Five years of growth for Okanagan campus

Since opening its doors in the summer of 2005, UBC’s Okanagan campus has grown from 3,500 students to
well over 6,000, including more than 500 graduate students.

by Bud Mortenson

Dentistry adds specialties

Nancy Vertel remembers the exact moment she decided to specialize as a pediatric dentist. It was last year when her son, then nine months old, began wheezing and had difficulty breathing.

by Lorraine Chan with files from Terry Wintonyk

New office welcomes recruits to UBC

At a time when relationships are built online and email correspondence is fast and informal, there’s one office on campus that insists on welcoming newcomers face-to-face.

by Heather Amos

Kids to put in a full day

As full-day school is implemented in kindergarten classes across B.C. this fall, there won’t be anything new in the already jam-packed curriculum, but there will be more time to learn through play and to build on children’s curiosity about the world around them.

by Heather Amos

Helping teachers prepare for full-day kindergarten

This year, the Faculty of Education at UBC’s Okanagan campus introduces two new post-degree professional programs to help B.C. teachers acquire new skills for the classroom and keep up with changes in education in British Columbia.

by Bud Mortenson

Understanding food security

It’s one thing for a UBC student to sit in a lecture hall and take notes on food security. It’s quite another to accompany a 22-year-old Rwandan mother who is HIV positive, and her hungry baby, to the hospital.

by Lorraine Chan

Climate change: seeing is believing

When it comes to climate change, UBC Prof. Stephen Sheppard knows that pictures speak much louder than words.

by Basil Waugh with files from Madelen Ortega

A split degree

When she started her undergraduate degree four years ago at Nanjing Forestry University, she never thought she’d get the chance to work in a biology lab.

by Heather Amos

Admissions begin for Southern Medical Program

The doors to UBC’s new Southern Medical Program (SMP) are opening. The 2011 MD Undergraduate Program admissions cycle opened June 1, and will admit the first class of SMP students in May 2011.

by Bud Mortenson

New science specialization

A specialization in breadth may be an oxymoron but UBC Science students will soon be able to do just that through the new Combined Major in Science (CMS).

by Ashley Turk

Communicating science

A new 300-level course, Communicating Science (SCIE 300), is being developed specifically for the Combined Major in Science (CMS) and focuses on giving students the skills to critically evaluate and communicate scientific issues.

by Ashley Turk

Yet another use for the iPhone – treating patients

Among the 200,000 iPhone apps that include Hello Cow (emits a variety of mooing sounds), Hang Time (calculates the precise amount of time the device spends falling to the ground), or Haircaster (predicts what kind of hair day it will be), the UBC Faculty of Medicine has added one more – with a somewhat less catchy name, but a decidedly more useful purpose.

B.C. Brain Gain

About 42 per cent of UBC’s new faculty members come from across Canada, 46 per cent are from the United States and 12 per cent are from other parts of the world.