Geography at the University of British Columbia

Geography at the University of British Columbia J. LEWIS ROBINSON Professor Emeritus Department of Geography, University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1W5 T H E ACADEMIC ORIGINS OF THE Department of Geography begin with the establishment of the University of British Columbia in 1915 at the Fairview site near the present Vancouver General Hospital. At that time, a Department of Geology and Mineralogy was created and in it a half-year course in physical geography was given by S. J. Schofield. A physical geography course (under various names and numbers) has been given continuously fromthattime atUBC. Itis the oldest continuing geography course in any Canadian university. In 1919, a course in meteorology and climatology was introduced, and this also was the first such course in a Canadian university. Origins with Geology In 1922-23 the name of the department was changed to Geology and Geography. UBC was the first Canadian university to have geography as an academic division. The department had a strange administrative position. It was placed in the Faculty of Arts and 199 200 APCG YEARBOOK • VOLUME 53 • 1991 Science for budgetpurposes butwas headed by R.W. Brock who was also Dean ofApplied Science. The department’sfirst academic links wereclose toEngineering. In 1921,the facultyconsistedofthreefull­ time members (Brock, Schofield, and M.Y. Williams) all of whom were geologists, plus E. Burwash who was a replacement lecturer for several years when the geology faculty took turns doing field work in Hong Kong. When theUniversity ofBritish Columbiamovedinthefallof 1925 to its present site at Point Grey on the western edge of Vancouver, the Department of Geology and Geography was placed in a temporary stucco building called the Applied Science Building, because Brock was still dean of that faculty as well as being head of the Department of Geology and Geography. That building is the present Geography Building which was completely rebuilt inside during the late 1970s. Itis still standing andquite satisfactorilyfunctional aftermorethan 65 years as a temporary building! Inthe summerof 1928thefirsttrained geographer(asdistinctfrom the geologists who taught geography courses), John B. Appleton, came from the University ofIllinois to teach Principles ofGeography in the Summer Session. Apolicyofsummervisitinggeographers was introduced in the late 1930s; among the visitors were two distin­ guished American geographers, Stephen Visher (Indiana) and Eric Faigle (Syracuse), coming to UBC from 1937 to 1940. This policy suggestedthat someoftheUBCgeologistsofthattimeknewpersonnel and developments in geography in the United States. These origins of geography at UBC have been little known in Canada where it has been claimed that the first department of geography was established by Griffith Taylor at the University of Toronto in 1935. AfterDean Brock’stragic death in an airplane crash in 1935,UBC geography courses were given by Gordon Davis and Harry Warren, both of whom had received undergraduate degrees in geology from UBC. M.Y. Williams became the second head of the geology and geography departmentin 1936. Thepossibility of a geography major was first listed in the university calendar in 1938-39, and in 1941 the first four geography majors graduated. Two of these, Tom Weir and ROBINSON: Geography at the University of British Columbia 201 Don Kerr, wenton todo graduateworkingeography and later became geography professors at Toronto (Kerr) and Manitoba (Weir). Davis died of a heart attack in the field in 1943 and then the geography courses were given by Warren and another geologist, Vladimir Okulitch. A geographymajorat thattimeconsistedofthree, full-year, upper-level courses (all students in arts or science were required to have two majors). During the wartime years four or five geography courses were offered each year. The Arrival of Geography Faculty In 1945, Tom Weir, then a teacher in a Vancouver high school, became the first person with a geography degree (M.A. from Syra­ cuse) to be appointed to lecture in geography courses at UBC. In the fallof 1946,J.LewisRobinsonwas appointed by N.A.M. Mackenzie, president of the university, to come from Ottawa to organize and expand the geography program at UBC. Robinson was the first Canadian geographer to be employed by the federal government, in the Northwest Territories Division, and was the first person with a Ph.D. in geography to be appointed at UBC. He was joined in...