University of British Columbia Okanagan
The Okanagan Campus of the University of British Columbia (abbreviated UBC Okanagan and UBCO) is a campus of the University of British Columbia in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. The 209-hectare (516-acre) campus serves as a research and innovation centre in British Columbia’s southern interior, in the Okanagan Valley, and is home to approximately 10,708 undergraduate and graduate students. UBCO offers 62 undergraduate and 19 graduate programs.
The present Okanagan University College (OUC) location was initially utilized by Okanagan University College (OUC), which was created in 1989 (in principle) as part of the government’s goal to increase access to post-secondary education in British Columbia’s Southern Interior. Degrees were first granted in collaboration with other universities, but by 1995, the university college had begun offering degrees in its own name. OUC began pushing for full university status in the late 1990s.
The British Columbia Progress Board issued a report to the provincial government in December 2002, noting the need to increase postsecondary education in the Okanagan. The board, led by Martha Piper, president of the University of British Columbia, proposed that the legislature expand “the jurisdiction of an existing provincial University to Kelowna…”
In March 2004, BC Premier Gordon Campbell and UBC President Martha Piper held a press conference to announce the dissolution of OUC. The University of British Columbia would take responsibility of OUC’s university functions, which would be integrated at its North Kelowna Campus. The other OUC programs and campuses would merge to establish a new community college, which would subsequently be known as Okanagan College. The OUC Board was allegedly not invited to the news conference and was not informed in advance of the OUC Board’s impending demise and the dismissal or termination of the majority of OUC board members. According to the Ministry of Finance
UBC’s Okanagan campus offers a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate (Ph.D. and Masters) programs. There are over 63 undergraduate programs in the Arts, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Human Kinetics, Management, Media, Medicine, Nursing, and Sciences, Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Chemistry, Computer Sciences, Education, Engineering, English, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Fine Arts, Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies, Management, Mathematics, Medical Physics, Nursing, Psychology, and Social Work are among the graduate programs available at the university.
Campus media: UBCO.TV was a web-based TV station that broadcast films on research, teaching, current events, and campus life at the Okanagan campus until 2016. UBCO.TV was also shown on campus TVs in common areas.
UBC Studios Okanagan and UBC Communications Services have taken over the operations of UBCO.TV and co-manage a YouTube channel.