On Wednesday night, the Senate met to discuss UBC enrolment, the first-ever student diversity census report and hear updates on the strategic plan refresh.
Here’s what you might’ve missed.
Enrolment round-up
UBC President Benoit-Antoine Bacon highlighted the impact of student caps in UBC’s enrolment.
In his opening remarks, Bacon said UBC had received enough provincial attestation letters for international students to meet UBC's enrolment goals.
“We’re working very hard to make sure that people understand that the caps are not an issue that will work with them if they have a dream of coming to UBC for their education,” he said.
With this, Bacon announced the launch of a UBC South Asia Hub to help continue to “attract and retain the very best students.”
The 2024/25 enrolment report showed UBC enrolled a total of 72,692 across both campuses — a slight decrease from last year's 72,776 total.
Overall international student enrolment decreased by five per cent, but there was a one per cent increase in domestic student enrolment.
Senator Paul Harrison also raised concern over the surplus of 4,200 undergrads enrolled.
“[The surplus] is more than a little so I’m concerned that it doesn’t get bigger” he said.
Harrison also voiced concerns that the rate of male attendance at the university had dropped.
“I’m just wondering if anybody’s looking at where the males are going” asked Harrison.
“The most recent research on this shows that the issue is really not at university but at high school … young men in high school are opting for other paths while young women in high school are showing better testing rates and so that does predispose the selection process” said Provost Gage Averill.
Senator Sean Graham asked what it meant that UBC was at a 121 per cent of the government funded target for full-time equivalent students (FTEs).
The BC Ministry of Postsecondary Education and Future Skills sets targets for and funds, student FTEs rather than the overall headcount of students.
Registrar Rella Ng said "sometimes we will over enroll unintentionally. So the over utilization is the over enrollment."
Bacon said currently UBC has more students that it has funded seats.
Next, the Admission Committee moved a motion to approve the enrollment targets for 2025/26.
Senator Kevin Doering, however, expressed concerns on the over utilization rate of domestic students and also highlighted Harrison's point of the surplus of students currently at UBC.
"I'm not persuaded that these targets are reasonable. I don't think that they should be kept at the level as they are."
Doering moved a motion to amend the agenda to add a motion to bring UBC's utilization rate for domestic undergraduate students down below 105 per cent within the next four years
This motion failed, but Bacon encouraged the Admissions Committee to consider this going forward.
Census break down
The student diversity census report was also presented at Senate, which was piloted in September 2023. Sections included in the census covered, gender, sexual orientation, religion and enthoracial identity among others.
Graham asked about protection of data and if data collected could ever be used by bad characters to harm marginalized communities.
Chief Institutional Research Officer Stephanie McKeown said UBC has been working closely with human rights commissioners and anti-racism data legislation in BC and this would be unlikely to happen. She also said only few people have access to this data.
Student Senator Kareem Hassib highlighted the ratio of diagnosed to undiagnosed students living with disabilities. He said the report states 24.6 per cent of students are facing barriers to obtaining a formal diagnosis.
"Getting a formal diagnosis for a chronic condition can be incredibly difficult, yet it's it's something that we require for students with disabilities to get the proper accommodations that they need ... I think it's really important that we look at this data."
Strategic plan refresh
Averill presented an update on the current strategic plan refresh. He said things are on track after the first phase of community engagement was done in the fall.
Sixteen themes on UBC's future was collected from engagement and Averill hopes to have a a draft proposal ready to show to Senate by April.
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