University celebrates 100 years of classes and 10 years in Okanagan
The University of British Columbia has a very active Centennial year ahead.
Beginning this summer and continuing through next spring, dozens of activities and projects will celebrate the beginning of UBC’s first classes a century ago in September 1915. The Centennial is also an opportunity to celebrate the 10th anniversary of UBC’s Okanagan campus, which opened in September 2005.
“We’re actually celebrating two centuries – a century of achievement and contribution since 1915, and the exciting century ahead – which we know will be a time of exponential change,” says UBC President Arvind Gupta. “UBC has evolved over these past 100 years as a result of many connections and partnerships that have made us who we are. And it is through continuing partnership with our community that we look forward to another century of extraordinary accomplishment.”
UBC’s Centennial officially launches in Vancouver on September 30 – the date classes began in 1915. Okanagan residents will be among the first to enjoy the celebration when Opera Kelowna and UBC Okanagan’s Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies join together in hosting Opera Under the Stars, August 2, at the Okanagan campus. (More information: www.operakelowna.com)
That mid-summer outdoor performance kicks off a year of celebration for the Okanagan community and university students, faculty and staff, concluding with the convocation of UBC’s 11th Okanagan graduating class in June 2016.
Among the community celebration activities, UBC Okanagan is planning an expanded calendar of public discussion panels and Centennial lectures throughout the year, an on-campus Aboriginal art installation commemorating the Centennial, and a special public performance featuring UBC’s Opera Ensemble in a return engagement reminiscent of UBC Okanagan’s opening gala in 2005.
All Centennial activity will be posted on the UBC Centennial website – ubc100.ca
The Centennial website invites UBC alumni, students, faculty and the public to place pins on an online map. Over the coming months, the map will form a community-created illustration of UBC’s many connections with communities around the world.
“As we mark UBC’s first century and the first decade of UBC’s Okanagan campus, we also enter a new century of transformation,” says Deborah Buszard, UBC Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Okanagan campus. “UBC is a place of learning and engagement across BC and around the world, an international place, and a place where innovation and research address the challenges facing the societies we serve. We welcome all British Columbians to join us in celebrating our partnerships today and for the next century.”
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