University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia, commonly referred to as UBC, is a public research university with campuses and facilities in British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1908 as the McGill University College of British Columbia, the University became independent and adopted its current name in 1915. It is the oldest institution of higher learning in British Columbia and enrolls over 58,000 students at its Vancouver and Okanagan Valley campuses.UBC's 4.02 km2 (993-acre) Vancouver campus is located within the University Endowment Lands, about 10 km (6 mi) west of Downtown Vancouver.The 2.09 km2 (516-acre) Okanagan campus, acquired in 2005, is located in Kelowna.

The University offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, and in 2014 granted 12,421 degrees.Most students are enrolled in five larger Faculties, namely Arts, Science, Medicine, Applied Science and the Sauder School of Business As of the 2014-2015 school year, UBC and its donors provided $35 million in scholarships annually.Estimated at $21,790 per student, the University maintains one of the largest endowments amongCanadian universities on a per-student basis. With a research budget valued at $564 million, UBC funds 8,442 projects as of 2014.

According to Maclean's UBC has the second highest average entering grade among Canadian universities, with an average undergraduate entrance grade of 89.6%, only behind McGill University with 90.3%.UBC faculty, alumni, and researchers have won seven Nobel Prizes, 69 Rhodes Scholarships, 65 Olympic medals, 195 fellowships to the Royal Society of Canada, and alumni include three Canadian prime ministers. The University is ranked 33rd in the world in U.S. News & World Report's 2016 rankings,34th in the world in the 2015-2016 Times Higher Education World University Rankings,50th in the world in the 2015-2016 QS World University Rankings and eighth among universities outside the United States by Newsweek.

UBC is a non-sectarian and coeducational institution, with more than 300,000 living alumni in 120 countries.The University is a member of Universitas 21, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning, the International Association of Universities, the U15 and the only Canadian member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities. The University's varsity teams, known as the Thunderbirds in Vancouver and the Heat in the Okanagan, compete in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport.

The Vancouver campus is located at Point Grey, a twenty-minute drive from downtown Vancouver. It is near several beaches and has views of the North Shore mountains. The 7.63 km² Pacific Spirit Regional Park serves as a green-belt between the campus and the city. Buildings on the Vancouver campus currently occupy 1,091,997 m² gross, located on 1.7 km² of maintained land. The campus street plan is mostly in a grid of malls (for driving and pedestrian-only). Lower Mall and West Mall are in the southwestern part of the peninsula, with Main, East, and Wesbrook Malls northeast of them.

The University Endowment Lands are not within Vancouver's city limits, and therefore UBC is policed by the RCMP rather than the Vancouver Police Department. However, the Vancouver Fire Department provides service to UBC under a contract. In addition to UBC RCMP, UBC have Campus Security, that patrol the campus. Postage sent to any building on campus includes Vancouver in the address. UBC Vancouver also has two satellite campuses within the City of Vancouver: a campus at Vancouver General Hospital for the medical sciences, and UBC Robson Square in downtown Vancouver for part-time credit and non-credit programmes. UBC is also a partner in the consortium backing Great Northern Way Campus Ltd, and is affiliated with a group of adjacent theological colleges, which include the Vancouver School of Theology, Regent College, Carey Theological College and Corpus Christi College.

The campus is home to numerous gardens. The UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, the first UBC department, holds a collection of over 8000 different kinds of plants used for research, conservation and education. The original site of the UBC botanical garden was at the "Old Arboretum". Today all that remains of it are trees planted in 1916 by John Davidson. The old arboretum is now home to many buildings including the First Nations House of Learning. The Nitobe Memorial Garden, built to honour Japanese scholar Inazo Nitobe, the garden has been the subject of more than fifteen years' study by a UBC professor,[who?] who believes that its construction hides a number of impressive features, including references to Japanese philosophy and mythology, shadow bridges visible only at certain times of year, and positioning of a lantern that is filled with light at the exact date and time of Nitobe's death each year. The garden is behind the university's Asian Centre, which is built using steel girders from Japan's exhibit at Osaka Expo.

The UBC Vancouver School of Theology, recently acquired by the Vancouver School of Economics, built in 1927

The campus also features the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts: a performing arts centre containing the Chan Shun Concert Hall, Telus Studio Theatre and the Royal Bank Cinema. It is often the location of convocation ceremonies as well as the filming location for the 4400 Center on the television show The 4400, as well as the Madacorp entrance set on Kyle XY.It has also been featured as the Cloud 9 Ballroom in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica (Season 1, Episode 11: Colonial Day).