Recognizing faculty and staff champions of the Arts Co-op Program on its 20th anniversary
October 27, 2020
2020 marks 20 years since the UBC Arts Co-op Program was started by Julie Walchli, Executive Director, Work Integrated Education and Career Initiatives. She reflects on the many people involved behind the scenes to pioneer the program, and the pilot co-op program in English that preceded it.
It all started with Tony Dawson and Kieran Kealy from the English department, who believed in the value of Arts students learning outside the classroom. Together, they secured a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) grant to pilot a co-op option to 40 English majors. At the same time, Martha Piper, the president and vice-chancellor at the time, called for increasing experiential learning options for students across the campus, particularly in Arts, in the Trek 2020 UBC strategic plan. It was within this context that Neil Guppy, Arts Associate Dean, Students, had the vision to start a faculty-wide co-op program, and was its earliest champion, along with the then Dean, Shirley Newman. Again TLEF funding was used to provide three years of grants to seed the program’s start in 2000.
With the support from a number of faculty members, the program has now grown to include students across all undergraduate disciplines in Arts, the Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs, graduate programs in UBC iSchool, PhD programs in English, History, Germanic Studies, Philosophy, and Gender, Race, and Social Justice.
Learn more about the impact the program has had on some student participants over the last twenty years.
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