and internship placements across the country and around the world. Our annual economic impact is more than $12 billion, which includes $1.4 billion in Kelowna. In research alone we spend more than $530 million a year, the lion's share of which is earned in peer-reviewed competition with the other best research universities in the country. And when I say "best," the superlative is both intended and justified. UBC is consistently ranked in the top three medical-doctoral institutions in Canada and among the top 40 in the world. A significant amount of credit for that achievement goes to UBC's 305,000 alumni, whose capacities and accomplishments are the primary measure by which a great institution must be judged. Certainly, the international rating agencies focus on how often UBC's faculty and researchers are published and cited. They look for Nobel Prize winners - finding seven among our alumni and current and former faculty. But if you're measuring the broad quality of one of the world's foremost universities, you might also count the 69 Rhodes scholars who earned their undergraduate degree at UBC, and the Academic All-Canadians and Thunderbirds who have won as varsity athletes and gone on to represent Canada on every sporting podium, including the Olympics. Among alumni and former faculty, you might consider the BC premiers - there have been three (Mike Harcourt, Glen Clark, and Ujjal Dosanjh) - and the prime ministers (John Turner and Kim Campbell). You might ponder the impact of great jurists - including Frank lacobucci and Beverley McLachlin - and spectacular artists and performers, like Sam Black, B.C. Binning, Ben Heppner and Judith Forst. You might, especially, look to the donors and supporters who, year after year, have enabled UBC to attain new levels of excellence So, to all UBC alumni I say take a bow, and accept my most heartfelt thanks. Since my first arriva at UBC in 1997,1 have come to love this institution like no other; I mean it quite sincerely when I say, "thank you!" for the role that you have played in helping UBC achieve its position as one of the world's leading universities And finally, don't stop. We still need your support - and, I promise, we will reward your continued attention. If you thought the first century was grand, you'll be amazed by what is to come. D alumni.ubc.ca/connectlOO CONTEST GENEROUSLY SPONSORED BY COWELL AUTO GROUP QB8D * Eligibility applies to UBC alumni residing in Canada, excluding Quebec, and excluding UBC faculty and staff, and their families. Contest closes June 3,2016. Limit one entry per person. Full terms and conditions at alumni.ubc.ca/terms100 alumniuBc 1915 1915 The UBC Motto and Crest are created. 1908 The Provincial Government Passes the University Act "The University shall... provide for: Such instruction in all branches of liberal education as may enable students to become proficient in... science, commerce, arts, literature, law, medicine, and all other branches of knowledge..." - from the British Columbia University Act of 1908 1915 The AMS is Established Three students and a classics professor draft the Alma Mater Society constitution over the summer. The AMS advocates on behalf of students, directs student activities, levies student fees, and supervises student clubs. 1915 The UBC Players'Club is Established Frederic "Freddy" Wood was the first director of the Players' Club, the longest running student drama society in Canada. 1915 The founding faculties are Arts, Applied Science and Agriculture. 1915 UBC Opens on the Fairview Campus The Fairview campus, originally constructed to house the McGill University College of British Columbia, welcomes its first students as the newly founded University of British Columbia. The temporary campus is nicknamed the "Fairview Shacks" due to its hasty construction. \ B YSSE 1918 The First Issue of The Ubyssey is Published The student-run newspaper is first printed on October 17. Over the years its editors and contributors would include Pierre Berton, Eric Nicol and future prime minister John Turner. 1922 Students March in The Great Trek Over the summer break, UBC students collect approximately 56,000 signatures in support of building the university at the Point Grey site. This public awareness campaign culminates on October 28, when 1,200 students organize a parade and rally downtown and then trek to the Point Grey site. The trek is a success, and the provincial government commits to raising $1.5 million to construct permanent buildings on the site (see page 8). Our Teams Get The Bird And It Gttt Hailed With Thttnderout Approval Ama 11 am. J 1 c:rli«-li hit I be tmihi iiuoin*fr± *,: mt n^—ii u> rfMjk* k\ ibtir »K*». ~m! tbet 4iD t .ink. ill. r. .1. ri i. kM ll- ^l_l.. J .\_l- :JUltr .\n= til mh frnfi, .mi .,. >niv. «i■! ».:,! •»< U Dull «ii'Mi»li|inlH<«ikMrka». M'jFililkUtli . ■ «-l «H IM ;_ CMS ._ -» —^-\Z 1934 Sports Teams Adopt the Thunderbirds Name The U byssey leads the search for a new sports team name to replace the "Blue & Gold," finally settling on Thunderbirds. The Thunderbird is a powerful symbol in West Coast First Nations culture. In 1948, Chief William Scow, his son, Alfred (a UBC law student) and the Neel family of the Kwikwasut'inuxw First Nation formally grant UBC permission to use the Thunderbird name (see page 28). A totem pole carved by Ellen Neel is gifted to the university to establish a bond between the Aboriginal community and the campus. Alfred Scow would go on to be the first Aboriginal person to graduate from UBC's law school and be appointed to the Bench. 1925 The Point Grey Campus Opens On October 15, UBC officially opens the Point Grey campus. The site now has three permanent buildings, nine semi-permanent buildings, and a handful of agricultural outbuildings. 1932 The University's Future is Threatened The Great Depression has devastating effects on the economy, and the provincial government threatens to close the university. Students mount a successful campaign to keep the university open, but the government drastically cuts annual grants by more than half. 1940 The First Student Union Building Opens The new student union building, with construction directed and funded by the AMS, provides a place to host student recreation activities, which helps combat the solemn wartime mood on campus. Originally called The Brock Memorial Hall to honour Dean Reginald Brock and his wife, Mildred, its name is later shortened to Brock Hall. 1946 Veterans and the Huts With the end of the war, enrolment skyrockets to 9,035. To accommodate the nearly tripled student population, the university moves out-of-service coastal army huts by truck and barge to the Point Grey campus, where they are converted into classrooms and residences. UBC's First Century 1913 The First President is Appointed Accomplished academic and administrator Dr. Frank Fairchild Wesbrook is named the first president of UBC. 1917 The Alumni Association is Founded The UBC Alumni Association is founded as an independent organization with the aim of fostering a life-long relationship between the university and its graduates. 1916 The First Class Graduates Jessie J. Anderson is the first student to receive a UBC degree. She is one of 17 women in a class of 38 graduating students. 1920 UBC Charges Tuition Fees Due to a shortfall in funding from the provincial government, the UBC Board of Governors is compelled to charge students a $40 tuition fee. 1930 Chinese Students Association is Formed 1920 Outdoor Club Builds Log Cabin on Grouse Mountain More than 80 enthusiastic members painstakingly climb the old trail up the mountain, equipped with tools to constuct the cabin. The cabin is completed in the fall of 1922 but, sadly, burns to the ground in mid-November, cause unknown. 1945 Faculty of Law is established. 1947 Enrolment swells to 9,374. Almost 50 per cent of students are war veterans. A similar timeline can be viewed on the 2nd floor of the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre. Photos courtesy of UBC Archives, AMS Archives, the U byssey and the UBC Department of Athletics and Recreation Archives. Ethel John, full Director % Qfi eitlb degree mining 1919 1919 UBC Offers the First Nursing Degree Program in the British Empire In 1919 UBC took a great leap by being the first school in all of Canada to offer a nursing baccalaureate degree. The induction of the program at this time was not only important to the field of nursing, but also allowed for great advances in the women's rights movement, as well as combatting the influenza epidemic of the time. 1927 Musqueam House Posts are Presented to UBC The Musqueam First Nation sells two house posts to the UBC Alumni Association, with the agreement that the posts will remain on the UBC campus next to the Musqueam reserve. The Alumni Association presents the house posts as a gift to the university the same year at the second annual homecoming. 1935 The Grand Campus Washout Heavy snowfall followed by driving rain in January causes a large pool of water to form on the north end of campus. A small ditch is dug to help the water drain into the ocean, but continuing rainfall turns the ditch into a rapidly expanding ravine that destroys several outlying buildings. The ravine is dubbed the "Campus Canyon" by students and is eventually filled in with numerous truckloads of gravel. 1949 The faculties of Pharmacy, Medicine and Graduate Studies are established. 1951 The Faculty of Forestry is established. 1951 Students Dedicate The New Gymnasium War Memorial Gymnasium is built and dedicated to the men and women of British Columbia who served in the First and Second World Wars. The construction and funding of the new facility is led by students. The gym is designed in part by a UBC architecture alumnus, Ned Pratt, who was the first Olympic medal winner from UBC, winning a bronze for doubles rowing at the 1932 games hosted in Los Angeles. 1954 U BC Hosts The British Empire Games UBC is one of the hosts for the games, utilising the newly constructed Empire Pool for the swimming and diving events. Off campus, the UBC men's rowing team defeats the heavily favoured English team and wins the gold medal. 1954 Brock Hall Fire The then Student Union Building catches on fire on the evening of Tuesday, October 26. Campus fire trucks arrive shortly and put out the blaze. The A MS immediately starts a fund to "Rebuild the Brock" and within six months the building is repaired at a cost of $400,000 and re-opened. 1964 The Faculty of Arts and Science is split into two separate faculties, and the Faculty of Dentistry is established. 1970 Cyclotron Construction Begins at TRIUMF UBC's TRIUMF facility, in partnership with Simon Eraser University, The University of Victoria and The University of Alberta, begins construction of the world's largest cyclotron particle accelerator. TRIUMF is Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. 1979 UBC awards its 100,000th degree Sixty-three years after UBC's first graduation ceremony, Clair Francis Wilson receives the university's 100,000th degree from then UBC President, Douglas Kenny. It was in Medicine. 1973 Election of 196 Students as Full Voting Members In Faculties Senate approves recommendations for the election of 196 students as full voting members in UBC's 12 faculties. 1974 The Native Indian Teacher Education Program is Introduced NITEP begins as an elementary teacher education program in response to a need expressed by Aboriginal people throughout British Columbia for a more effective and relevant teacher education program. In 2004, a secondary teaching program is established. NITEP builds upon Aboriginal identity and cultural heritage while preparing persons of Aboriginal ancestry to be effective educators. 1981 The Asian Centre Opens UBC expands its interest in Asia as ties between Canada and Pacific-Rim countries increase. The new Asian Centre - constructed in part from materials used for the Sanyo Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan - houses the Asian Studies library and offers space for the Asia-related interests of various departments on campus. 1960 1956 The schools of Commerce and Education are promoted to faculty status. 1968 The New Student Union Building is Completed UBC's first stadium, Varsity Stadium, is demolished to make way for the new SUB as the student population outgrows Brock Hall. Students direct the construction and contribute the majority of funding for the building. 1959 Construction of the Student Residence Begins Construction of the Place Vanier Residence begins and facilities open in 1961. This is shortly followed by the opening of the Totem Park Residence in 1964. TMUdfSttYrZ} ROF CLUB INVADED 1958 UBC Celebrates its Golden Jubilee UBC celebrates its Golden Jubilee and launches the UBC Development Fund, the first public appeal for capital funds by any Canadian university. Through government contributions and fund drives, it raises $35 million. 1968 Students Take Over the Faculty Club American social activist and Yippie Jerry Rubin leads a group of 2,000 students to a sit-in at UBC's faculty club in the name of liberation and an end to authoritarian structures at the university. 1976 The New Museum of Anthropology Opens Originally opened in 1949, MOA moves to a new home designed by Canadian architect Arthur Erickson. The world-renowned museum houses an extensive ethnological collection of objects from Asia, South and Central America, the Pacific Islands, Africa, and the First Peoples of the Northwest Coast. 1969 The Leon Ladner Bell Tower is completed. 1982 The Football Team Wins the Vanier Cup The UBC football team wins its first Vanier Cup after finishing the season undefeated. During the 1997 Vanier Cup telecast, TSN commentators agree this team is the best in Canadian university football history. 1982 Students Protest Increasing Fees and Government Cutbacks A university budget shortfall of $7.5 million and the provincial government's refusal to provide additional funding forces UBC to raise tuition fees an average of 32.8 per cent, and consider cutting faculty and support staff. Student protests, including a campus-wide "day of mourning," have little effect. 1978 The Inaugural Storm the Wall Students participate in the inaugural Storm the Wall relay, where they compete in running, swimming, cycling and scaling a 12-foot wall. As of 2015, Storm the Wall holds the title of the largest intramural sporting event in North America. 1987 John Demco Establishes .ca Domain Name Mr. Demco, an IT manager with Computer Science, conceives the .ca domain name. By the year 2000, UBC volunteers have registered more than 100,000 domain names. 1989 The World of Opportunity Campaign Launches The goal of the World of Opportunity Campaign is to raise 566 million in funds from private and corporate donors to pay for facilities, buildings and scholarships, with the provincial government providing matching funds. By the time the campaign ends in 1993, $262 million has been raised. 1989 Pacific Spirit Regional Park Created Pacific Spirit Regional Park is created from undeveloped areas of University Endowment tands on traditional Musqueam territory. The park in total is 874.4 hectares and boasts pedestrian, cycling and equestrian trails. 1991 The Disability Resource Centre Opens Alumnus Rick Hansen speaks at the opening of the Disability Resource Centre. 1995 C.K.Choi Building for the Institute of Asian Research Opens The building is constructed using energy efficient systems and recycled materials and utilizes advanced environmental design principles. 1995 UBC offers its First Online Courses The university offers one of the first 100 per cent online web-based courses. 1998 UBC Leads Sustainability Practices UBC opens the first Campus Sustainability Office in Canada. It works with university and community partners to research and explore solutions to sustainability challenges. One of these challenges involves the volume of private vehicles travelling to and from campus. The U-Pass program, pioneered by the AMS in 2003, provides discounted transit passes to students. By 2013 daily transit trips to and from UBC Vancouver more than double. 2015 2004 The UBC Distributed Medical Program is Established Canada's first model of distributed medical education allows students to train in different areas of the province. It is originally offered in three regions: the Island, the North, and Vancouver Eraser. A fourth, the South, is established on UBC's Okanagan campus in 2011. The program aims for increased rural and Aboriginal medical student enrolment and is intended to encourage more medicine graduates to work in underserved rural communities. 2005 UBC Opens the Okanagan Campus The campus opens in Kelowna with an initial academic plan based on four themes: indigenous studies, sustainability, health and wellness, and creativity. The opening ceremony is preceded by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Educational Cooperation and Programming between the Okanagan Nation Alliance and UBC Okanagan. The MOU acknowledges the importance of a strong relationship between the Okanagan campus and the indigenous people of the southern interior of BC. 2005 The founding faculties of the Okanagan campus are Arts and Sciences, Creative and Critical Studies, Education, Applied Science, Health and Social Development, Management and Graduate Studies. 2006 UBC and Musqueam First Nation Sign Memorandum of Affiliation The historic memorandum recognizes UBC's special relationship with the Musqueam community and reaffirms the university's educational commitment to Aboriginal students. 2000 ubyssey 'Necessary force' 1997 The APEC Riot The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) meeting is hosted by the federal government at the UBC Museum of Anthropology. More than 1,500 protesters converge on campus in an event that culminates in a confrontation with police involving pepper spray and mass arrests. 1993 Michael Smith is Awarded the Nobel Prize Dr. Smith, the founding director of the UBC Biotechnology Laboratory, is awarded the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in the development of site directed mutagenesis, a technique which allows the DNA sequence of any gene to be altered in a designated manner for use in medical and biological research. 1993 The Centre for Aboriginal Initiatives Opens The First Nations Longhouse, built in consultation with the Musqueam First Nation, is an award winning building reflecting the architectural traditions of the Northwest Coast. As well as providing programming and services for Aboriginal students, the Longhouse welcomes people from the broader community who want to learn about Aboriginal culture. 2001 Engineers Take Pranks to New Heights UBC engineering students hang a Volkswagen Beetle from the Golden Gate Bridge. Of the many pranks they have pulled off, this is seen as one of the greatest. See page 38. 2001 The Downtown Campus Opens UBC Robson Square opens in downtown Vancouver. The new campus offers both credit and non-credit courses and establishes a central location for university outreach and community activities. 2007 Kyoto Targets are Met Ahead of Schedule Five years ahead of schedule, and despite large increases in floor space and student enrolment, the Vancouver campus meets its Kyoto targets by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by six percent from 1990 levels. The Okanagan campus embarks on an ambitious energy upgrade project that utilizes thermal energy extracted from the campus groundwater, with the goal of making the campus virtually emissions free. 2007 Okanagan Thermal Energy Upgrade The Okanagan campus embarks on an ambitious energy upgrade project that utilizes thermal energy extracted from the campus groundwater with the goal of making the campus virtually emissions free. 2007 UBC Formalizes Global Access Principles The university is the first in Canada to formally adopt a broad strategy to ensure global access to its technologies and research. 2007 Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman Joins Faculty of Science The American physicist is recruited to UBC to lead the university's initiative to improve undergraduate science education. 2011 The start an evolution Campaign Launches In September, UBC launches the most ambitious fund raising and alumni engagement campaign in Canadian history. It aims to raise $1.5 billion for students, research, and community engagement, and to double the annual number of alumni actively connected to the university by 2015. The campaign is a success, exceeding both goals well ahead of the September 2015 campaign close. 2012 UBC Honours Japanese Canadian Students At a special ceremony, UBC grants honorary degrees to 61 students who were unable to complete their studies and confers the degrees of 15 students who were unable to attend graduation when they were sent away to WWII internment camps in 1942. J****^K^J1 2015 The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre Opens The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre opens September 30, 2015, the day UBC's Centennial launches. The centre is the home for alumni for life and the first of its kind in Canada. 2015 The New SUB Opens and the Seagull Returns The new student union building on the Vancouver campus, The Nest, opens with a name and mascot that pays homage to the long since rejected UBC sports team name, the Seagulls. The construction of the building is directed and predominantly financed by students, continuing the long tradition of student-funded buildings on the Vancouver campus. 2015/2016 100 Years in the Making UBC celebrates its centennial from fall 2015 to spring 2016. The Okanagan campus celebrates its 10th anniversary at the same time. UBC ICO 2013 UBC offers its first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) UBC pilots three non-credit courses taught by renowned UBC faculty and researchers through Coursera's online learning platform. 2010 The Okanagan Campus Doubles in Size By 2010, the Okanagan campus comprises 208.6 hectares of land and has 7,004 enrolled students. Both figures have doubled since the opening in 2005. 2010 UBC Hosts the Olympics and Paralympics UBC Vancouver is one of the host sites for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Robson Square and the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre are used throughout the games. As of 2015, UBC Olympians total 241 and the UBC Point Grey campus holds the honour of being the only venue in the world to have hosted the Olympics, Paralympics, and Special Olympics. 2010 UBC Joins the Max Planck Institute The Vancouver campus becomes the home of The Max Planck- UBC Centre for Quantum Materials, the first centre in North America for the world-renowned research organization. 2009 Students Rally to Save the Farm On April 7, more than 2,000 people march across the Vancouver campus from the SUB to the UBC Farm to show support for maintaining the farm's size and location. They are successful and the university agrees to keep this important space for students, research, and community outreach. I» SAVING (ROUND 1 T*humomTWii i~i IV teaching and research farm was a centn , ocus of UBC in the early years. John Young was hired to help build one from scratch, starting with his fine herd of Ayrshire cattle. BY CHRIS PETTY, MFA'86 '* I —CI- *A> The cattle on the dock in Quebec City after their trans-Atlantic journey. The small boy on the far right is Alistair Young, wearing clothes •bought specially for the trip. When John and Mary Young and their six children boarded a ship in Glasgow, Scotland, to move to UBC's farm in August 1929, they couldn't have known what they were getting into. With 24 cows (and one bull) in tow, John Young was charged with establishing and maintaining a dairy herd for the university's Faculty of Agriculture. There were already Jersey cows at the site, but Young and his herd of cattle were employed to ramp up the faculty's dairy cattle research program He could be forgiven for taking a flyer on the opportunity half a world away. As the tenant operator of his family farm, "Waterside Mains," in Dumfriesshire county, he had nursed his herd through a severe bout of brucellosis and was faced with a crippling rise in the cost of his farm's lease. When he was approached by a kindly gentleman from a university in the colonies, he saw the offer as something he couldn't refuse Young (and his cattle and family) were recruited by UBC professor H.M. King, who was dispatched to Scotland by the university to find a herd of Ayrshire cattle - along with their herdsman - to populate the dairy farm. A certain Captain J.C. Dun-Waters, a fellow Scot and owner of the Glasgow Herald newspaper, operated a farm in Fintry, BC (across the lake from Kelowna). He was interested in helping develop a powerful Faculty of Agriculture at the fledgling university, and saw a healthy dairy farm as key to that success. In fact, one of the essential elements in selecting the Point Grey site in 1911 was its ability to support a teaching and research farm as the centra focus of the university. Dun-Waters was convinced that the Ayrshire was the only breed of cattle worth using at a teaching farm, and offered to help fund the purchase and transport of a herd to UBC In June 1929, Young et al set sail and arrived 10 sea-sick days later in Quebec City. (His youngest son, Archie, now 87, remembers being the only member of the family who didn't spend most of the trip in the latrine.) After six weeks of quarantine the cattle were put into railcarsand trained to Vancouver where they arrived on August 10 in the middle of the Canadian Pacific Exhibition (now the PNE). Loaded onto floats and preceded by a pipe band, the elegant, long-horned stock was paraded through the exhibition and Vancouver's downtown before being hauled up to Point Grey and their new lives as "the best examples of the breed ever seen in this part of the world," according to a newspaper report. Loaded onto floats f?nT5B»T7a!Ta!P pipe band, the elegant, long-horned stock was paraded through the exhibition and Vancouver's downtown before being hauled up to Point Grey and their new lives as "the best examples of the breed ever seen in this part of the world." But the UBC campus was still in its infancy. Sod had only recently been broken at the farm site - around the old "B" parking lot, which is now a residentia district - and the new barn hadn't been fully prepared for a large-scale dairy operation. Vancouver was still a rugged frontier town with limited resources, and the downtown was a rough, hour-long tram ride away. John, Mary and their six children had to live in a two bedroom apartment over a store at the edge of campus for the first two years. The gentle nuances of life on a farm just outside the town of Thornhill in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, must have seemed like a misty dream But the Youngs were hearty Scots, used to the vagaries of farming life, and took to their new world with determination and high energy. Mary Young took a job teaching kindergarten, English and piano in Japantown, and became a champion of Japanese rights during the internments of World War II John Young began the arduous process of building the farm from scratch while helping develop programs to teach Aggie students the art of raising dairy cattle. Using his years of animal husbandry experience, he began to breed a larger Ayrshire herd. His spectacular stock included three of the most famous Ayrshires in the country: "Rainton Rosalind V" had such amazing milk production that she required milking four times a day and won many provincia and national awards, including the Grand Champion Female in 1934 for the highest daily, monthly and yearly milk yields in Canada. "Ardgowan Gladness II" was consistently awarded for the high butterfat content of her milk and "Lochinch Lassie," as well as being an excellent milker, was a first rate breeder. She bore the famous bull "Ubyssey White Cockade" that sired some of the later stock's most successful milking cows These three cows were university stars in the Thirties. In those days, managing a herd involved more than milking, feeding and breeding. Young and his family grew and harvested crops of hay, dealt with disease and injury to the animals, raised pigs and grew vegetables. Fortunately, he was able to use agriculture students and employ a small staff to work on the farm, but John and his family did the bulk of the work. Son Archie has fond memories of bringing in the wheat, working with the horse team and preparing prize cows for exhibition shows. All the hard work seemed to be paying off. Young was even able, after two years, to move his family into a four-bedroom house adjacent to the farm The Great Depression that started in 1929 began to have a serious impact on British Columbia by 1931 Provincial budgets were slashed, and money earmarked for the new university was severely curtailed If not for a determined campaign by students and faculty, UBC itself would have been shuttered. As it was, budgets for the faculties were cut dramatically, and the farm, it was decided, would be closed down, employees let go and the stock sold. But John Young had a different idea. He worked a deal with the university where he and his family would run the farm as a commercia dairy, supplying products to residents in the University Endowment Lands area as a way of making the enterprise self-supportin. The university agreed, though administrators were dubious, and the UBC Dairy was born These were the days before automation, antibiotics and wide-spread pasteurization, which meant that long hours and hard work were the only pathways to success. John Jr. was required to quit school to help manage A certificate ^^oratingthegiftortheAyrshh Hire cattle to UBC. the dairy, and his brothers, Dave, Alastair and Archie, and sisters Grace and Isobel devoted themselves to the arduous tasks of daily hand-milking and delivery. In later years, Jean and Andrew, two new "bairns" added in the early '30s, also pitched in. Archie received special dispensation from a local constable to drive the milk truck in the neighbourhood though he was only 14. But a real hardship befell the Youngs when John Jr. died in 1935 of a ruptured appendix. He had been his father's right-hand man since the family left Scotland, and his loss was keenly felt by the whole family. In spite of it all, the family kept its strength and focus and maintained an efficient, well-run farm that supported the faculty's mission to advance research into cattle management, dairy production and animal husbandry. The commercial aspect of the dairy, during these economically bleak days, was a rare bright spot in UBC operations. As well, Young's acumen in business and animal husbandry turned the 24 cows and one bull into one of the finest Ayrshire herds in Canada As the Thirties wore on, the university's finances eased enough to enable it to generate some funding for the farm, and Young was able to acquire new equipment, including a pasteurizer, which made the home delivery schedule a little ess hectic. But the war began in the late 1930s, and sons Dave and Alastair enlisted in the Air Force. To the family's great anguish, Alastair was shot down in March 1944. Dave returned to the farm after the war and attended UBC, earning a BA in Agriculture in 1947. Younger brother Archie graduated the same year in Science By 1951, after 22 years of heroic work and dedication, Young decided it was time to retire. With Dave working in Ottawa with the federa government, and two of his other children studying at UBC, there was no one to take over the farm. Dairy land, then becoming one of the dominant agri-businesses in the province, took over the farm's delivery business, and the farm itself eventually divested itself of its livestock. But John Young's legacy - hard work, determination, a sense of constant improvement and advancement - was to establish a strong foundation for dairy cattle research at UBC and the development of the Dairy Education and Research Centre in 1996. His spirit has become a hallmark of the university and the prime inheritance of the Young family. D Thanks to John Young's grandson, Don Young, BSc'89, MD'94, for his biography, For All Thy Kith 'n Kine, and to Archie Young, BA'4j(Science), for his insights. The John and Mary Young scholarship was established in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems (the former Faculty of Agriculture) to support a grad student interested in dairy cattle research. For more information on contributing to the scholarship's endowment, please contact Niki Glenning at 604 822 8910 or niki.glenning@ubc.ca. Saving the Farm (round 2): The Farm Reinvented A farm of some description has been a part of UBC's Vancouver campus since the establishment of the university site on Point Grey. However, the farm's size, location, purpose, and operations have all seen many changes over the years. In the decades following the Second World War, the diminishing socioeconomic importance of agriculture in the province was mirrored in campus growth patterns, as new athletics fields, parking lots, and academic buildings displaced former farmland. Eventually, the second-growth forest on the far south of campus was cleared to make way for new agricultural facilities, but by the late 1990s, activity had declined significantly - some operations having moved to new locations in Agassiz, BC. By 1997 the farm had been earmarked as a "Future Housing Reserve" in UBC's Official Community Plan. In 1999, however, students enrolled in the new Agroecology and Global Resource Systems programs "re-discovered" the south campus field areas. They envisioned the land as an integrated farm system, which would provide a practical, experiential complement to the sustainability theory being taught in the classroom. It was a vision that conflicted with the Official Community Plan, and it sparked a decade of discussion about the future uses of the land. Meanwhile, after the publication in 2000 of a vision document entitled "Reinventingthe UBC Farm," faculty, staff, students, and community members worked together to bring previously fragmented field areas together into a single working farm and forest system that delivered a growing number of programs to students and researchers in many different disciplines. Despite this, by the summer of 2008 there was great concern among the farm's users and supporters that it would be replaced by market housing. A "Save the Farm" campaign mobilized significant support, culminating in a petition with 16,000 signatures and a Great Farm Trek on April 7,2009, when 2,000 people marched from the Student Union Building to the farm, to show their support for retaining its existing size and location. Later that year, the UBC Board of Governors stated that there would be no market housing on the farm provided that "the university's housing, community development and endowment goals could be met through transferring density to other parts of campus." The board also called for an academic plan for South Campus to advance "academically rigorous and globally significant" teaching and research around issues of sustainability. By winter this plan - Cultivating Place - was in place and in 2011, following public consultation, the farm was re-zoned "Green Academic" in UBC's Land Use Plan. Asa result, the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems was soon established at the farm. It is a unique research centre that aims to understand and fundamentally transform local and global food systems towards a more sustainable, food-secure future. There have been approximately 10-15 active research projects on site every year since 2011. D and Son, Ltd. Allen was one of only two sellers Gerould trusted to do the job, which was to include binding or rebinding books before they were shipped, via Blue Funnel Line, on a 72-day journey across the Pacific Gerould and Wesbrook had initially discussed shipping the books in in tin-lined cases, but instead - because it weighed less and was cheaper - Gerould recommended using heavy waterproof paper. For the next few weeks, Gerould went about his business. A letter from Wesbrook dated June 16 indicates that they had inadvertently overlooked a subject: "It is strange that we missed mathematics," he wrote, instructing Gerould to cut $1,500 proportionately from other subject areas and put it towards math books. Another time, a cable arrived asking Gerould to discontinue purchasing because of excessive exchange rates In July, after making large purchases in Oxford and Cambridge, Gerould made his way to Paris. After that, the plan was to go to Leipzig in Germany. He found conditions in France less favourable. "I am not so well satisfied with what I have done here as I was in England," he admitted to Wesbrook towards the end of his stay there, "but... I don't suppose I can hold myself responsible for the disorderly condition of the Paris book trade." He found most books unbound and stockto be poorly classified. It also rained a lot and he worked long hours. "I shall be glad to get out of it myself for the twelve and fourteen hours work which I am doing here is beginning to tell on me," he confided Although Gerould was eager to leave Paris, he would find things far more disagreeable in Leipzig. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand had occurred a few days earlier, and war in Europe was imminent. In a letter to Wesbrook dated July 31, three days before Germany declared war on France, Gerould documented the situation in Paris. "On the surface, perhaps the most striking thing is the scarcity of money," he wrote. "A week ago one almost always received gold in exchange for a note of the Bank of France but on Monday of this week it all disappeared..." He observed that the streets were crowded yet orderly, with a strong police presence. But chaos would not be held in check for long. A trial involving a Madame Caillaux was underway in France at the time. She was Dr. Frank Wesbrook was faced with many competing priorities on being hired as UBC's first president, but one of the most pressing was the establishment of an adequate central library. For advice, he turned to a former colleague from the University of Minnesota, the institution from which he had recently been recruited. James Thayer Gerould was librarian there. He agreed to help stock UBC's Library in time for the university's opening in 1915 "My dear Doctor Wesbrook," he wrote in a letter dated March 14,1914 "At your suggestion, I am sending for your consideration a plan by which, at a minimum of cost, your University may have, when it opens its doors, a library adequate to its needs at the outset and which will be the nucleus of a later and greater collection." The plan involved travelling to Europe, where Gerould believed he would be able to secure a better price - as much as 20-30 per cent less - by going directly to dealers and bargaining on the spot "My suggestion is, therefore... that you appropriate the sum of $50,000 for the immediate purchase of books for your library and that I be given a commission as your agent to visit England, France and Germany to buy the books." Since Wesbrook had yet to hire a librarian, Gerould also offered to oversee classification and cataloguing. He asked for a salary of $250 per month plus travelling expenses and requested a swift decision, because he thought it best to leave as soon as possible By the following month, an agreement was in place. The librarian set sail from Boston on Mays on the S. S. Cymric of the White Star Line. "I am eager to get at the job and to make good on your gamble," he wrote to Wesbrook the day before Later that month another letter arrived in Vancouver, written on notepaper from the Imperial Hotel in London's Russell Square. Gerould reported that he had secured the services of export booksellers Messrs. Edw. G. Allen SS^&%!;« the wife of politician Joseph Caillaux and had shot dead the editor of Le Figaro newspaper, which had been publishing letters her husband was writing to another woman as part of a media campaign against him by political enemies. It was judged a crime of passion and she was acquitted. When the verdict was announced, the Paris streets erupted "In the tensity of the moment it was enough to furnish the spark," described Gerould. "In a few moments, bands of largely young men were parading up and down chanting almost in the manner of an American university yell. As-sas-in, Cail-laux, Assassin Caillaux, Assassin Caillaux. Then the police would charge, drive the bands down the boulevard for some distance and then turning would drive the following crowd back again." Gerould took refuge in a cafe. Things calmed down before long: "The man who swallows fire was performing before the terrace of the cafe, the postcard seller and the rag man had reappeared and it was as usual." Gerould still had a job to do. Would it be safe to go to Germany? "All sorts of advice has been given me but yesterday I wired my correspondent in Leipzig and as he advised me to come I am going to take a chance," he informed Wesbrook. "The books are there and I hope that mobilization if it comes will leave someone with whom I can do business. In any event I can only do my damnedest." The letter was likely delayed by wartime conditions, and Wesbrook would not receive it for a few weeks Days went by with no word from Gerould "We are wondering what in the world you are doing in these times of war and desolation and shall be expecting to hear from you by cable or otherwise if it seems unwise to go on with your work," the university president wrote to him on August 3. "If Europe is embroiled in war, it may be better to stop purchasing and shipping at this time..." And on the bottom of the typed letter, scribbled in pencil How will you begetting back again? On August 8, another letter from Wesbrook expressed anxiety about the fate of the books: "I have been wondering whether they are covered by insurance which would protect us against loss in case of seizure by Germany. These are things however, which perhaps we cannot help at this time." By August 11, his anxiety was about the fate of Gerould "I was not at all disturbed about you until now. I do hope that everything has gone all right with you. We have not received an answer to the cable sent the other day..." \ V^Aju£**r - «~ ■ awagTS Then a letter arrived that could only have added to the president's unease. It was from Miss S. L. Stewart, Gerould's secretary. "Here at the University of Minnesota we are considerably exercised about the where-abouts of Mr. Gerould," she wrote."... It is only in the hope that you may have a little more definite information about him that I am troubling you. If you can let us know where he is, I shall be much obliged to you." Meanwhile, as concern mounted among his friends and colleagues back home, Gerould had fallen into a predicament that caused his regular stream of letters and cables to be abruptly cut off. Although he wrote to Wesbrook as soon as he was able, on September 2, with a detailed account of what had happened to him, the president would not receive that letter, nor any other news about the librarian's whereabouts and well-being, until much later that month Gerould had arrived in Leipzig in the small hours of August 3. Later that morning he telephoned his correspondent, who now advised him to leave Germany as quickly as possible. Gerould boarded the last scheduled train for Basel, Switzerland, but the train was stopped at Mannheim and passengers were instructed to take a ferry across the river to catch another train at Ludwigshafen The crowds were so great that Gerould failed to catch the train and had to find lodging for the night. The next day he stayed in his room. On August 5, he continued on his journey towards Basel. He was delayed by police for four hours at Landau, then allowed to carry on. But not for long "About three stations further on I was arrested and taken to the jail at Kandel* where I was examined, my luggage mauled, and I was stripped in the hope of discovering that I was an English spy. I had, of course, a good many business papers with me and letters from dealers in London and Paris. Most damnable of all I had the cabin plan of the Cymric and the groundplan of the Univ. of BC. Fortunately there was in town a grocer who had for a number of years lived in the States and he was able to go through my papers and pronounce them 'alles harmlos."' The librarian spent the night in a cell and the next morning appeared before some judges:"... though when they left they assured me that I could not be released for two or three days," he wrote," I was in point of fact freed at about two o'clock and committed to the care of the former American Mr. Stripf. He kept me at his house for three weeks and was very kind." Gerould had little cash. He was aided by the American Consul in Mannheim and friends in Leipzig, eventually making his way to Vevey, Switzerland. With the embassy advising against Americans coming to Paris, he would need to find another route home WO ■U.Torto-in P*-. "I am in rather poor shape physically," he told Wesbrook in his September 2 letter, "but it looks now as if I should have time enough to recuperate but I assure you that even Switzerland is far from being a good place to be at the moment." The rest of Gerould's letter dealt with the comparatively mundane business of book-buying and the outstanding transactions from Paris. Eventually, on September 17, Geroud was able to secure a route out of Europe, via Genoa, on a ship that was "large and comfortable, tho dirty." A few days before the sailing, he sent Wesbrook a letter from Le Grand Hotel in Nervi, eight miles from Genoa. "It is a lovely place overlooking the Mediterranean and I spend most of the day sitting under palm trees... It is rather hot in the middle of the day but the nights are cool and it is altogether delightful The hotel is one of the best on the Italian Riviera..." By this time, Wesbrook had finally learned, via a third party, that Gerould was safe and on his way back to the States - but he had yet to receive the librarian's letter containing the details of his encounter with the German authorities "My dear Gerould," he wrote on hearing the good news, "I have not the least idea how many letters and cables of mine reached you, but we have been very much exercised about you... The first consignment of thirteen cases of books arrived and I received the notice yesterday and ordered the cases taken to the storage warehouse... I shal be glad to see you sometime in the near future and to hear your adventures. As I wrote to Miss Stewart, I hope they will have been interesting, but not too interesting." D * Please note that Gerould's handwritten letters are difficult to decipher in parts. The place names described above are, in our best judgment, correct. Thanks to UBC Archives for providing access to correspondence between Wesbrook and Gerould. -fc/» 't-^|U^_J. 4>!t^ Oi Si tMr>-*w-^u| Message from alumni UBC This issue of Trek is being released on the 100th anniversary of UBC's very first class of students and the official opening of the spectacular new Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre! In one short century UBC has entered into the top echelon of the world's universities, most of which are much older than UBC's youthful 100 years. There have been many great successes in UBC's history and, of course, numerous challenges as well. Many of you will know by now that UBC is undergoing an unexpected leadership transition, as Professor Arvind Gupta resigned in August as President and Vice Chancellor after 13 months in office. We are grateful to Dr. Gupta for his dedication and service and specifically his desire to identify opportunities forgreateralumni engagement and to encourage the university to be more outward facing. UBC is incredibly fortunate that former President Martha Piper has agreed to lead UBC through the transition period to the appointment of a new President. Dr. Piper's love of UBC and her unparalleled experience will be invaluable during this period. Our alumni share the university's goal to be one of the top-ranked universities in the world, one that plays a leading and impactful role in the province, in Canada and internationally. In view of the challenges and opportunities facing UBC, this Centennial year is a particularly important juncture that requires the entire university community to come together to advance UBC. On behalf of alumni, we look forward to working with our university's executive leadership, Board of Governors, faculty, students, and staff to build on and ensure UBC's continuing success. We will work hard to continue the growth in alumni engagement across both campuses, which has more than doubled during the start an evolution campaign. We have opened the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre and created a much deeper and more enriching range of experiences for our alumni. This progress has occurred with the unwavering support of Presidents Piper, Toope and Gupta. This coming year, as the university marks its Centennial, there will be more opportunities on both campuses for alumni to engage with UBC and with one another. Centennial activities will culminate officially with Alumni Weekend on May 28,2016. As part of the Centennial, UBC's 305,000 alumni are being asked to pin themselves on the UBC global impact map (ubcioo.ca/pin). If you live in the Lower Mainland, or find yourself in Vancouver, make a point of visiting your new UBC home for life at the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre. You will be greeted warmly and provided with the help you need to make the most of your visit to the campus. Michael Lee, BSc'86, BA'89, MA'92, LLB Chair, alumni UBC Jeff Todd, BA Associate Vice President, Alumni Executive Director, alumni UBC °t*Jksl O ^ CAME TO UBC BY cue. noN GOLDFARB, PHP-92^96 In November 1933, the sports staff of the Ubyssey published an article with the fanciful title "Zoological Cognomen Needed for Our Athletic Teams," which began: "Students of U.B.C., are you aware that our institution is lacking an important phase of college life? So important is this deficiency that one wonders how it has gone unnoticed. While other universities possess admirable mascots, nicknames, PfHUNDERBIRDSl or what have you, for their athletic teams, we have none. Why should not U. take its place among the horde of Bears, Trojans, Huskies, Mules, Muskrats Giraffes, and other wonderful aggregations that cavort each Saturday." The article called on students to suggest a name for UBC sports teams - something "that roars, screams, growls, or at least shrieks" - and jokingly offered "a complete set of season tickets (used)" for the best suggestion. Perhaps because of the jocular tone of the article, few suggestions w submitted. Among these early entries were Lions, Pacific Pachyderms, and (an entry ahead of its time) Grizzlies. Perturbed by the lack of response, the Ubyssey sports department produced another article, this time with a more serious tone, calling for names "in keeping with the history or geographical location of our University." At first, there were again only a few entries, among which were Cyclones, Seagulls, and Musqueams, the latter suggested because the campus was located on traditional Musqueam land. Then on November 24,1933, Clarence Idyll, a member of the sports staff, suggested in a letter to the editor that the name Thunderbird be adopted, noting that it is "common in BC Indian mythology and seems appropriate." Perhaps the Thunderbird name was thought appropriate for sports teams because ,C. flf-time at the 1948 Homecoming game, when UBC was nted permission by Chief William Scow (centre) to use the ^Jerbird name for its sports teams. Ellen Neel is pictured right, photo courtesy the Ubyssey. Photographer: Doug Barnett) The Thunderbird is a supernatural creature which produces thunder by flapping its wings and lightning by opening and closin its eyes. It can also beat its enemies with its wings and rend them with its talons. of its powerful connotations. In Aboriginal mythology, the Thunderbird is a supernatural creature that produces thunder by flapping its wings and lightning by opening and closing its eyes. It can also beat its enemies with its wings and rend them with its talons. The Aboriginal connection also must have seemed appropriate. From very early times at UBC, Aboriginal names were used in various contexts, and in ways that today would be considered culturally inappropriate. For instance, one of the early UBC student cheers began with an invocation of the names of various tribes ("Kitsilano, Capilano..."). And the student annual formerly published by the Alma Mater Society was known as The Totem. However, the name Thunderbird was not instantly accepted once it had been proposed. In fact, in late November and December 1933, there were suddenly a number of new entries in the contest to name the sports teams, including silly ones like Morons, Sea Slugs, and Peewits; ones that were eady used by other universities, such as Huskies, Cougars, and Wildcats; and ones that the contest administrators said were not appropriate to UBC, such as Aztecs, Incas, Mohawks, and Apaches. Still, there were enough serious entrants to have an election in which 25 names were listed on the ballot, among them Tartars, Cossacks, Philistines, and Prowlers. Other names on the final ballot included Golden Eagles, Corsairs, Musqueams, Spartans, and Seagulls - and unexpectedly Seagulls won. However, the sports staff at the Ubyssey decided Seagulls was not the best name and determined to have a new vote. Such a vote was eventually held at a special pep rally on January 31,1934, at which time Thunderbird won, garnering 320 of the 839 votes cast. Runner-up was Golden Eagles with 178 votes, and Grizzlies came third with 101. By February the Ubyssey was referring to the basketball team as the Thunderbirds, and by March was using the term for the varsity rugby team and the ski team. And that is howthe Thunderbird came to UBC - although not yet with permission. That didn't come until 15 years later, when at a formal ceremony during half-time at the 1948 Homecoming football game, Chief William Scow of the Kwiksutaineuk people granted permission for the use of the Thunderbird name and donated a totem pole named "Victory Through Honour" (carved by Ellen Neel) to the AMS. And as to the poor seagull, cheated out of its rightful victory in 1933? Well, in 2014-15 the AMS brought it back to life, declaring the seagull to be the mascot for the new student union building, coincidentally named the AMS Student Nest, and someone in seagull costume could even be seen wandering the halls. This May UBC celebrated more than 200 Aboriginal graduates, and 51 of them gathered with family, friends, staff and faculty at the UBC First Nations Long House for the largest Aboriginal graduation celebration in UBC's history. The graduates came - from just about every discipline across the university. They are future doctors, anthropologists, lawyers and community leaders - and they are role models for future generations. Photo by Don Erhardt Ellen Neel (Kwicksutaineuk), The Native Voice, November 1948: "To the Native people of the whole province we can give our assurance that your children will be accepted at this school by the Staff and Student Council, eager to smooth their paths with kindness and understanding. We need now only students to take advantage of the opportunity, so that some day our doctors, lawyers, social workers and departmental workers will be fully trained University graduates of our own race." (In 1948, Ne jams. See facing page.) lfc~ *«* r rai _. ■iV^k^AlR UBC's Point Grey and Okanagan campuses are located, respectively, on the traditiona unceded territories of the Musqueam and Okanagan peoples. While faculty, staff and students have been working for many years to develop mutually beneficial relationships with these communities, it wasn't until late in UBC's first century that partnerships were formally recognized with the signing of memoranda of affiliation. A turning point in our history, these memoranda are the framework for UBC's commitment to increase engagement and educational opportunities for Aboriginal peoples and about indigenous culture In addition to many long-standing programs, UBC has formed an Aboriginal strategic plan, has one of the largest contingents of indigenous professors on permanent appointments at any research-intensive university, and has increased Aboriginal enrolment to more than a thousand students UBC researchers are working with communities to find solutions to Aborigina issues through programs like the Cedar Project, a community-based research initiative that will address the impact of generational residential school trauma on HIV and Hepatitis C prevalence in at-risk Indigenous youth. The university has expanded curriculum offerings focusing on Aboriginal issues and perspectives in several disciplines, including the health sciences, law and community planning In both academics and operations, UBC is working to address educational failures of the past. In 1915, UBC began building on what is today the Point Grey campus, but for millennia had been home to the Musqueam people. It did so with little recognition of this community or attention to their needs and aspirations. This history of the university has largely been unwritten, until now. This Centennial year, after several years of planning and consultation with local and nationa groups, UBC is moving forward with plans to open the UBC Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre on the Point Grey campus. This major initiative will provide permanent local access to the records of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and will provide a home for advanced research, dialogue, and interactions with indigenous communities for years to come "UBC understands and values the honour of sharing the traditional territories of the Musqueam and Okanagan peoples," says UBC interim president Dr. Martha C. Piper. "We enter the university's second century with a renewed commitment to partnerships that ensure our common history is understood and our aspirations shared." D TEN YEARS IN THE OKANAGAN "Ready, Set, Go!" That was the Daily Courier front-page headline on September 8,2005 - the first day of classes for UBC's new Okanagan campus in Kelowna. UBC Okanagan has grown dramatically since opening 10 years ago. Student enrolment has grown from 3,500 in 2005 to more than 8,200 students this year - including 680 research graduate students. While growth has been a big part of the UBC Okanagan story, the community's embrace of the new university campus has been one of the most remarkable aspects of UBC's first decade in the Okanagan. "Program offerings in the Okanagan reflect the needs of the rapidly developing communities in our region," says Deborah Buszard, UBC Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Okanagan campus. "We are excited about opportunities for growth in high demand areas such as management, engineering and health-related professional programs, which will ensure we are best able to serve the needs of Okanagan communities while providing a world class education to our students." The Southern Medical Program, established in September 2011, is just one of the university's new programs designed to serve the BC Interior. This spring, the first class of physicians will graduate from the program and enter residency training in family medicine or ^^^^^^_ various specialties for the next two to five years. Thanks to a partnership with Interior Health, medical students receive their clinical training at hospitals and clinics throughout the Interior. The university's partnerships with Aboriginal communities in the region have been mutually beneficial since the Okanagan Nation Alliance formally welcomed UBC to the Okanagan in 2005. Recognizing the value and importance of post-secondary education to Aboriginal students from across Canada, UBC works to increase enrolment and ensure academic success for all Aboriginal students. I ^2& 8,200 students, including 680 research graduate L students A * ^85^ MHtmtt Z& Itltltltlt ^ tifflMMt* •^mtfi* • ••••••••• S ititititit -i^" Nearly 400 Aboriginal students including more than two dozen graduate students Research funding for 633 projects $1.4 billion annual economic impact The university established the Aboriginal Access Studies program in 2007, and works in close partnership with the Okanagan Nation's En'owkin Centre in Penticton. Earlier this year, UBC established a pilot project with the Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society to open the door to university to Aboriginal youths and adults interested in post-secondary studies. The Downtown Education Project works to help overcome barriers to success in a post-secondary environment. The tremendous success of these programs is clear. Since 2005 the number of Aboriginal students at UBC Okanagan has grown from 58 to nearly 400 - including more than two dozen graduate students. Research activities at UBC Okanagan are closely linked to the community and are on an upward trajectory. Funding for research has grown from $6.9 million for 341 research projects in 2005 to more than $18 million for 633 projects this past year. UBC's total annual economic impact in the valley is $1.4 billion and growing. One exciting initiative that is contributing to innovation in the region is STAR (Survive and Thrive Applied Research). Launched last fall with a $3.8 million contribution from Western Economic Diversification Canada, STAR is an $8 million research centre focused on working with industry to bring to market novel technologies for human protection ^^^^^^^^^^^ and performance in extreme, remote or rural conditions. One of the initial projects catalyzed by STAR is the result of a collaboration between UBC, Kelowna-based Helios Global Technologies, and Imperial College London (UK). Together, UBC researchers are developing a high-tech helmet that can reduce the risk of concussion in contact sports like hockey. UBC Okanagan is entering a new period of transformation in its second decade, says Buszard. "Together with the communities of our region, UBC Okanagan is growing and diversifying the regional "economy," says Buszard. "As we mark the 10th anniversary of the campus this year, we recommit to delivering on the promise to have a significant impact on the future of our region and beyond, through our students, ou^Tumni7 and new discoveries. We're just getting started." We're just getting started. WESBROOK VILLAGE SHOPS + RESIDENCES + DINING ALL Within 2 MINUTES FROM THE THUNDERBIRD FIELDS WITH AMPLE FREE PARKING AND OVER 25 SHOPS + SERVICES, WESBROOK VILLAGE IS AN EXCITING PLACE TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME ON CAMPUS. DON'T FORGET TO FLASH YOUR A-CARD TO RECEIVE DISCOUNTS AT PARTICIPATING RETAILERS. WESBROOK COMMUNITY CENTRE OPENING SEPTEMBER 2015 DiscoverWesbrook.com Visit us at our Wesbrook Welcome Centre located at 3378 Wesbrook Mall Q@WESBROOKVILLAGE |5J WESBROOKVILLAGE Q WESBROOKVILLAGE UBC Are/- "\16thflve TAPESTRY Wesbrook Village CONCERT Your Order is Our Pleasure It may surprise you to hear that at Tapestry at Wesbrook Village - a unique Retirement Community on Vancouver's west side - multiple dining options are the norm. Whether you dine in our restaurant or pub, Chef Shaughn takes great pride in preparing fresh, delicious, and creative dishes every day. In fact, he is pretty passionate about it! Whatever your dining pleasure, Chef Shaughn is up for the challenge. Join us for a tour and lunch or dinner to taste the Tapestry difference. Call 604.225.5000 to make your reservation today. www.DiscoverTapestry.com Tapestry at Wesbrook Village 3338 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver BC 604.225.5000 UBC owes a lot to its students, who have contributed an astonishing amount over the generations - not only to the physical fabric of campus, through their initiatives to fund new buildings and amenities, but to UBC's cultural history and identity. That's why long-time archivist for the Alma Mater Society Sheldon Goldfarb, PhD'92, MAS'96, is writing a book about it all to mark the society's 100th Anniversary. It is a fascinating account of the life and times of the AMS that vividly captures the essence of student experience and self-governance through the decades. Here are some excerpts from a few different eras. 1915-16 Year One: UBC opens. Classes begin on Thursday, September 30,1915. Just over two weeks later, on Friday, October 15, the students gather in the Arts building on the original Fairview campus to create an association with the unusual name of Alma Mater Society. In the early years the Society is sometimes referred to as the Alma Mater, but later it becomes better known by its acronym (AMS), perhaps because Alma Mater made too many people think of the alumni: perhaps as well because no one was sure how to pronounce Mater. 1918-19 War Is Over: But at a cost. Another 11 UBC students died, bringing the total to 78. And while the fighting wound down overseas, the worldwide influenza epidemic struck Vancouver: . three more students died, and the University closed for five weeks. One final blow . landed in October 1918: UBC President Wesbrook died after being ill for several ■ months. Still, the Annual struck a celebratory note about the war, speaking of the pride that students could feel in having taken part in "the greatest crusade ever entered upon by men in the history of the world." Ubyssey: A new publication was born this year, a newspaper, the Ubyssey, a respelling and a reimagination of the old literary monthly, the Ubicee. Skits and poems are all very well, the new paper commented, but what is needed is news while it is still "hot," by which the editors meant no more than a week old. Naughty Oscar: The Players'Club provoked controversy by staging a production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. The Ubyssey expressed "disgust" >. at this "trash," and said it would prefer something with "a healthy moral tone." Captain Guy Borthwick Moore, KIA on April 17,1918 CAMS Archives) , \ 1925-26 \ Refreshments will be served: There was talk this year of establishing a Student Court to deal with discipline cases, and already t I in September the Ubyssey was registering the need for such a court by / reporting on a "criminal" who was being charged with playing bridge for :ar Wilde was f I shedbyUBC's I money, i.e., gambling in contravention of AMS Bylaws. entnewspaper, / Though the defendant said — re U bysseyi \Ly — / the charges were a violation of his individual rights, a trial was going ahead; however, since there was not yet a court, the case was to be heard by a joint meeting of the Men's and Women's Literary societies (!). Everyone was welcome to attend, said the Ubyssey, adding: "Refreshments will be served." ■*>-,2&J nBYSSFf *— ., ,. rt,« Public**"*" Board or vT^S^J^*™^ », DROWNED IN -s-srss; A week laterthe defendant was acquitted by reason of "insanity": the whole thing was treated as a bit of a joke, yet the push for a system of student-run discipline continued, resulting in: The Vigilance Committee: In Novemberi925 Council decided to create a secret body known as the Vigilance Committee, consisting of 10 men who would go undercover to try to catch smokers, loiterers, and other wrongdoers. The Ubyssey called the plan "obnoxious" and smacking of espionage. A general meeting of the students was called to vote on whether to abolish the new system, but voted in favour of keeping it. However, it was replaced the following year by the Honour System. 1931-32 The Depression hits home: Barely mentioned in previous years, at the beginning of 1931-32 the Depression was still someone else's problem. In the fall the Women's Undergraduate Society (WUS) launched a clothing drive for those affected by the recent economic difficulties. "We are making an endeavor to help the more unfortunate members of the community who have been harder hit by the depression than ourselves," said the WUS President. But by January it was the students themselves who felt hit. Rumours began to fly about cuts by the provincial government, which might result in the closure of certain departments (Agriculture, Nursing, and Commerce were mentioned). There was even talk that the University might shut down altogether. The students organized, launching a publicity campaign to enlist public support for the notion that the University was essential to the province. As in the days of the Great Trek, a petition was started (garnering 70,000 signatures), and there was large-scale public support (from the Archbishop of Vancouver to the Trades and Labour Congress), but this time the government did not give in. Major cuts were made to the University budget, resulting in layoffs and a reduction in library hours. There was even a plan to merge Agriculture and Applied Science, which the Agriculture students objected to but which won support in some AMS quarters, causing internal Q g division among the students. (The plan did not '-o go ahead.) 1 =: They Do Things Differently Here: The visiting ^ §"■ editor of the student newspaper at the University m 3 °K »■ of Toronto was shocked to discover that at UBC <» I the male and female students sat together in I S'<° the cafeteria and the library. He also noted how 1 <* different it was that the students at UBC were the ones raising the money for campus buildings and that there were no residences for students on campus (those wouldn't come till much later). The students were younger too: admission age at UBC was 16. 1945-46 Students to the left of them, students to the right of them: UBC had never seen so many students: 5,200 showed up in September, and another 1,200 (mostly ex-servicemen) arrived in January. The Library was crowded, the buses were crowded, everything was crowded. One of the downtown papers wrote a piece about the supposed division between the more mature returning servicemen and the younger "bobby-soxers." The Ubyssey ran an article deriding the idea, but felt compelled to revert to the topic more than once, so there may have been something to it. The Jokers! Founded in the fall with the slogan, "Come and make an ace of yourself," the Jokers tried to liven up campus with their offbeat brand of humour. Members, all of whom were vice-presidents of the club, walked around carrying yo-yos. They organized goldfish swallowing contests to raise money for the new gym, along with a carnival, an egg auction in which students could buy eggs to hurl at one of the Jokers, and a roller-skating marathon for which the slogan was: "Break a Limb! Support the Gym!" Students to the left, students to the right (Part 2, political version): Sid Zlotnick of the left-wing Labour-Progressive Party (LPP) got in trouble with the Discipline Committee for distributing leaflet No publications allowed unless approved by Student Council, th committee said. Zlotnick then lobbied to allow a Labour-Progressive campus club to be formed. Council hesitated. We don't have political clubs, they said, but let's ask the Board of Governors. The Board said, This is a student matter; you decide. Grant Livingstone, a Conservative, said if the LPP can become a club, so should other political groups. Still uncertain what to do, Council decided to hold a plebiscite of the whole student body; this seems to have been the first one held on campus, and it resulted in a 2:1 vote against political clu Politics would have to wait for another day. We are, we are, we are... the AUS? The Arts Undergraduate Society fell on hard times again, finding it difficult to get their members out to vote. The ever helpful Engineers sent 200 of the members to an Arts election meeting. Only 15 Arts students showed up, so the Engineers happily elected themselves to all the positions on the Arts executive. (Of course, this was all ruled out of order, but it did not bode well for the AUS.) 1953-54 A Sexy Year: The Kinsey Report on female sexuality came out this year, and UBC students engaged with it in a formal debate competition, in which victory went to the side arguing that the report was a threat to Western civilization (!). But if sex was defeated on this occasion, which is how the Ubyssey put it, nevertheless it seemed very much in the news, or at least in the Ubyssey. Sex is more important than religion, the paper said. It also ran an article on excessive kissing in Brock Hall and suggested that the kissing booth at the annual Blood Drive was responsibleforthe record turnout of male blood donors. 1970-71 Cyclists protest - see page 35. (UBC Archives) 1932 Students rallying the public to fight the cuts to education. (The Ubyssey) LT' 1945-46 The Jokers tried to liven up campus in the 40s. (AMS Archives) Off with her head! Lots of Queens around this year: Homecoming Queen, Mardi Gras Queen, Frosh Queen: in fact, two rival Frosh Queens (almost). The Frosh Undergraduate Society protested when one of the fraternities announced that they were anointing the Frosh Queen. That's just your Fraternity's Queen, said the official Frosh; we're going to choose our own. In the end, however, the official Frosh backed down, so no one ended up in the Tower, thankfully. Apathy, Lethargy, and What is the AMS, anyway? Not for the first or last time, both Council and the Ubyssey complained about a lack of student interest in the running of the Society, noting the number of Council seats that were filled by acclamation. The Ubyssey also did a survey that revealed that some students didn't know that being the AMS President meant being president of the student body. Perhaps the fault lay with the proliferation of mysterious acronyms, which had become so widespread that the Ubyssey ran an "alphabet soup" contest, asking students to identify as many acronyms as they could, from MAD, PhUS, and CUS to SCM, NFCUS, and the like 1968-69 It's the Sixties, Man: Paris, Chicago, Berkeley... UBC? For a day at least, the day Jerry Rubin came to town. The leader of the Youth International Party (the Yippies), fresh from confrontations with police during the Chicago protests, showed up with his pig (a protest candidate in the 1968 US presidential election) and asked the students of UBC what they would like to liberate. "The Faculty Club," someone called out, and 2,000 students invaded the professors' inner sanctum, liberating not only the space but the contents of liquor cabinets and the club pond (skinny dipping!). Someone even brought a band But what's it all about? The Ubyssey thought the occupation was an undeveloped expression of protest against oppression. Radicals, like the visiting Rubin himself, talked about rejecting traditiona institutions, not accepting minor positions in the existing power structure, opposing corporate control of education and society, and revolutionizing society. Rubin also talked about having fun "Free yourself," he said. Also: "Wherever you see a rule, break it." No, but what was it really about? Well, the occupation of the Faculty Club took place against a worldwide backdrop of student unrest, and at UBC itself the AMS had produced a brief calling for a variety of educational reforms to make courses more "relevant" and to give students a say in running the University. Demands were in the air: There should be students on governing bodies, Gambling: Were these UBC students i tt=from the 1920s up to no good? I , \f Tfc 1933-54 UBC President MacKenzie crowning one of the year's queens. (AMS Archives) ■ A 1968-69 It's a party, man. A band plays an unscheduled set during the Faculty Club \ -occupation. (UBC Archives) 1968-69 Hey, man, I'll tell you what it's all about. A protester explains things at the Faculty Club. (UBC Archives) the students should have a say in making appointments, something should be done about overcrowding. Some said, We should not have to attend dull and boring courses. Indeed In fact, the University was already experimenting with new approaches to teaching (introducing a new sort of inter-disciplinary first year course called Arts One). It had also granted student representation on the University Senate, though radicals called the appointment of four student senators (out of 81) tokenism And what good came of it? Well, the next day there was a giant rally (5,000 students) which called for a teach-in on educational reform, and there was indeed a teach-in the following week, endorsed by AMS President Dave Zirnhelt and UBC President Kenneth Hare. Zirnhelt, later an NDP cabinet minister, played a moderating role in the events, as did Hare, who seemed quite sympathetic to the students' demands, so much so that even the radicals said nice things about him, though adding that of course he couldn't really do anything because of the conservative power structure Hare eventually resigned just seven months after taking office (making him the shortest-serving UBC president), and in response to AMS demands the committee to find a replacement for him included four students 1970-71 The Battle of Jericho: \nd lothe people of Jericho did refuse to move from their hostel until the army and the police force did forcibly remove them, pushing them out of the Jericho army base and onto Fourth Avenue, from A ■^970-71 The Jericho ^r- 1 Occupation (The Ubyssey.' • Photographers: Maurice Bridge and David Bowerman.) whence they journeyed to the Student Union Building at UBC campus, where the students had said, "O ye homeless ones in need of shelter, you can rest here" - but then on second thought had said, No, sorry, you can't But the people of Jericho, jobless youth with nowhere to go, did come anyway and occupied the SUB for 16 hours, staying overnight until the AMS Executive could find alternative lodging for them, while regular students grumbled that this was too much and the Ubyssey said it was not enough it was time to stand up to the police state and oppression.. And that was the high point of militancy and activism for the year, a carryover from the Sixties perhaps, and occurring the same weekend in October that the FLQ crisis erupted in Quebec and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, prompting protests at UBC, but not too much, despite the best efforts of the Ubyssey. Human Government: If activists had mixed results against evictions and the War Measures Act, they found more success at the ballot box, electing a new slate to all the positions on the AMS Executive. Steve Garrod's Human Government group swept all before them, though not before the AMS had to rerun the presidential election because of irregularities. Garrod pledged Canadianization and democratization of the university, and also promised a referendum in October to let the student body pass judgement on his program, a promise he would live to regret Shades of Stan Persky: The Human Government slate drew inspiration from Stan Persky, the radical leader of the late Sixties who had almost become AMS President. (Perskyists, the Ubyssey called them.) Persky himself was still around and was even elected as a student Senator, though when he showed up for his first Senate meeting dressed up as an old man in a wheelchair, he was denied entrance Engineers Gone Wild: The Engineers reached new heights (or lows) this year, kidnapping a Ubyssey columnist and putting him through a mock crucifixion, kidnapping the Ombudsman and covering him in honey and feathers, trashing the Commerce students' lounge and stealing their beer, vandalizing the Commerce students' chariot, and causing the injury of a Forestry participant in the annual chariot race. Some even accused them of plotting to attack the SUB during the Jericho occupation to oust the occupiers, but that may have simply been their reputation at work. They did get into a fight with Maoists distributing literature in the SUB, and altogether their antics were so extreme that one group of Engineers, unhappy to be associated with such things, started a petition to withdraw from the Engineering Undergraduate Society. 0-71 Stan Persky, out of costume. (UBC Archives) New forms of activism: If the AMS and students at arge seemed uninterested in the Ubyssey's agenda, new causes were arising that would capture more support in subsequent decades. One was feminism: there was talk of starting a Women's Studies program this year, and eft-wing labour leader Michel Chartrand found himself called out for being dismissive of women: it was the old activism giving way to the new. Also this year saw a cyclists' protest: about 400 of them disrupted traffic on University Boulevard to demonstrate in favour of bike paths. This protest even seemed to lead somewhere: within a month there was talk of improving cycling facilities on campus 1983-84 The Cuts! The Cuts! Restraint, restraint, said the new Socred government, cutting back spending and taking away people's rights. Solidarity, solidarity, said the people, forming coalitions, marching in rallies, going out on strike. We will join you, said the AMS of UBC, worried about funding cuts and the tuition increases that might follow. Andthey did: 33 per cent of them, and for good measure the government jumped in and cut student financial aid by 83 per cent and abolished all grants, eaving students free to accumulate debt And if you were a foreign student, good luck. For the first time in its history UBC began charging more to international students And there were petitions and marches, but the increases went ahead FEATURE • great trekking Nogood deed: And there were complaints that the AMS was becoming too much of a business, making too much money from such things as the Pit Pub and the Games Room. We're supposed to be a non-profit society, said a presidential candidate, and when General Manager Charles Redden was given a raise for his good work, the Ubyssey complained bitterly and published his salary for all to see Politics: That's what the Ubyssey wanted the AMS to spend more time on: the Solidarity movement, of course, and also the campaign against military research. Some students petitioned successfully for a referendum calling for an end to such research, but it failed for lack of quorum. The Ubyssey took comfort in the fact that at least the majority of those who turned out to vote supported the anti-military side, but in general it sighed about apathy and wished there was more politics and less business on campus The Other Solidarity: The provincial Solidarity campaign took its name from the Polish movement of the day, and to bring things full circle, another Solidarity group sprang upon campus to protest the bringing to UBC of a Polish professor known for his connections to the pro-Soviet military government. Led by Bill Tieleman, later a Vancouver political analyst, Campus Solidarity picketed outside the visiting professor's classroom, prompting debate about free speech and academic freedom 1997-98 Here's Pepper in Your Eye: And the world's leaders came to UBC to discuss free trade, and the students protested, and the police sprayed them with pepper spray. And Nardwuar the Human Serviette (from CiTR student radio) asked Jean Chretien what he thought about it all, and the Prime Minister said pepper was just something he put on his plate. And the press went wild. Such was APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Vancouver in November 1997. The Gagged Goddess: Even before November the students were protesting and for some reason vandalizing the Goddess of Democracy. At one point she was gagged with a label saying Coca-Cola, suggesting that the point was to attack what some saw as excessive corporatization of the campus. Not only was the Coke deal still in force [in the 1995-96 year, the AMS had joined the University in a ten-year exclusivity agreement with Coca-Cola], but there was talk of both the university and the AMS entering into other exclusivity deals. This sort of thing led to one graffiti artist putting up slogans on the new Koerner Library. Feminist Triumphs? Meanwhile the AMS Executive achieved a high point of female power this year: four of the five Executives were women. And in the presidentia election for 1998-99, the two serious candidates were both women: Vivian Hoffman, the outgoing Director of Finance, bested the Coordinator of External Affairs, Shirin Foroutan, to become the new president Kinder,gentler Engineers: The president of the Engineering Undergraduate Society vowed that the Engineers would henceforth be less rowdy and boisterous. Less drinking, fewer dunkings in the ibrary pool. But still stunts: this year they performed their signature stunt of hoisting a Volkswagen Beetle on high, in this case on top of Rogers Arena (then known asGM Place) They also stole the Great Trekker trophy and returned it with a new inscription, honouring that greatest of Great Trekkers: James T. Kirk. 2001-02 And the Pall of 9/11 Hangs Over It All: At least it did for a while. The attack on the World Trade Center captured the attention of the campus. There was a memorial service led by UBC President Martha Piper. The AMS started a blood drive and raised donations for the Red Cross. And when the Americans responded by entering Afghanistan some students countered with protests and "die-ins." But eventually life moved on Bye-bye Freeze: The big news post-9/11 was the end of the tuition freeze, lifted by the new Libera government of Gordon Campbell. UBC responded by saying it would raise tuition to match the national average. Why, said the AMS, wondering about the relevance of tuition levels in Ontario Show us what you're going to spend the money on, and make sure some of it is on financial aid and other student services. The University did back down from its objective of matching the nationa average and did begin producing booklets showing where the money would go, but fees did rise Protests! While the AMS leadership made presentations to the Board of Governors, some students decided more radical action was needed, marching on campus, occupying the Administration Building, and even invading the Executive corridor at the SUB to criticize newly elected AMS President Kristen Harvey. Harvey said the protesters, who were calling not just for a continuation of the freeze but for a reduction in tuition, did not represent majority opinion on campus. They certainly did not represent the majority view on AMS Council, which defeated a motion to support the reduce tuition campaign; some Councillors said that the tuition freeze, coupled with government cutbacks, had jeopardized the quality of education at UBC and increases were needed Klahowya: Speaking of Kristen Harvey, her election meant that for the first time the AMS had an aboriginal president. It was a far cry from the days when UBC students appropriated aborigina themes without being aboriginal themselves. J I s ' «q ^fCi i 1997 Police disperse ►* \ protesters at the APEC W- J Summit. (The Ubyssey. ' Photographer: Rich Lam) _, 2014-15 The Nest! The Nest! Finally, after years of planning and negotiating, delays in construction, and the appearance of Gus the Seagull as mascot, the New SUB, aka the AMS Student Nest, opened The AMS moved from the suddenly shabby looking Old SUB to the spectacular new building next door, which quite dwarfed the Old SUB and everything else in the area. D Great Trekking will be available spring 2016. Details on purchasing copies will be posted on the AMS website (ams.ubc.ca). For more information, please contact AMS Archivist Sheldon Goldfarb at archives@ams.ubc.ca. £P ■■■ -^ 9^*»* For most of the last century, teaching was the same. A university lecture in 1920 did not look that different from a lecture in 1980. A professor stepped up to the podium and imparted wisdom in a 45-minute monologue. Students took notes. The end Those days are long gone at UBC. The introduction of the Internet and the advent of personal computing have changed everything. Today, when Dr. Simon Bates holds a physics session for 300 undergraduates, they arrive having read and digested all the material in advance. His role is facilitating engagement, which includes problem solving, spontaneous questions and discussion in breakout groups. It's called a "flipped classroom" and it has changed the post-secondary learning environment at UBC and transformed the student experience "If you were to parachute into one of my lectures, you'd probably think I'd lost control of my class," says Bates, Professor of Teaching in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Academic Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology. "It's noisy, interactive and slightly unpredictable. I have a rough map of what I'd like to do, but I vary it. I spend time challenging understanding, highlighting connections or testing." According to former UBC President Stephen Toope, four factors are driving a warp-speed acceleration of learning models at UBC: a better understanding of how we learn, transformative technologies, new demands for options and the rising costs of the traditional model First, thanks to advances in cognitive science, we know more about how to design effective learning. For example, research has shown that testing more often teaches us to retrieve information under stress and improves long-term memory. teaching revolution „s transforming student . learning at UBC MdU Then there are technological advances. Today, information is accessible anywhere, anytime. "From about age 14, we carry a device that gives us information about anything on demand," says Bates. "By 21, people have been exposed to more information than they were in an entire lifetime a generation ago. It's absolutely startling." Technology also provides untold opportunities for collaboration. Professors can continue conversations online. Undergraduates studying food security can connect with peers in other countries. Says Bates: "Technology allows you to bring the world into the classroom in a very real, tangible way that has not been possible or practical before." These changes have shifted the role of faculty at UBC. Rather than delivering content for the first time, professors are adding value as guides who help students navigate and evaluate the influx of information. UC Irvine Professor Alison King noticed this shift in 1993 and penned a seminal essay about it entitled "From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side" for the journa College Teaching The marketplace is also having an impact. Employers want staff that can identify problems and ask questions, while students want practical learning opportunities. UBC's focus on experiential learning gives students the chance to dive into real-world problems UBC's 66 years of distance learning has also helped the university educate thousands of non-traditional students, such as the 40-year-old working mom in Prince Rupert seeking advanced certification These are just some examples of how UBC faculty members are backing away from the lectern in order to engage students and spark critical-thinking skills that drive innovation in today's world. D >JM What's that dangling from the Golden Gate Bridge? Photo: Craig tee/San Francisco Chronicle/Po/ar/s I PRANK, THEREFORE I AM UBC engineering students are known for their elaborate pranks and also for being stubbornly tight-lipped when asked to talk about them. In 2007, writer Erin Millar came closer than most to getting At about 3:40 AM on February 5,2001, a moving-van stopped abruptly in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although it was still dark, witnesses said they saw around a dozen figures emerge and push a large object over the side of the bridge. They then reboarded the van, and sped away into the night. Nothing to see here. Move along A couple of hours later, as the morning light began to filter through the thick fog that often envelops San Francisco, viewers at Vista Point on the north end of the Golden Gate could make out the silhouette of a red Volkswagen Beetle. It was dangling from the underside of the bridge, 10 storeys above the water. A Canadian flag was painted on one side of the car. A big red "E" was on the other side The stunt caused traffic jams and stopped ships from passing under the bridge for hours, while the US Coast Guard and California Highway Patrol puzzled over the Bug and how it got there. The feat had involved stringing a 27-metre steel cable below the underside of one of the world's most famous and photographed structures, somehow manoeuvring what appeared to be a 1970s vintage VW Bug (which weighs more than 1,600 lb.) into position beneath the bridge, and attaching it to the cable - all without anyone noticing At about 8:10 AM, the Highway Patrol cut the nylon cord holding the car to the steel cable, plunging it into the water below. It sank quickly to the bottom of San Francisco Bay. The story was on evening newscasts across North America and articles followed in newspapers the next day, from Miami to Britain, making this one of the most widely covered pranks of all time The police were infuriated by the chaos, and pledged to prosecute the perpetrators. They threatened fines and charges of criminal conspiracy and trespassing, possibly eading to jail time. "We're pursuing every lead we have," one Highway Patrol officer told the San Francisco Chronicle The most obvious lead: a press release faxed that morning to the San Francisco media by anonymous engineering students from UBC. They claimed that they had executed the stunt in order to "draw attention to the masterful feats of professional engineers and to celebrate the skills of the tradespeople who built the bridges." Canada's engineering students have a long history of pranks, and this one may have been the greatest of all time. It was an exceptional technical challenge, its execution provoked awe and wonder, and the UBC students who carried it out did so in total secrecy. The rich history of university stunts brings a wide spectrum of differing opinions about what a good prank is. Notorious American prankster and anarchist Abbie Hoffman identified three types of pranks: "'good' pranks," he said, "were amusingly satirical, 'bad' ones gratuitously vindictive, and 'neutral' ones surreal and soft on the victim." Hoffman's classic example of a "good" prank occurred in 1967 when he and a group of activists threw fistfuls of dollar bills into the trading pit at the New York Stock Exchange. They managed to pause the ticker tape for six minutes while traders scrambled below: some booed, some chased the money. In 1971, Hoffman essentially pranked himself, publishing Steal This Book. Many readers took his advice; bookstores and the publisher were less amused For ample cases of the vindictive sort of prank, look to any university frosh week. They are often targeted against freshmen, rival disciplines, or competing universities. At the annual Yale-Harvard football game in 2004, Yale University students, disguised as the non-existent "Harvard Pep Squad," distributed white and red placards to 1,800 unsuspecting Harvard fans. The fans were told that when they lifted the placards, they would spell "Go Harvard." They actually spelled "We Suck." Harvard fans, all sitting on the same side of the stands, were the only ones not in on the joke. Most didn't know they'd been duped until reading the next day's extensive media coverage The most diligent and technically ambitious university pranksters, however, are almost always engineering students. Stunts have become an engineering tradition, in part designed to show off the skills engineering students have learned from their education, which they consider much more valuable than a fluffy arts degree The best engineering pranks go beyond being clever or poking fun. In the words of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's anonymous Institute Historian T. F. Peterson (whose initials refer to the MIT engineering signature HTFP, or "I Hate This F-king Place"), engineering stunts require "accessing the inaccessible," and "making possible the improbable." An engineering signature - left on pranks across North America to identify engineering students as the tricksters - is ERTW, or "Engineers Rule the World." MIT claims to be one of the founding fathers of engineering pranks, with the first-documented underground pranking society, the Dorm Goblin, established in the 1920s. Since then, cars and telephone booths have appeared on the roofs of campus domes and full-sized sailboats in swimming pools Like the Yale "We Suck" stunt, engineering pranks are often aimed at rival institutions. But UBC's pranksters have often set their sights beyond rival departments or universities and targeted more prominent victims, ike government In 1978, after much planning, a trio of enterprising engineers broke into the British Columbia legislature in Victoria, entered the assembly chamber, and stole the Speaker's ceremonial chair. A white concrete cairn with a red "E" - the signature of the UBC engineers - was eft on the Speaker's desk. The chair was returned a few weeks later. Over the years, UBC engineers have also stolen (and returned) the Rose Bowl trophy and Stanley Park's Nine O'Clockgun. Hundreds of citizens who had gathered to see the return of the gun were outraged when the engineers threw it into the ocean, but that was part of the stunt: the dunked artillery piece was a decoy. The individual identities of pranksters are closely guarded, as I discovered while pursuing the Golden Gate perpetrators "The Engineering Undergraduate Society of UBC," goes the group's official statement, "has had, and continues to have, no knowledge regarding the planning of, execution of, or persons involved with any stunts past, present and future." Bruce Dunwoody, now an associate professor emeritus of engineering, first heard of the Golden Gate prank when he arrived at his office that Monday morning in 2001 His first phone call of the day was from a San Francisco radio station Dunwoody was careful not to admit culpability on air, but that didn't stop authorities from trying to get information out of him "I had someone phone me from the California Highway Patrol looking for a list of names of students so they could try to figure out who had done this by comparing the students to the list of people who had come into the States," Dunwoody recalled. He refused to hand over the names without a request in writing. "UBC proper had never been involved in [the stunt], as we never are," said Dunwoody. But did he or UBC ever find out who was responsible for the act? "Let's say we didn't ask," he said Engineering pranks are often aimed at rival institutions. But UBC's pranksters have often set their sights beyond rival departments or universities and targeted more prominent victims, like government V k Dunwoody, who was an engineering student at UBC in the early '70s before becoming a professor in 1985, thinks that creativity is the key to great pranks. His favourite prank occurred in the mid-6os when a number of modern art sculptures mysteriously appeared on campus. "There was some questioning, but various folks chimed in that these were good and they became a part of UBC," Dunwoody said. "Later on that year, the engineers went around with a sledgehammer and started smashing these things up, at which point there was great furor that the engineers were heathen sorts of people who didn't appreciate fine art." The engineers allowed the outrage to reach a climax, then introduced photographs showing that all of this supposedly fine modern art was nothing but junk they had created themselves. "At that point," said Dunwoody, "everybody shut up real fast." Dunwoody argues that the sculpture stunt's originality was what made it one of the best all-time hoaxes. "A lot of pranks are the same thing as last year," he said, and noted that the Golden Gate Bridge prank commemorated the 20th anniversary of the first VW Bug prank, when UBC engineers hung a car off Vancouver's Lions Gate Bridge "Without the creativity, it comes down to audacity and technical difficulty." While Canadian universities officially discourage pranks, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has practically incorporated pranking into the curriculum, believing that the technical ambition of most engineering stunts contributes to the students' education. MIT pranks (which the schoo calls "hacks") have become an establishment activity. But at least one UBC engineering alumnus believes that MIT has nothing on UBC's trickster traditions. I was put in touch with a graduate who, in the words of one blogger, "is egendary at UBC for taking 14 years to complete a normally four-year bachelor's program, and leading the 'Geers in their drunken tomfoolery for most of that span." "There is no rivalry," said the engineer, who asked to be identified only as Yo. "No one else has taken this to the degree that we have." He calls MIT's pranks "not clever," carried out on campus and without daring. For Yo, a great prank must appear difficult or impossible to the genera public. Involving a famous landmark earns bonus points. But the most important part is the sense of accomplishment. "When you do something ike this you are adding to decades of history," he said. "It feels great to belong to this organization that has done these things in the past." The stunts are also like advertisements for the department, according to Yo. "They say, 'Hire a UBC engineer.'" Yo claimed to know people directly involved in the Golden Gate prank but would not reveal their names. "Stunts are done in the name of UBC, not in the name of an individual," he insisted, noting that some of the pranksters choose to stay silent to avoid liability or prosecution FEATURE • pranks Cat Mills, a former UBC film student, can attest to the UBC pranksters' combination of pride and secrecy. They agreed to participate in "Engineering Notoriety," a short documentary on UBC engineering stunts she produced for a school project. She found that while her subjects agreed to speak in detai about many stunts, the pinnacle of pranking, the Golden Gate stunt itself, was almost always out of bounds. But not entirely. She managed to get some key information about the prank on tape. She allowed me to watch the film, which is not intended for public viewing, so long as I agreed not to identify those she interviewed So how did they suspend a Beetle from the Golden Gate Bridge? Some insight into the stunt can be garnered from details of the prank it commemorated, the hanging of a VW Beetle 20 years earlier from the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver. According to a former engineering society president from the 1980s interviewed in Mills's film, that seminal stunt was carefully researched, and included retaining an engineering consulting firm to ensure that the weight of the car would not damage the bridge's support beams However, as US authorities involved in the Golden Gate stunt discovered, the weight dangling from the nylon cord was not as significant as it appeared the vehicles hung from the Golden Gate and Lions Gate bridges were only shells, the heavy engines, wheels and windows having been removed. "A group of us tore down a Volkswagen in a basement," an engineering alumnus from the 1980s says in the film, recalling an earlier VW experience. In what was apparently UBC's first successful stunt involving a Beetle, he and three accomplices placed a car on the top of the university's Ladner Clock Tower. "We pulled the two halves of the Volkswagen up either side," he told Mills, "and bolted it together on the top." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^_ The Golden Gate prank may also have been a two-step, two-day ordeal. The original Lions Gate stunt was. On the first day, according to the former engineering society president, a steel cable was hung in a loop from the support girders underneath the bridge. The loop Since the Lions Gate stunt, vintage VW Bugs have been spotted hanging from almost every bridge in the Vancouver area, the Massey Tunnel, and the wooden rollercoaster at the Pacific National Exhibition. Engineering stunts have also involved generous gestures. This jacket on the inuksuk at English Bay was stuffed with clothing donations. Photo by Jack Simpson. was then clipped to the handrail for easy access Attaching the cable required a delicate touch to avoid triggering an alarm, but once it was in place it was barely visible. On the second day, the students were given an unlikely gift: a minor car accident on the bridge stalled traffic. The traffic jam gave them just enough time to remove the shell of the VW from their flatbed truck, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^_ unclip the cable from the handrail, attach it to the car, and throw it over the side of the bridge - all in just minutes Since the Lions Gate stunt, vintage VW Bugs have been spotted hanging from almost every bridge in the Vancouver area, the Massey Tunnel, and the wooden rollercoaster at the Pacific National Exhibition. The preceding 20 years of experience must have contributed to the success of the most challenging part of the Golden Gate stunt: slinging a 27-metre cable under the bridge in advance, without detection In the film, an engineering student says that the team that laid the San Francisco cable stayed in hiding under the bridge for an entire day, waiting for the moving-van to arrive under the vei of darkness. When the van drove up, they quickly clipped the nylon cord and let the Bug drop. The UBC engineers who hit the Golden Gate had also apparently originally planned for this to be a simultaneous, two-city prank, with a second Bug to have been hung from the Lions Gate Bridge The Vancouver end of the plan was foiled when students triggered sensors on the crossing, and were discovered by the RCMR Though I spoke to a number of engineers who claimed to have knowledge of the event, no one ever admitted to being a Golden Gate prankster. And I suspected that, of all of those I spoke to, Yo had the most inside knowledge of the stunt. So, exasperated, I asked one more time: how the hell did they get the 27-metre cable under the bridge? "Oh," said Yo, slightly surprised by my question, "that was the easy part." D The original version of this article was written by Erin Millar for Maclean's Magazine inzooy. alumni UBC 98th Annual General Meeting 6:30pm I Thursday, October 15,2015 Jack Poole Hall, Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre Join us at our 98th AGM and hear what we've been up to in the past year. GOVERNANCE AND NOMINATING COMMITTEE SEEKS RECOMMENDATIONS The alumni UBC Governance and Nominating Committee is always seeking recommendations for alumni to be considered for service on the organization's Board of Directors and Advisory Council. In particular, the committee seeks potential candidates who have the skill sets and experience necessary to effectively set strategic direction, engage alumni and ensure alumni UBC has the resources necessary to effectively fulfill its mission and vision. For more information on the role of the Board of Directors or Advisory Council, please contact: Chair, Governance and Nominating Committee c/o Sandra Girard, Manager, Board Relations Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre 3rd Floor 6163 University Boulevard Vancouver, BC V6T1Z1 sandra.girard@ubc.ca alumni UBC Event Highlights Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre Home Opener Yater Worries: What is the state of our most valuable resource? This UBC Dialogues event will discuss threats to the quality and quantity of our fresh water supply and the steps we need to take now to protect it for decades to come. alumNIGHTS at the Kiip Headquarters in San Francisco ine in a friendly, relaxed setting. New Directions in Forestry the sustainable management of forests. Join us to learn how you can make an impact in your community. a place of mind THE UNIVERSITYOF BRITISH COLUMBIA Currently reporting on development pressures in Brazil Gwyneth Gunn was known for her stories, her love of politics and the peace movement. Gunn appreciated the power of education and expressed this passion into a tax-efficient bequest to UBC. Today, her gift ensures vita funding for students in the Schools of Journalism and Social Work, and First Nations students in all fields of study. UBC can help you plan a lasting legacy in a field important to you. Call 604.822.5373 or visit www.startanevolution.ca/Gunn startanevolutlon.ca tan: Meet Your Mentor Kelowna | October 21, Connect with entrepreneurs and community leaders, set realistic goals, and find that mentor who can help you define your career path. rig the Border Vancouver | October: Considering immigrating to the US for employment? Learn about the steps required and considerations you should think about. ; with Dr. Samantha Nutt Vancouver | Novembe Hear from the award-winning War Child & bestselling author 1. I doctor, founder of .ares experiences from her more ste of BC: A BC Craft Beer Evening Jeer Revolution from the Thirsty Writer, nfi. before enjoying a range of beer samples. \Vn Annual Grape Debate Should wine be made to age or made to drink? RESEARCH EXCELLENCE UBC's research discoveries are hugely influential. They are advancing new knowledge and have led to countless new products, treatments and services that are improving lives around the world. Here are some of the research areas in which UBC is excelling. Collaboration key to unravelling mysteries of the mind Call it the ultimate brain trust. At UBC's Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, more than 250 researchers from the fields of neurology, neuroscience and psychiatry are working together to solve the world's greatest mystery: the human brain. Bridging basic science and clinical care in a state-of-the-art facility, the centre provides opportunities for education, collaboration, and interaction with patients from across BC. It is the largest and most comprehensive brain care and research centre in Canada, and is a partnership between UBC's Faculty of Medicine, Vancouver Coastal Health, and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. Under the leadership of co-directors Drs. Brian MacVicar and Jon Stoessl, the centre is poised to move research from the bedside to the bench and back again, in order to understand disease and translate research into better patient care and therapies. "Interaction is key for us," says MacVicar of the collaborative nature of the centre. "We want scientists and clinicians working together, sitting down to talk about the possibilities out there, learning about each other's constraints, and talking about crazy ideas. We need the crazy ideas to challenge dogmas in brain science and come up with new solutions." The good news is that it's working. The centre's unique approach is helping UBC to recruit some of the world's leading scientists, and is providing students with unprecedented experience in collaboration that could change the future of medicine. That's welcome news given that brain disease is on its way to becoming Canada's leading cause of death: it already affects one in three Canadians and costs the economy more than $30 billion a year. The centre is home to clinics that investigate and treat virtually every kind of brain illness and injury, from Parkinson's, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, Huntington's and Alzheimer's, to concussion, addiction and mental health. It's a hub for researchers such as Dr. Lara Boyd, a neuroscientist and physical therapist who holds the Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Motor Learning. Boyd's multidisciplinary team in the Brain Behaviour Lab is successfully curbing the effects of stroke through early intervention and innovative treatments that stimulate healthy parts of the brain to take over lost functions. "The centre's integrated approach has been critical to my lab's success," says Boyd. "Solving problems such as strokes requires research from multiple angles. It's making connections and leveraging information that we share - drugs and therapies - to maximize solutions." 'redictingthe unexpected: laying sudden cardiac deaths to rest Sudden cardiac arrest kills more than 30,000 Canadians of all ages and all fitness levels every year. In some of the most dramatic instances, seemingly healthy young athletes collapse suddenly on the playing field and die. Equally devastating are the cases that don't make the headlines: the teenage daughter who goes to sleep and never wakes, or the mother who loses two babies to sudden infant death. I Up to 60 per cent of such cardiac arrest cases are due to arrhythmias - irregular heartbeats - passed down through families. But what if your child or loved one had this condition, and you didn't know it? It's a terrifying scenario, and one that UBC's head of Cardiology, Dr. Andrew Krahn, hopes to eliminate through his research into the genetic causes of arrhythmias. An internationally recognized cardiac researcher, Krahn knows that with testing and timely intervention most of these deaths are preventable. He's determined to develop an accurate test to detect and treat these hereditary conditions in people who otherwise appear healthy. "Simply put, my goal is to stamp out sudden death," says Krahn. "With accurate detection, preventative treatments like the use of beta-blockers or implantable defibrillators are extremely successful at controlling arrhythmias." Krahn's research, in collaboration with his peers in the fields of medical genetics and pediatrics, is making remarkable advances towards this goal. In late 2013, the province launched the BC Inherited Arrhythmia Program (BCIAP), a groundbreaking initiative operating under Cardiac Services BC, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority. BCIAP, where Krahn is co-medical director, brings together specialists in cardiology, pediatrics and genetics to diagnose and treat cardiac arrhythmias. There are an estimated 7,000 British Columbians living with, or at risk for developing, arrhythmias. There are clinics at St. Paul's and BC Children's hospitals in Vancouver and Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, with outreach programs in Northern BC and clinics across the province that connect via videoconferencing. People concerned about their family history of inherited heart arrhythmia can be referred to BCIAP by their family doctor. Krahn believes that with his team's research and clinical work, and the leadership of institutions like UBC and the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the "lightning strike" of arrhythmia may soon be a thing of the past - not just in BC, but around the world. ADVANCED MATERIALS UBC Research takes a quantum leap forward Mere decades ago, the Internet emerged full of limitless possibilities and as-yet-unimagined potential. No one quite knew what it might become - only that its future looked promising. Welcome to the world of quantum materials at UBC, where researchers are emerging as global leaders in the hunt for materials that could trigger a technical revolution to rival the Industrial Revolution. Just as silicon transformed the microelectronics industry, quantum materials are set to transform existing industries in areas such as information processing, nanoelectronics, medicine and sustainable medicine. And they may well spawn totally new industries. UBC's Quantum Matter Institute, and the prestigious, state-of-the-art Max Planck-UBC Centre for Quantum Materials partnership have attracted some of the top quantum materials research scientists and students from around the world. From killer to chronic, epidemic to eliminated: stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS through effective, sustained treatment Just two decades ago, an HIV diagnosis brought with it stigma and suffering and eventually, death. End of story. But not anymore, thanks in large part to ongoing work pioneered in the 1990s and continuing to this day at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. Dr. Julio Montaner is the determined and much-decorated head of UBC's Division of AIDS and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, a UBC-affiliated centre based at Providence Health Care's St. Paul's Hospital. Montaner was the principal investigator of an international 1996 study that showed a cocktail combination of drugs to be the most effective way to prevent HIV turning into AIDS. Known as HAART, or "highly active anti-retroviral therapies," the cocktail has essentially turned HIV/AIDS from a catastrophic diagnosis into something manageable with consistent, sustained lifelong treatment. This means people living with HIV can now lead healthy, normal lives, have children and plan for a future. UBC researchers have made pioneering contributions to the field: original ideas and proof-of-principle experiments that have spurred new ways of thinking, launched new experimental methods, and led to new materials with unprecedented properties. One such internationally recognized advance is in the understanding of superconductors that, unlike today's conductors, allow electricity to flow without resistance. This could have many applications, such as smarter and speedier computers, able to process intensely complex problems. Until now, however, superconductors have only functioned at extremely low temperatures - like minus-150 Celsius - renderingthem completely impractical for everyday use. Dr. Andrea Damascelli leads a team of international scientists that recently made a breakthrough in our understanding of some of the common principles of superconductors. The team's findings, published in Science in December 2013, could lead to the creation of a superconductor that works at a much higher temperature, and one day even at room temperature. As quantum materials research advances, we are learning how to control the properties of the new materials we discover. With this comes the prospect of a whole new world of technical possibilities. HAART was just the first step, however, in a battle that continues to this day in Canada and around the world. That is why Montaner developed a program he calls "Treatment as Prevention®," or TasP®. Many UBC researchers at the Centre for Excellence have supported Montaner in his work towards eliminating the spread of HIV and other related diseases, including Drs. Evan Wood, Thomas Kerr and Richard Harrigan. On a global scale, TasP® has been adopted by the United Nations as its standard of care for HIV and AIDS. By expanding testing and access to anti-retrovirals following a diagnosis, people living with HIV can receive effective, sustained treatment that improves their health and longevity, while dramatically reducing the likelihood that they will spread the disease. So far, TasP® has been implemented to great success in BC. Between 1994 and 2013, the number of new AIDS cases in BC decreased from 696 to 84 - a drop of 88 per cent. It has also been embraced by China, Brazil, Spain, France, major US cities, and Queensland, Australia - among many others. That is not to say the battle against HIVandAIDS has yet been won - there are still many barriers to accessing sustained treatment for some living with the disease - but the principles of TasP® are strengthening the global fight against it. The UNAIDS 90-90-90 program aims to ensure 90 percent of people infected with HIV are tested; 90 percent of those diagnosed are on sustained antiretroviral treatment; and 90 per cent of those on treatment have undetectable viral loads. The goal: to virtually eliminate progression to AIDS, premature death and HIV transmission by 2020. By 2030, the worldwide HIV/AIDS pandemic could be transformed into a low-level sporadic endemic. "We turned what was a crazy idea into a sound public policy," says Montaner. As the leader of both the BC-CfE and the Division of AIDS at UBC, a former head of the International AIDS Society and a special advisor to the United Nations, Montaner wears many hats. They all have one thing in common: to eliminate HIVandAIDS, no matter what it takes. This October, Montaner will be honoured with an alumni UBC Achievement Xward (see page 51). ENVIRONMENT Sally Otto Preserving the planet, species by species The earth is home to an estimated 30 to 50 million species- many of them not yet discovered, and virtually all of them threatened by our human footprint. At UBC's Biodiversity Research Centre, more than 50 scientists representing disciplines from botany to zoology are conducting research aimed at helping us understand and conserve the diversity of plants and animals on the planet. Researchers at the centre study the entire biological spectrum - from individual genes to entire ecosystems - to reveal the complexity and interrelated nature of life on our planet. "Species extinctions, as well as widespread shifts in ecosystems, are on the rise due to human activities," says Dr. Sally Otto, the centre's director. "At the Biodiversity Research Centre, several of our teams study how global warming, ocean acidification, and habitat destruction impact the natural world and what steps are needed to reduce these impacts." Using techniques such as mathematical modelling and evolutionary experiments with yeast, Otto, an evolutionary biologist, explores how different species evolve and adapt to changing environments. Understanding the factors involved in biodiversity, evolution and adaptation can inform future decisions around conservation and preservation, and could also contribute to the development of new medical treatments. With the 2010 opening of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC, researchers like Otto can now share their research and findings about ecology, evolution and conservation with each other and the public. The museum is home to more than two million specimens of plants, animals and fossils - including its iconic centerpiece: a blue whale skeleton (pictured behind Otto). But more importantly, it brings top biodiversity researchers and their teams together under one roof, where they are able to share their knowledge and discoveries, and inspire a more sustainable future. Walking the talk as a clean energy powerhouse When it comes to clean energy, UBC walks the talk. Home to a living lab that fuels campus heat and electricity requirements from biomass, a state-of-the-art research centre, and partnerships with prestigious international institutions and corporations, UBC is leadingthe charge to develop and utilize cleaner energy sources at home and around the world. Sixty faculty and more than 200 graduate students work in the Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC), a hub for advancements in greener, cleaner energy. "There is little doubt that energy is one of the most important challenges facing humanity in the 21st century," says Dr. Walter Merida, the centre's director "Our scientists and engineers are doing pioneering, world-class work on sustainable power innovations in the areas of sustainable transportation, low-carbon fuels, renewable energy, conservation and energy conversion and storage." The centre's work has also attracted fundingfrom leading international academic and industrial energy experts to support both pure and applied research. A $5 million partnership with the Fraunhofer Society, Europe's largest applied-research institution, is currently focused on five areas of clean energy research, from wind energy to zero-emission vehicles. The centre has also initiated collaborations with Tech Mahindra in India in smart grid technologies, the three South African centres of competence regarding hydrogen and fuel cells, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy in climate change modelling, and the Korean Gas Corporation in natural gas processing and liquefaction - an important advancement for British Columbia's emerging LNG sector. Closer to home, the centre has been running a Master's of Clean Energy Engineering program since 2009 (the first of its kind in North America). It is also is working with provincial stakeholders to develop a sustainable transportation system. In 2012 UBC's partnership with local company Nexterra Systems Corporation and GE Energy resulted in the launch of its on-site Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Facility. This small-scale power production plant supplies heat and power to the 50,000 students, staff and faculty at UBC's Vancouver campus using biomass - mainly waste lumber production products such as tree trimmings and wood chips. Another project utilizing the campus as a living lab features a new smart-grid storage system that efficiently stores energy from renewable sources. It was created in collaboration with Alpha Technologies and Corvus Energy. Such innovation isn't new: Westport Innovations, one of the university's most successful spin-off companies, has commercialized technology discovered at UBC almost 30 years ago to allow diesel truck engines to run on clean-burning natural gas. That single innovation has ultimately led to Westport slashingthe emissions of vehicle fleets through collaborations with partners around the world, and becoming a global leader in alternative fuel, low-emissions technologies that allow engines to operate on cleaner-burning fuels. No fish tale: UBC centre fights to protect the world's oceans As the planet's fisheries reach their ecological limits, marine ecosystems face a catastrophic collapse. Consumers can make a personal choice to eat responsibly harvested fish, but is it too little too late? Are we doing enough to stave off the impacts of overfishing and preserve a healthy ocean environment for future generations? The UBC Fisheries Centre brings together leading multidisciplinary researchers to understand the impact we are having on our oceans and to work with maritime communities, government, NGOs and other partners to reverse the decline. Their research runs the gamut, from looking at ways to run, restore and sustain fisheries, to a project that studies seahorses, all in an effort to advance our knowledge of marine conservation and the management of competing populations, habitats and trades. Take Dr. Villy Christensen. The fisheries professor and co-director of the UBC Fisheries Centre is driven by a single, complex question: Will there be seafood and healthy oceans for our children and grandchildren to enjoy? To find the answer, he is using global ecosystem models to measure the effect of human activity and climate change on marine populations. Dr. Rashid Sumaila leads the Fisheries Economics Research Unit, which explores how ecosystems can provide sustainable and equitable economic and social benefits to both present and future generations, while maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. In 2010, UBC launched a $13 million, nine-year international partnership with The Nippon Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Tokyo, with a mandate to research solutions to the over-exploitation of resources around the world. The impetus was the serious decline in fish populations, which has led to widespread concerns for the future. The NF-UBC Nereus Program, named for the ancient Greek god of the ocean's bounty, is developing an international research network that is capable of evaluating future scenarios for managing fisheries in the world's oceans and change how we exploit them - for our children, grandchildren and descendants long after we are gone. "One of the biggest challenges for conservation of fisheries is that most people can't see the state of our oceans with their own eyes because from the surface, everything seems unchanged," says Dr. Daniel Pauly, a professor at the Fisheries Centre and chair of the Nereus steering committee. "This program will bring the real impacts of our decision and actions right before our eyes." Closer to home, fish, and salmon fishing in particular have always been an important part of BC's heritage and identity. The Aboriginal Fisheries Unit marries traditional ecological knowledge to modern science in order to better support and manage ecosystems and aquatic resources. Elsewhere, Dr. Tony Farrell in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems has looked at the impact of rising water temperatures on the province's salmon population. And from UBC Forestry Professor Scott Hinch and Carleton University Professor Steven Cooke comes important research that shows when sockeye salmon on the way to their spawning grounds are forced to "burst swim," or sprint, through rapids or areas downstream of dams, many of them die from the effort before they reach their destination. Maintaining healthy diverse oceans and preserving ourfish stocks has never faced greater pressures. ©♦ DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES Imposing the right kind of order on the chaos of data We are in the midst of a veritable information explosion. In the digital universe, we create, capture and store facts and figures at unprecedented rates on every topic imaginable. It has led to a unique 21st-century problem: Big Data overload. How can we possibly sift through the massive fog of complex and confounding data and make sense of it? UBC researchers are developing the field of visual analytics to find the answers. This multidisciplinary field combines research in both computer science and psychology to create systems that turn vast quantities of interrelated information into visual images and patterns that are easily understood by the human brain. In the same way that bar graphs and pie charts have helped us understand simple relationships between data, visual analytics is finding ways for us to understand relationships within even the most complex data sets. By imposing the right kind of order on the chaos of data, visual analytics enables us to leverage uniquely human abilities - such as reasoning, problem-solving, and raw visual intelligence -to analyze the data. "It's a marriage of sorts, blending complex computational processes with human cognitive abilities to let us quickly see the hidden gems of knowledge contained within diverse sets of data," explains UBC Computer Science and Psychology Professor Ronald Rensink. In 2004, UBC incorporated its pioneering visual analytics research into the Media and Graphic Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC), which gathers academics from fields as diverse as music, graphic arts and computer science together under one roof. Since then, researchers at MAG IC have been creating visual representations of large volumes of complex data, leading to improvements in areas as diverse as aircraft safety, childhood injuries and disaster relief. These examples are just the beginning. Visual analytics can bring data to life in virtually every sector and topic imaginable, and the university is helping to do just that through the Vancouver Institute for Visual Analytics (VIVA), a collaborative project between UBC, Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Born out of a series of collaborations with the Boeing Company, VIVA bridges academic theory with real-life practice by connecting researcher with industry, as well as offering training courses to anyone - students, researchers, government or members of the public- interested in rendering massive, interlinked amounts of data comprehensible through images. "Visual analytics is like using technology to find a needle in a haystack," says Rensink. "It allows us to pick out patterns, context and connections from data that would otherwise be too overwhelming on its own. Ultimately, it allows us, often at a glance, to better understand today's world." ENOMICS Breakthrough discoveries change how we understand cancer Scientists at UBC and the BC Cancer Agency have transformed our understanding of breast cancer and set the stage for the development of new treatments. It began with a landmark discovery in 2009. By decoding - for the first time in history - the three billion letters in the DNA sequence of a patient's metastatic lobular breast cancer and following its evolution over nine years, Dr. Samuel Aparicio, Dr. Marco Marra and Dr. Sohrab Shah were able to show how this complex cancer mutates and spreads. Aparicio is a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC and heads the BC Cancer Agency's Department of Molecular Oncology; Marra directs the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre and the Department of Medical Genetics at UBC; and Shah is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC, a scientist at the BC Cancer Agency, and Canada Research Chair in Computational Cancer Genomics. The research team they led found that of the 32 mutations in the metastatic tumour, only five could have been present in all the cells of the original tumour, thereby identifying them as the suspected cause of the disease getting started in the first place. The internationally significant findings were published in the prestigious journal Nature. "This is a watershed event in our ability to understand the causes of breast cancer and to develop personalized medicines for our patients," declared Aparicio at the time. In 2012, international research led by Aparicio at the BC Cancer Agency and Dr. Carlos Caldas at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute was able to classify breast cancer into ten subtypes. They then grouped these subtypes by common genetic features, which correlate with survival, to suggest how treatments could be tailored to treat women with better defined types of breast cancer. This discovery followed on the heels of Aparicio, Shah and Marra leading the decoding of the most deadly triple-negative breast cancer. This research similarly discovered new genes that had never before been linked to the disease and showed that breast cancer is an umbrella term for what is really a number of unique diseases. Aparicio and Shah have since led further research to understand and predict how these complex cancers evolve over time. The two researchers used Shah's statistical modelling software, PyClone, to analyze the billions of pieces of genetic data gathered from the tumour samples. Their findings, published in Nature in 2014, provided a map for how certain breast cancers evolve to become drug resistant overtime. "By pinpointing which individual cancer cells are the 'resilient'ones that are most likely to have an impact on patient survival," says Shah, "We are paving the way for drug development and treatment practices that will stop these cellular superbugs from taking over." "Because of this research we have a way to identify the cancer 'super-cells' and stay one step ahead of disease progression by tailoring effective treatments to individual patients,' adds Aparicio. It's a radical shift in the way we understand cancer-one that is of vital importance to both lobal cancer research community and to futi Seeing the forest and the trees - and making them stronger It sounds like something out of science fiction: a wily scientist using state-of-the-art DNA bio-surveillance technology to defeat an invasive alien species. But voracious forest-destroying insects such as the Asian gypsy moth and the elm bark beetle are a clear, present and very real danger - and Dr. Richard Hamelin has them in his crosshairs. Hamelin, a professor in UBC's Faculty of Forestry, leads a $2.43 million, cross-Canada research project aimed at protecting Canada's 400 million hectares of forest and urban trees from devastating pests. It's just one of several important environmental research initiatives at UBC involving genomics. "Establishing a link to origin is crucial to prove scientifically the source of pests - and genomics can do that. This means that Canadian officials will have verifiable evidence when managing non-compliant exporters and trading partners," says Hamelin, who is leading a team of scientists from UBC, Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency through a partnership with Genome Canada and Genome BC. Most recently, the team discovered a deadly tree fungus - Mycosphaerella populorum - which uses extra genes to produce a toxin that causes fatal lesions on the leaves, stems and branches of poplar trees. Other natural resource genomics projects at UBC have included mapping the genomes of the spruce tree and the mountain pine beetle, the insect that has devastated BC's lodge-pole pine forests. It marked only the second time in the world that a beetle genome has been sequenced. There is also the aptly named Adaptree, a UBC-led initiative led by Dr. Sally Aitken to understand where trees have historically been and understand where they should be in the future. This research is vital to improving provincial seed transfer policies and forest management responses to climate change. How do trees survive drastic changes in climate? How do they make it through year after year - after century - of harsher (or milder) winters? And how do they adapt to environments that are, to say the least, ecologically different? "We know that those climatic niches are moving way faster than these tree species have historically been able to move," Aitken says. While this phenomenon challenges the forestry sector, that same industry - which plants 250 million trees a year in BC - is best positioned to do something about it. With the right information in hand, there is an opportunity to assist the adaptation of forests by relocating the right genomes to the right places in the course of normal business operations. "We can at least increase diversity," notes Aitken. "More diversity in the genomes of a population makes it more resilient, and with unpredictable and complex changes taking place, resilience is key to the health of the forest." These stories, along with others, can be found on the website of UBC Research and International. To learn more about UBC research, please visit research.ubc.ca aiumn UBC a-card ALUMim/.Ubcca YOU'VE EARNED IT! TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE BENEFITS OF MEMBERSHIP. As a UBC alumnus, you've earned more than a degree. You've earned exclusive access to benefits, discounts and great rates at partner companies across the country. And the best part - it's free. ONLINE JOURNAL ACCESS. YOU ASKED. WE DELIVERED. UBC alumni have access to the EBSCO Academic Search and Business Source alumni editions that include more than 4,150 full-text journals from many of the top academic and business publishers worldwide. All you need to access this wealth of intellectual resources is your free A-Card. TITLES INCLUDE: Nature ■ Bloomberg Businessweek ■ Entrepreneur ■ Anthropology Today Biochemistry & Cell Biology Be sure to regularly check the alumni.ubc.ca/acard page for current perks and how to access them Q iS 3 Art! Vancouver Art/ VANCOUVER Cathay Pacific V CATHAY PACIFIC Legacy Liquor Store INLEGACY 'S01 LIQUOR STORE Terminal City Club TERMINAL CITY CLUB Avis/Budget Rental Car BC Business BC Lions • Broadway Across Canada Cirque Du Soleil Dreyer Group Next Issue Park'N Fly Sparkling Hill Resort Unhaggle Wesbrook Village Don't have an A-Card or want more information about these exclusive benefits? Visit alumni.ubc.ca/acard Interested in becoming an A-Card corporate partner? Contact jenna.mccann@ubc.ca alumni ubc EW HOME ON CAMPU Although there were only 40 students in UBC's first graduating class of 1916, the UBC Alumni Association was formed the following year - its stated aim being simply "To further the interests of the University and the Alumni." Since those early days, alumni have been one of the most influential forces shaping UBC's history. They have contributed to university governance through advisory roles and representation on the Board of Governors and the Senate. They have protected the university's interests with their political support when its future was uncertain. They have partnered on numerous bold student initiatives. And they have given financially to support important research, student scholarships, and campus development Today, there are 305,000 UBC alumni and they are just as vital to the university's continued success as their predecessors. The importance of a strong and mutually beneficial relationship between UBC and its graduates is symbolized by the recently completed Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre, the first of its kind in Canada The centre is an eye-catching four-level structure in the heart of UBC's Vancouver campus. It is a place for connection, collaboration and life-long learning, as well as a showcase for the exceptional accomplishments and aspirations of UBC alumni. It's also the university's official welcome centre - in effect, UBC's front door. The building is named for Robert H. Lee, CM, OBC, BCom'56, LLD'96, a former university chancellor and governor, and the founder of UBC Properties Trust. As someone who has been lending his support and business expertise to the university for the past three decades, Dr. Lee was the natura choice for this honour. Despite a full schedule, he finds as much time as possible to accommodate frequent meeting requests from admiring commerce students, thus demonstrating his belief in the kind of interaction that will be a cornerstone of activity at the alumni centre Located next to the AMS Nest (the new student centre completed at the same time), the alumni centre is ideally placed for fostering all the natural connections between students and alumni - especially in the areas of mentorship, employment, and innovative learning opportunities. Other partnerships include the university's entrepreneurism program - e@UBC - which is now operating out of its new premises in the centre, and UBC Continuing Studies. Visitors will also discover a cafe, historical displays, an interactive screen showcasing all UBC graduates, stunning artwork, and a variety of beautiful spaces available for rent The idea for an alumni centre first surfaced in 1999, and many alumni volunteers have been involved in driving the project. When UBC'sstartan evolution campaign was launched in 2011, the centre was identified as one of its top five priorities. The university itself showed the way, committing the site and a sizeable annual grant towards building operations. Since then, more than 1,000 alumni and friends of UBC have contributed to making the dream of a UBC alumni centre a reality, and a tribute wall in the centre's main reception area is a permanent acknowledgement of their generosity. The official opening of the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre on September 30, 2015, kicks off UBC's Centennial year; the official close of the Centennial will be Alumni Weekend on May 28, 2016 As UBC's next hundred years unfold, it's clear alumni will be an integral part of the story - as they have always been. D The form is thought of as a cloud, a larger volume floating above the ground plane. Material choices would emphasize that dematerialized notion. Current investigations include mirrored frit on the glass that would reflect the surroundings: clouds, trees and mountains. The ground floor exterior will be transparent, open and accessible, allowing views in and beyond the project while also showcasing warmer, natural materials and colour pallet. This would include the use of stone and wood. At night, the building would transition from the reflective, to the luminous: A beacon terminating University Boulevard." Our 300,000 alumni are at the heart of UBC. So UBC and alumni UBC have built the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre at the heart of our Vancouver campus. The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre is a new home for alumni; a place to welcome all who visit UBC; a place to connect and integrate, fostering entrepreneurship, networking, mentoring and learning The Centre is named in honour of alumnus, benefactor, former UBC Chancellor and founder of the UBC Properties Trust, Dr. Robert H. Lee, CM, OBC, BCom'56, LLD'96. Bob is affectionately known as 'Mr. UBC due to his many contributions over three decades To help the new Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre become a vital and vibrant space, we invite your support. alumnicentre.ubc.ca O ROGERS Microsoft HSBC^ UBC a place of mind w alur iuBC alumni ubc 2015 ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS presented by Boyden UBC alumni are capable of amazing things. This October, we will honour seven in nienjbers of the UBC community who,iU extraordinary endeavours, Pfave crea*~J global executive search ALUMNI AWARD OF DISTINCTION Dr. Gordon McBean BSc'64, PhD'70 r. Gordon McBean has led-global rts to raiSe atvareness about climate hange'impacts and played a key role in ie development ofrne Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ,whiqj| in 2007, along^ith Al Gore was awarded^he Nobel Peace Priz GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP AWARD Sheila Purves BSR'79 Sheila Pw* has spent the past thr^ cftcades promoting modernjiieiical rehabilitation and ' community b*ed approaches to the healthcare system in'China. She has developed training programs forfhousandsof care providers, and her students have improved the quality of life immeasurably for patients and people with disabilities. FACULTY COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD Dr. John Gilbert Dr. John Gilbert is ireciprand professor emeritus of UBC's School of Audiology and Speech Sciences. He is# internationally recognized for his pioneering role in the development of interprofessional health education as a vital component of collaborative practice and quality care. HONORARY ALUMNUS AWARD Dr. Julio Montaner Dr. Julio Montaner has been leading the fight against HIV/ His innovative drug therapies and treatment programs, now the standard of cara^lobally, have transformed the disease from a death sentence into a long-term manageable condition, and dramatically reduced the spread of HIV. HONORARY ALUMNUS AWARD Hari Varshney CPA,FCA,OBC Prominent philanthropist afld venture capitalist Hari Varshney credits the time he spent atUBC with planting the seeds for his success. A devoted community leader with a generous spirit, he has made several rnajor gifts to the university and serves as a cabinet member for UBC's $1.5 billion start an evolution campaign. YOUNG ALUMNUS AWARD Nimisha Mukerji BA'06 , Award-wPhninjp^ducerand director Nimisha Mukerji'sipowerful and inspiring documentaries create awareness and inspire change. Her critically acclaimed features, 65_RedRoses and Blood Relative, won awards at film festivals around the globe, and inspired international fundraising and awareness campaigns for cysticribrosis, thalassemia and organ donation. FUTURE ALUMNUS AWARD Dr. Michiko Maruyama Dr. Michilto Maruyama, a graduate of UBC's Northern Medical Program, is a talented artist who has integrated her background in industrial design and the arts with her medical studies through several projects, including her Medical Daily Doodles, educational toys and health books for children and learning resources for medical students and patients. Find out more at alumni.ube.ca/awards UBC ICO famous ubc visitors 960S Image courtesy Library of\ongress. Alexander Kerensky A key figure in the Russian Revolution, Kerensky led the Russian Provisional Government in 1917 before being overthrown by Lenin. He came to give a talk at UBC in 1966. "If the Russians realized Lenin wanted a totalitarian regime he wouldn't have lasted two days," the Ubyssey reported him as saying. "Lenin won Russia as a democrat and offered constitutionalism to the people. He later revealed his true plan and the communist regime began." Professor Emeritus Herbert Rosengarten was on campus at the time. "I remember passing him in the Buchanan quadrangle, as he was being escorted to or from his talk by some students," he says. "It seemed amazing me that he was still around, a figure from history and another age." Kerensky was 85 years old at the time of his visit. Haile Selassie Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, visited UBC in April 1967. "I heard that the Emperor was coming to campus at lunchtime, so I grabbed my camera and hurried over to the Faculty Club," recalls Professor Emeritus Herbert Rosengarten. "There was a large black limo outside the entrance, with a driver and a Mountie, but there was no crowd to welcome our visitor; indeed, I think I was the only person in the parking lot. I didn't have to wait long: a large group tumbled out of the building - security people, various big-wigs, mostly tall men in dark suits almost obscuring the small figure of the Emperor. I stood on the far side of the limo, and took four or five snapshots; no-one stopped me, or asked for my credentials, or told me to step away from the car; but of course the world was a rather different place almost half a century ago." Image courtesy Herbert Rosengarten Lee Kuan Yew became Sn first Prime Minister in 1959 and remained in the post for 30 years. In 1968, he visited North America for a two-month period of study and rest and visited UBC to give two lectures, meet faculty members, and use the Library for study. According to the Ubyssey, he wanted uss: "'I've heard it's beautiful and quiet here," portedly said a press conference. "I want to 'way from the ceaseless administration I'm faced in Singapore." Unfortunately for Lee, his visit ;ided with the student take-over of the Faculty led by American activist Jerry Rubin, and he was I building when it happened. Ubyssey reporter s Conchie explained what went on: "Against pposition of several very worried-looking faculty ibers, he agreed to speak to the Ubyssey. Lee, ..o has indicated a strong desire for privacy during his stay, seemed amused by the occupation of the club. With a large grin, he said: 'All this isn't bothering me at all. It takes something of a much more serious nature than this to get me excited. What is happening here? Everyone seems to be running around in a great fluster,' he said. And then, after promisingto speak to the Ubyssey again before he leaves the city, the quiet prime minister locked the door and returned to reassuring some very, very upset faculty members." r- <& c COWELL AUTO GROUP [Van Morrison On Februarys, 1974, more than 4,500 people crammed into the smoke-filled War Memorial Gym to hear Van Morrison belt out his hit song Brown Eyed Girl, Jamong other fan favourites. "There wasn't a parking space available within a square mile of the War Memorial Gym," reported the Ubyssey two days later. -"People double and triple parked. Inside you couldn't move and the smoke was thick. If you didn't want to hear this concert stoned, you couldn't breathe. People crushed onto the floor space clutching bottles in paper bags. It was not a place for claustrophobia victims... The gym floor bounced up and down. In the back row asses jiggled and toes tapped." UBC Archives COWELL AUTO GROUP IS A PROUD PARTNER OF alumni ubc Pierre Trudeau Pierre Elliott Trudeau visited in 1976 to speak at the official dedication ceremony forTRIUMF, a facility on the university's south campus that houses the world's largest example of a cyclotron, AKA a high energy particle accelerator. Trudeau candidly acknowledged that he knew nothing about cyclotrons but was excited about the research potential they offered. "I don't really know what a cyclotron is but I am certainly very happy Canada has one," he said. A TOP CHOICE FOR AUDI, JAGUAR, LAND ROVER AND VOLKSWAGEN For over 45 years, we have been a leader in the automotive industry by ensuring that we are continually focused on you. Our team has one goal — to provide you with the best experience possible. We look forward to you being part of our family and the ownership experience with Cowell Auto Group. We cannot wait to meet you. COWELL AUTO GROUP Visit us online at www.cowellautogroup.com Richmond Auto Mall | 604.279.9663 famous ubc visitors 1980S "' pmii In 1980, Tennessee Williams, one of the most critically acclaimed playwrights of the twentieth century, accepted the position of Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at UBC. Jo Ledingham, BA'82, MA'8y, attended a creative writing class to which Tennessee Williams had been invited. "It was a highlight in my student life sitting around a table with him," she says. "I was overwhelmed to be in the same room with him and was, as I recall, speechless in his white linen-suited, panama-hatted presence." Many writers have visited UBC over the years for readings and booksignings, including Margaret Atwood, who also taught at UBC in 1964, Michael Ondaatje, Northrop Frye, Alice Munro, Carol Shields, Robertson Davies, and Dylan Thomas, who described Vancouver as "a quite handsome hellhole." 990S I* \m u fl wiuuTmmmYtX and Boris Yel \ On April 3,1993, UBC gained worldwide attention when two world leaders, US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin, converged on campus for their two-day Vancouver Summit. The 1 first formal meeting between the two leaders was held at Norman MacKenzie House, the residence of then UBC president David Strangway. Today, two brown-leather wingback chairs used by the two leaders serve as a lively topic of conversation for visitors to the house. "The beauty of Vancouver has inspired our work here, and this weekend I believe we have laid the foundation for a new democratic partnership between the United States and Russia," said Bill Clinton at a news 1 conference following the summit. Honorary degrees were conferred upon Nobel Peace Prize recipients Archbishop Desmond Tutu, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama and human-rights activist Professor Shirin Ebadi on April 19, 2004. Jo-ann Archibald, associate dean for Indigenous Education at UBC, remembers Musqueam's community leaders and elders welcoming the Dalai Lama to Musqueam's ancestral and unceded lands at UBC. "The Dalai Lama was draped in a Salish robe while he stood on cedar boughs in the First Nations Longhouse," she recalls. "Eagle down feathers were sprinkled in the air to symbolize the highest respect Indigenous people have for a visitor. Imagine white fluffs of eagle down mingled with the scent of cedar; drumming and singing; and good feelings of mutual respect experienced by all who attended this ceremonial event." All three Nobel laureates attended a round table dialogue on the theme "Balancing Educating the Mind with Educating the Heart." +££^2J3**%M^ a?\ust**t,\ UBC Archives Muhammad Yunus In 2008, renowned economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, received an honorary degree and participated in a colloquium on social corporate responsibility. Yunus, founder of the microfinance model and the Grameen Bank, has been praised for conceptualizing and building the field of "micro-credit," which has created financial independence for thousands of people in the world's poorest countries. Princess Takamado On June 9,2004, Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan presented a collection of books on Japanese society and culture to UBC's Asian Library in honour of her late husband, Prince Takamado. During her visit, Professor Emeritus Herbert Rosengarten (pictured right) led heron a tour of the Nitobe Memorial Garden. "My stroll with the princess was very pleasant," he recalls. "We had both been students at Cambridge, and we exchanged reminiscences of struggling up Huntingdon Road ongearless bikes. Afterthe walk we went to a reception in the Liu Centre; there were lots of people waiting to greet her, but despite all the handshakes and polite trivialities she had to endure, the smile never left her face." Their Imperial Highnesses the Emperor and Empress of Japan visited UBC in July 2009. Emperor Akihito's first visit to UBC was in 1953, when he was crown prince. Michael J. Fox In recognition of his outstanding contributions both as an entertainer and an advocate for Parkinson's research, 0BC conferred an honorary degree on [hometown hero, Michael J. Fox in May 2008. "In every aspect I have been blessed Kith the opportunity to work toward aving an impact on the world and on the lives around me and to be a partner in the critical research for answer he said duri-~ l-: l UBC Archives —--. Chris Hadfield In October20i3, astronaut Chris Hadfield gave a talk- The Sky is Not the Limit- at the Kelowna Community Theatre as part of UBC Okanagan's Distinguished Speaker Series. Stephen McNeil, an associate professor of chemistry, was one of those lucky enough to have dinner with Hadfield before the event. "What struck me most about Colonel Hadfield was his modesty," says McNeil. "An astronaut in command of the ISS has achieved the pinnacle of a career that only the elite of the elite may ever begin and from which the smallest deficiency is grounds for dismissal, but to his mind he's just a farm kid from Ontario who one day decided to be an astronaut." Douglas Coupland In 2010, Douglas Coupland donated his archival records to UBC Library. Dating back to 1980, these records include manuscripts, photos, visua art, fan mail, correspondence, press clippings, audio/visual material and the first hand-written manuscript of Generation X. On May 27, 2010, he was awarded an honorary degree for his prolific and prodigious contributions as a writer and artist At a reading, Coupland once invited attendees to draw him. This is one of the results, and all are included in the collection A note accompanying the portraits says: — "Tonight I asked attendees to draw me. A brave request with humbling results." .jAU. Rick Mercer Photo by Varun Saran For his dedication to the "Spread the Net" campaign, which aims to prevent the spread of malaria in Africa with bed nets, for his contributions as an advocate for individuals living with HIV and AIDS, and for uniting Canadians in laughter, RiqjM Mercer was awarded an ™ « .7^^ honorary degree on May 26," -*M 2010. During his acceptance speech, he said: "... each and every one of you, and believe me when 1 say this, is a huge inspiration 1 because we know nobody graduating today has done so without a lot of hard work, sacrifice, talent and dedication... otherthan // me." In 2013, Mercer was the star attraction [y at Alumni Weekend, presenting his show l^v^/, at The Old Gym. V 1 Many special visitors to campus would have been invited to the Faculty Club, where they might have been offered tea in a china cup like this one that features the UBC Coat of Arms. Did the Queen drink from this cup? Maybe Dylan Thomas? For more information on prices and other items on sale, go to: ceremonies.ubc.ca/china-sale Guestbooksignatures courtesy UBC Ceremonies. UBC IN NUMBERS i 435 Students in 1915, ¥ including serving soldiers. ffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffff UBC's economic impact (2014-15] ffffffffffffffffffff ffffffffffffffffffff ffffffff 59,659 UBC students in 2015, (8,212 of them on the Okanagan campus and 11,Q65 of them international students). 1,337 Number of Aboriginal students studying at UBC in 2014-15. "When I arrived at UBC in 1974. there were more totem poles on campus than Aboriginal students." -Victor Jim, BEd'78,MEd'gg, Wet'suwet'en First Nation member and graduate of the Native Indian Teacher Education Program established at UBC in W74. (UBC News, October 21,2014) "... this university scheme contemplates erecting on a magnificent site, visible to every ship entering Vancouver, a small city capable of being made one of the most interesting and beautiful in the world." - From the BC provincial government's 1Q12 document inviting architects to submit their plans for UBC's Point Grey campus. $5,000 The amount offered to architects by the provincial government in 1Q12 to reward the winning design for a campus at Point Grey. The proportion of all post-secondary research conducted in British Columbia for which UBC is responsible. mil U-PASSBC $38 Cost of a monthly U-Pass (a universal transit pass for UBC students). Full-and part-time faculty members (1Q15-16). 5,145 UBC faculty (2014-15). 2,433,048 Number of YouTube views of UBC's 2011 LipDub Video "Raise Your Glass." .40 cents How much a bottle of beer set you back at the Pit in 1973. Number of volumes in UBC's library when millioi volumes (physical and digital), in UBC's Library 2014-15. HUH mm $4.75 Price of a domestic beer at today's Pit, now operating out of swanky new premises in the new students' building. We now have table service ' whereas in the old Pit it was walk-up service. And really, really, really good food. Now we are a proper pub bistro outlet." - Gary Carlson, Pit Pub manager (Georgia Straight, June 26,2015) Among current or former faculty and alumni: 2 Canadian prime ministers 7 Nobel Prize winners 69 Rhodes Scholars 195 Royal Society of Canada members 241 Olympians, representing a tally of 65 medals Build dreams <d^ ALUMNI INSURANCE PLANS We are all bound by familiar milestones in life - and the financial responsibilities that come with them. Whether you're raising a family or a roof over your head, make sure you've got the right insurance plan in place for your family. Find out how Alumni Insurance Plans can help. » Term Life Insurance Health & Dental Insurance Major Accident Protection • Income Protection Disability Insurance Critical Illness Insurance To learn more visit manulife.com/alumnimilestones or call toll-free 1-888-913-6333 alumni UBC HH Manulife Wi When you choose Alumni Insurance, Manulife provides financial and marketing support for alumni UBC communications, programs and services. Underwritten by The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. Manulife and the Block Design are trademarks of The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and are used by it, and by its affiliates under license. © 2015 The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company (Manulife). All rights reserved. Manulife, PO Box 4213, Stn A, Toronto, ON M5W 5M3. /#* _^-^ V?y, Get an online quote for Alumni Term Life Insurance to enter! No purchase necessary. Contest open to Canadian residents who are the age of majority in their province or territory of residence as of the contest start date. Approximate value of each prize is $1,000 Canadian. Chances of winning depend on the number of valid entries received by the contest deadline. Contest closes Thursday, December 3, 2015, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Only one entry per person accepted. Skill testing question required. uiq ICO WHEN BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE IT'S GOOD TO LEAVE ROOM TO GROW. At UBC we embrace our past and look forward to the future. Former student Cecil Green donated Cecil Green Park House (1912) to provide a unique venue for the wider community, including alumni Now the university and alumni UBC have come together to create a new home for our 300,000 alumni and visitors to connect with each other and the campus. The Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre is a gathering place, physically and virtually, for continued learning, for entrepreneurship and for mentoring the next generation of students and alumni. Step by step we are building on past and present innovations. The UBC Centennial celebrates thinking that moves us all towards a better future. SEE WHAT'S NEXT AT UBCIOO.CA mmsm TEDxVancouver =independently organized TED event WU1_
UBC Publications
Featured Collection
UBC Publications
Trek [2015-11]
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Item Metadata
Title | Trek |
Publisher | [Vancouver] : University of British Columbia Alumni Association |
Date Issued | [2015-11] |
Subject |
University of British Columbia. Alumni Association |
Geographic Location |
Vancouver (B.C.) |
Genre |
Periodicals |
Type |
Text |
FileFormat | application/pdf |
Language | English |
Notes | Titled "[The] Graduate Chronicle" from April 1931 - October 1948; "[The] UBC Alumni Chronicle" from December 1948 - December 1982 and September 1989 - September 2000; "[The] Alumni UBC Chronicle" from March 1983 - March 1989; and "Trek" from March 2001 onwards. |
Identifier | LH3.B7 A6 LH3_B7_A6_2015_038 |
Collection |
University Publications |
Source | Original Format: University of British Columbia. Archives |
Date Available | 2016-02-16 |
Provider | Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library |
Rights | Images provided for research and reference use only. Permission to publish, copy, or otherwise use these images must be obtained from the University of British Columbia Alumni Association. |
CatalogueRecord | http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=2432419 |
DOI | 10.14288/1.0224480 |
AggregatedSourceRepository | CONTENTdm |
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