UBC’s Vancouver campus, even more than the research and education it facilitates, is the heart of the university’s identity. Perched on the Point Grey bluffs and enveloped by the woods of Pacific Spirit, its aesthetic — removed, natural yet modern, green and golden in a thousand social media posts — is the kind of advertisement even the wealthiest American Ivies can’t buy. The space sets ideals for the institution; the endowment lands that surround it provide the resources to make those ideals reality. In a stronger sense than most Canadian university grounds, the Point Grey campus is UBC.
This September, UBC Library, in collaboration with the AMS, the provost’s office, the Museum of Anthropology and the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre, recognized this with Celebrating 100 Years of UBC at Point Grey, a pop-up exhibition commemorating the campus and its development over the past century.
Open in the Alumni Centre from Sept. 8 to Dec. 5, it features display cases holding items from every decade of UBC’s Point Grey history, alongside plaques recounting significant events and walls decorated with quotes from prestigious alumni.
The library cut the ribbon on this new exhibition with a centennial celebration event in the Alumni Centre on Sept. 12. Boasting an impressive turnout of UBC officials, donors and provincial glitterati — UBC President Benoit-Antoine Bacon, representatives from the Lee family, former Ubyssey editor and CBC journalist Justin McElroy and Premier David Eby, to name a few — the invite-only event saw a tour of the exhibition from historian of UBC Herbert Rosengarten and AMS Archivist Sheldon Goldfarb.
Although interesting to look at by themselves, the objects on display only truly came to life in Goldfarb and Rosengarten’s stories which personalized the exhibits and located them in relation to some of the older alumni in attendance.
One display commemorates the Great Trek and the student petition that pushed the BC government to finish the long-delayed construction of the campus’s first buildings. An interactive exhibit invites visitors to try on a replica of a vintage AMS blazer from 1935. Across the room, the genuine blazer hangs inside a display case — a moment of slight unintentional comedy awaits should the viewer compare the quality of the blazers too closely.
Another display collected memorabilia from UBC’s various athletics teams — a sweater and field hockey stick from alumnus-turned-Olympian Harry Warren and a baseball glove from UBC grad and Major League player Jeff Francis.
Standing near the case of sports paraphernalia during the tour, Goldfarb pointed out that UBC’s sports teams didn’t always have a name — and “Go University of British Columbia Varsity Football!” didn’t quite roll off the tongue in the way a cheer should, he joked.
In 1933, The Ubyssey decided that needed to change. We put out a call for names and students got to vote on the options; the most popular was the “Seagulls.” This ended up being rejected and it went to another vote, resulting in the name “Thunderbirds,” which has been used ever since. Thunderbirds are mythological creatures that, for several Indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest, represent strength. While UBC was eventually gifted the name from Kakaso’las-Ellen Neel and Chief William Scow of the Kwakwaka’wakw peoples in 1948, for many years, they simply used it without permission.
Rosengarten brought up another unsavoury but significant point in UBC’s past: the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) protests. World leaders were meeting at the APEC conference, hosted on campus, to discuss trade partnerships. Students were concerned about the impact of this on human rights and the growth of neoliberalism, so they gathered in protest, blocking leaders from leaving campus. The RCMP responded by arresting and pepper spraying protestors.
The tension between honouring UBC’s past and present and remembering institutional wrongdoings was a theme throughout the tour, although the speakers who addressed the reception afterward skewed more toward the former. Following a traditional welcome from Early Primary Language Education Liaison Grace Point, UBC Librarian Susan E. Parker, President Bacon, AMS President Riley Huntley and Premier Eby said a few words on UBC’s vital place in the academic and social culture of the province.
Though Goldfarb and Rosengarten will unfortunately not be picking up shifts at the Alumni Centre to reproduce their tour for curious visitors, a timeline of significant events on campus from the early 20th century to the present day makes up some, though not all, of the difference. Without the benefit of knowledgeable guides, the exhibition is an interesting, if somewhat underwhelming collection of vintage memorabilia and historical artifacts — a meaningful tribute to an institution that touches all our lives and a fine way to spend a few minutes between class, but no must-see.
