UBC Okanagan Expansion
Thompson Okanagan
It’s easy to see that Okanagan communities are serious about equipping their people with the skills they need to succeed in a modern economy. You can see it at the region’s many excellent places of learning, ranging from elementary schools all the way to the University of B.C. Okanagan.
UBC Okanagan got a major boost in fulfilling its role in the region when the Province funded almost $19.3 million to expand two academic buildings at the North Kelowna campus. The expansion added a third floor to the campus’ arts and sciences buildings.
In total, the expansion added 6,100 square metres of new space for classrooms, laboratories and teaching facilities for undergraduates and research laboratories and office space for faculty and staff.
Then there is the new Health Sciences Centre which will allow the expansion of B.C.’s innovative distributed medical education program to southern B.C. and the Okanagan and Thompson region communities.
When it opens in 2011, the new Health Sciences Centre will accommodate 32 first-year, full-time medical students, increasing the number of medical students in various stages of training to 128 by 2014.
The government is providing $33.7 million for the building of this centre. The 4,266-square-metre facility will provide high-tech classrooms and lecture theatres networked with the other three UBC medical program locations in Vancouver, Victoria and Prince George, undergraduate and research laboratories, and faculty offices, as well as linkages to campus infrastructure.
While the expansion involved bricks and mortar, the reasons behind it have everything to do with people - the Okanagan residents whose futures are launched through participating in post-secondary education.
