The Lower Mainland is the region surrounding and including Vancouver, British Columbia. Just over 2.5 million people (59% of British Columbia’s total population), live in the region. It is squeezed between the southern slopes of the coastal mountain range to the north, and the U.S. border to the south, and extends eastward along the Fraser River as far as Hope. I have also included Whistler, which is 120 kilometres north of Vancouver. I live in the city of Vancouver, not far from where the picture below was taken.
Universities
The lower mainland is home to the following public universities:
University of British Columbia Vancouver
UBC is the oldest and by far the largest university in the province (founded in 1908 and with over 60,000 students). It is a Tier 1 research university, consistently ranked within the top 30 universities worldwide and is located on Point Grey, Metro Vancouver. The land was endowed to the university by the province in 1911, although the Musqueam Indian Band still lays claim to the land. UBC also has a separate campus, UBC Okanagan, in Kelowna.
UBC has a long history of distance education, offering programs initially to practicing teachers all round the province by correspondence education since 1935. I went to UBC in 1995 as Director of Distance Education and Technology to help move its DE programs online. At the same time, Murray Goldberg was in the Department of Computer Sciences developing WebCT, which later became the basis for the Blackboard learning management system.
UBC started to offer its first online courses in 1995. At that time, most distance education courses were for fourth year undergraduate students wanting to complete their program in four years but not being able to get into capped face-to-face classes, or just wanting the flexibility of distance study (some students have to commute for more than 90 minutes each way). However, a couple of years later, UBC entered a multi-dimensional partnership with Tec de Monterrey in Mexico, which included student and faculty exchanges, and also eventually led to UBC’s Faculty of Education developing a fully online Master of Educational Technology in 2003. Tec de Monterrey offered a Spanish version of the program in Mexico. Although the partnership with Tec de Monterrey is now ended, the UBC MET program continues and has been very successful, being self-funding from tuition fees, and was the model for several other fully online master programs at UBC.
UBC now has a large Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology which includes online and distance education. It is also currently implementing a Flexible Learning strategy.
The university, founded in 1965, has several campuses in the Metro Vancouver area, but its main campus is on the top of a small mountain in Burnaby. (Sometimes, the university is literally in the clouds). It is the second largest university in British Columbia, with about 35,000 students.
The Centre for Online and Distance Education (CODE) at Simon Fraser University was established in 1975, and has one of the largest distance education online programs in Canada. Linda Harasim, a pioneer in online learning, is a faculty member at SFU, and has been teaching blended learning courses at SFU since 1990.
Emily Carr University of Art+Design and the Great Northern Way Campus
Named after the Canadian artist Emily Carr, ECUAD was established as a university in 2008. Its former campus was located on Granville Island in Vancouver, but it opened its new purpose-built building on the Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver in 2017. It has about 2,000 full time and just under 500 part-time students
ECUAD shares part of the Great Northern Way Campus with UBC, Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology. The GNWC’s purpose is to create “a centre of convergence for arts and culture, digital media and the environment.”
The Centre for Digital Media manages a Master’s degree in Digital Media, which admitted its first students in the Fall of 2007. The program is designed with input from partners with Vancouver’s digital media sector. (Metro Vancouver has a strong media and entertainment production industry, including film and television production, video game design, and hi-tech software companies.)
Capilano University is a public university based in North Vancouver, with programming also serving the Sunshine Coast and the Sea-to-Sky corridor (up to Squamish and Whistler). It became a university in 2008 and has approximately 8,500 students. Capilano University offers a few online courses in certificate or diploma programs.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
KPU is a public degree-granting undergraduate polytechnic university with campuses in Surrey, Richmond, Cloverdale and Langley. KPU has approximately 20,000 students but is the fastest growing university in the province in terms of enrolments. Previously a public community college, then a university college, it finally became a full undergraduate university in 2008.
KPU is the leading institutional adopter of open textbooks and other open educational resources in British Columbia. KPU is a founding member of the Open Educational Resources universitas (OERu), an international network of institutions that offers free online courses for students worldwide. Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani, a Kwantlen faculty member, is a leading researcher and advocate for OER.
The University of the Fraser Valley
The University of the Fraser Valley (UFV), formerly known as University College of the Fraser Valley and Fraser Valley College, is a public university with campuses in Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission and Hope. It became a full university in 2008. It has approximately 14,000 students.
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There are also two small, private universities recognised by the provincial government:
- Trinity Western University, a faith-based university, with approximately 4,000 students based in Langley; and
- Quest University, an independent, not-for-profit, secular university, with 700 students, based in Squamish.
Colleges and polytechnics
The following public colleges and polytechnic are located in the Lower Mainland:
British Columbia Institute of Technology
BCIT, established in 1964, is one of the largest post-secondary institutions in the province with over 18,000 full-time and 29,000 part-time students, offering bachelor degrees, diplomas and certificates. It has five campuses located in the Metro Vancouver region, but its main campus is located in Burnaby
It also has:
- a 300,000 square-foot state-of-the-art Aerospace Technology Campus, featuring a fleet of 20 aircraft including a Boeing 737, and airport control tower simulation technology, near Vancouver International Airport;
- an interactive fire simulation theatre;
- a fully operational pulp mill;
- a Marine Engine Room Simulator, which provides true-to-life training for marine engineers at it Marine Campus in North Vancouver.
BCIT offers a range of online courses and distance education programs, including full degree programs, but mainly in combination with some on-campus teaching.
Founded in 1970, the college serves some 16,000 credit students, 8,500 continuing education students and 3,000 international students each year. Douglas offers bachelor’s degrees and general university arts and science courses, as well as career programs. It has two campuses, one in New Westminster and one in Coquitlam. The college offers a range of blended and fully online courses.
Justice Institute of British Columbia
JIBC is a public, post-secondary educational institution in New Westminster that is focused on training professionals in the justice, public safety and social services fields. JIBC also has campuses in Victoria, Okanagan, Chilliwack, Pitt Meadows, and Maple Ridge and about 30,000 students.
Because most of its students are working professionals, the use of online and mobile learning is widespread. It has developed a real-time, synchronous emergency response simulation training environment that is now being used in several other institutions in the Lower Mainland.
It also has a special indigenization program with the aim of integrating more indigenous knowledge in the training of public-safety workers.
Langara College started in 1965 as part of Vancouver Community College and in 1994, Langara College was established as an independent public college based in south-central Vancouver. It offers university studies, career studies, and continuing studies programs and courses to more than 21,000 students annually. It offers about 40 online courses.
Founded in 1965, it is the largest and oldest community college in British Columbia, with over 140 certificate and diploma programs. VCC has three campuses, Broadway, Downtown and Annacis Island and 26,000 students.
VCC offers a range of online and blended courses. It offers a Certificate and a Diploma in Online/eLearning Instruction aimed at college instructors. It also offers an e-pprentice stream for automative service technicians that allows students to take the first portion of courses online, only coming to campus for the final portion of the term, using local qualified apprentices as mentors for the online component.
Last updated: 17 August 2018
Dr. Tony Bates is the author of eleven books in the field of online learning and distance education. He has provided consulting services specializing in training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education, working with over 40 organizations in 25 countries. Tony is a Research Associate with Contact North | Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network.