Two innovative new programs will revolutionize Arts education at UBC.
Both the Arts Co-op and Foundations Program build on earlier success but also
represent radical change in the Faculty of Arts.
Arts Co-op provides the first opportunity for students studying in all 15
Arts departments — ranging from Economics to French, Music and Psychology —
to combine relevant, paid work experience with academic studies.
The Foundations Program recognizes that small group, interdisciplinary learning
can greatly benefit first-year students.
“When I first came down to UBC from a small high school in Kamloops 42 years
ago I found it to be a daunting, forbidding and intimidating space. I almost
quit to take bulldozing driving lessons in Nanaimo,” says Political Science
Prof. Paul Tennant, director of the Foundations Program. “I’m delighted to be
spending my final years at UBC making it a welcoming, supportive, but still
challenging place.”
Central to the Foundations Program, which will be offered in September 2000,
is a radically new curriculum and approach to teaching.
Half the student contact hours will be in tutorial groups with no more than
20 members. Each course will be designed and team-taught by three faculty members
from different departments, chosen for their scholarly reputation and teaching.
The program builds on the success of the 30-year-old Arts One Program which
integrates the three humanities disciplines of English, History and Philosophy.
Arts One will continue, says Tennant. The new program, however, provides a comprehensive,
interdisciplinary introduction to the social sciences as well as humanities.
The curriculum contains three broad thematic courses: Routes to the 21st Century,
Knowledge Bases and Approaches to Social Understanding.
Existing space will be renovated to create a Foundations learning commons
containing tutorial rooms, a study area, computer facilities and a lounge for
informal discussion among students and faculty, says Tennant.
The Arts Co-op program builds on the strong history of co-operative education
at UBC and the success of the English Dept.’s pilot project last year, says
Julie Walchli, program director. B.C. Hydro, Creo Products and Self-Counsel
Press are among the employers who have hired English students.
“Arts students have critical thinking and outstanding communications skills
demanded in the new, knowledge-based economy,” she says.
Walchli says Arts Co-op will share the features that distinguish UBC co-operative
education from other programs in B.C.
Faculty work directly with co-op students before, during and after their work
terms, bringing their expertise to the workplace and encouraging collaboration
between university and industry.
Students will complete four, four-month work terms during the last three years
of their degree. Seventy students entered Arts Co-op in April and the first
work terms begin in January. More students will be added each year.
Co-op programs have tripled in size at UBC in the past six years and 91 per
cent of UBC co-op students have job offers when they graduate.
The Arts Co-op and Foundations programs are the result of objectives set out
in UBC’s Trek 2000 vision document. Both received start-up funds from
the Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund.
For more information call the Arts Co-op and Foundations Office at 604-822-1529,
or visit the Web sites: www.arts.ubc.ca/co-op
and www.arts.ubc.ca/fdations.
