Is UBC short-changing Okanagan?

Peter Wylie an associate professor at UBC Okanagan, in the issue 195 (Autumn 2017) of BC Studies, has delivered a highly critical review of what UBCO has become versus what it originally set out to be. It’s a fascinating story. Back in 2003, the provincial government was concerned about enrollment in postsecondary educational institutions in the B.C. Interior where it was below the provincial and national averages. Okanagan College, then the sole post-secondary institution in the Valley, had not met its enrollment targets and — worse yet in the eyes of some government officials — it had signed a contract with its faculty that exceeded the guidelines laid down by the government.

At the same time, the local community in Kelowna was pushing to get a full university established in the region, believing it would help to retain young people as well as provide needed employment and local economic growth. After a great deal of behind-the-scenes bargaining, the Liberal provincial government in March 2004 decided to establish a full university in Kelowna.

Rather than elevating Okanagan College to that status, the Ministry of Advanced Education decreed that the new OC campus north of the city would be the base for the university named UBC Okanagan.

Professor Wylie recounts that part of the motivation was an expectation that UBC’s endowment would help in financing the building of dormitories as well as the provincial government’s belief that UBC would be more successful in reaching the ambitious enrollment targets for the university system. Many faculty, staff and students at the OC north campus viewed the move as a hostile takeover and protested — but to no avail.

The original vision for the new institution may have been largely that of Martha Piper, the then president of UBC. It anticipated a close linkage between OC and UBCO, including facilitating transfer from OC into third and fourth year degree programs at UBCO, collaboration on continuing education, and a sophisticated delivery of services by satellite and other means to distant sites.

In October 2004, UBC announced the creation of a $15 million fund to create the eponymous Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences that would “create an exceptional learning environment that private universities such as Princeton have been able to create.” As the interim deputy vice-chancellor stated to the opening class, “UBC Okanagan will offer a liberal arts undergraduate experience unlike that of any other institution in Canada.”

Originally, a business school was not included in the UBCO plan because of competitive concerns with OC’s twoyear diploma program and four-year bachelor program in business administration.

But it was soon announced that a parttime MBA program, similar to that offered at the Vancouver campus’s Sauder School of Business, would be offered at UBCO as well as an undergraduate business program.

In February 2005 it was announced that UBC Okanagan would offer full engineering programs.

So, as Professor Wylie carefully documents, the original concept of the structure and function of UBCO was substantially altered in short order. The (perhaps unrealistic) vision of an undergraduate experience similar to the US Ivy League required funding per student far in excess of the government’s willingness to provide.

Small class size expanded as the new campus funded a graduate program and the hiring of faculty for the schools of business and engineering. Indeed, the liberal arts aspect of UBCO was continually cut back almost from the beginning. Finally, a rapid increase in foreign students — who pay six times the tuition Canadians pay — turned the campus into a cash-cow for the UBC as a whole.

The most interesting among Professor Wylie’s many statistics are from 2015/16. In that year, both more students from the rest of Canada and more foreign students were enrolled than were local residents.

So, the question really is whether UBC Okanagan has successfully addressed the problem it was created to solve. Has the Okanagan been shortchanged?

David Bond is an author and retired bank economist. To contact the writer: email: curmudgeon@harumpf.com.