New modular building planned for UBC Okanagan
Engineering department has seen its numbers explode from 67 students in 2005 to 1,700 undergrad and grad students today
With success comes growth, and UBC’s Okanagan campus is adapting to increasing numbers, especially in its engineering faculty.
The engineering department will build a state-of-theart modular building to ease the pressure while they design a more permanent structure.
“We’ve reached the point on our campus where our programs are much more mature and our domestic student base has reached the province’s target, and we’re having good success introducing our international students and we don’t have quite enough space in the buildings that we are utilizing,” said Rob Einarson, associate vice-president of finance and operations.
Modular structures allow for design flexibility, can be constructed off site, and are an increasingly common solution on fast-growing campuses.
The modular structure can be in place within eight to nine months.
UBCO’s school of engineering has experienced “explosive growth” since UBC opened the Okanagan faculty
in 2005, with a class of 67.
“We are a very unique faculty,” said Rehan Sadiq, associate dean for the engineering school. “In 2005, when this campus became UBC, the school of engineering was one
of the new programs. At that stage we only had 67 students. In the last 14 years our growth has been exponential because of the huge engineering demand in the province.”
The faculty now has 1,700
undergrad and grad students.
“Nobody could have expected at that time how this was going to turn out,” said Sadiq.
In addition to a recently approved manufacturing engineering program, UBCO offers civil engineering, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. They are also looking into developing an aerospace engineering program.
The program has 84 per cent domestic students, with about 16 per cent foreign students.
The student body on campus had tripled since 2005, growing from 3,500 to around 10,000 today, said Sadiq.
“B.C. overall is quite far back compared to other provinces in terms of numbers of engineers per capita, so our school is playing an important part in contributing engineers to the B.C. economy.”
About 16 per cent of all UBCO students come from outside Canada, 27 per cent from the Okanagan, 37 per cent from the Lower Mainland and Northern Interior, and 20 per cent from other provinces and territories.