John MacKenzie Norris (1925-2010) was born on March 3, 1925 in Kelowna, B.C. to Jean Mary Norris (née) Denovan and Thomas Grantham Norris. At the time of his birth, his father, T.G. Norris, was practicing as a lawyer in Kelowna and subsequently served as a judge on both the British Columbia Supreme Court and the British Columbia Court of Appeal. John Norris had an older sister and a younger brother, attended elementary schools in Kelowna and Vancouver, and graduated from Lord Byng Secondary School in Vancouver. He enlisted with the Royal Navy in 1943 and, after returning, attended UBC from 1946-1949 where he obtained both a Bachelor of Arts Degree (1948) and a Master of Arts Degree (1949). At UBC he met Barbara Violet Casey whom he married in 1947. They had one son, Thomas Norris. John Norris pursued additional graduate work at Northwestern University, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1955, and post-graduate studies at the London School of Economics.
In 1953, John Norris began teaching as an instructor within the Department of History at the University of British Columbia and in 1964 became a Professor of the Department of History. He published five books and numerous articles in the areas of administrative, economic and demographic history. During the 1970s, he began to change his academic focus towards the history of medicine and over the next few decades he specialized in the study of the history of various diseases, including plague, cholera, and scurvy.
In 1980, John Norris was appointed Professor and Director of the Division of the History of Medicine and Science at UBC. He continued to serve in this role until his retirement early in 1990 when he was extended the title of Professor Emeritus in the History of Medicine. He continued to teach on a part-time basis until at least 2004.
Norris served on many boards and committees, including acting as the Chair of the Osler Medal Committee of the American Association for the History of Medicine (1978-1979); as Chair of the Programme Committee of the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine (1983); and as the Chair of the Grants Committee of the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine (1980). At UBC, he served in such capacities as Chairman, University Curriculum Committee, UBC (1968-1974); as a Member of the University Senate (1964-1974); and as Chairman of the University Grievance Committee (1968-1969). He held an American Council of Learned Societies Graduate Fellowship, 1951-3, a Nuffield Commonwealth Fellowship, 1961-1962, a Canada Council Senior Fellowship, 1967-1968; and a Killam Senior Research Scholarship, from 1975-1976.
John Norris was an active member in politics, first in the C.C.F., and subsequently of the N.D.P. In 1963, he unsuccessfully ran to be N.D.P. representative for Vancouver Centre during the British Columbia Provincial election.
John Norris died on May 2, 2010. At the time of his death, he was working on a history of cholera.
Eva-Marie Kröller was born in Germany, and earned her undergraduate degree (Staatsexamen) at the University of Freiburg, and her Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Alberta. Following appointments as sessional lecturer, SSHRC postdoctoral fellow, and visiting professor at UBC's Department of English between 1978 and 1983, she joined the Department in 1984 as an assistant professor; she was promoted to associate professor in 1987, and to professor in 1993. She specializes in comparative Canadian and European literature, with an emphasis on travel writing, literary history and cultural semiotics. She was chair of the comparative literature programme at UBC from 1990 to 1995, and served as editor of Canadian Literature from 1995 to 2003, for which she won the 2004 Distinguished Editor Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Professor Kröller has been appointed an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (1987-88), a Killam Faculty Research Fellow (2009), and Visiting Professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute, Free University of Berlin (1992), and at the Nordamerikaprogramm, University of Bonn (2001). She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2007. She has also won several UBC awards: the Killam Research Prize (1995), the Killam Teaching Prize (1999), and the Dean of Arts Award (2002).
The Committee on Church and State in Education was created in 1964 as a part of the new Division of Ministry and Education in BC Conference. In 1972, the Committee on Church and State in Education was dissolved and the Campus Ministries Committee took on its duties.
An interdenominational committee, the Anglican-United Joint Chaplaincy Committee, was formed in 1969, to begin the process of creating a joint chaplaincy at UBC. In 1970, the Anglican United Campus Ministry (AUCM) was created. In 1974, the AUCM joined with the UBC branch of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) to create the Cooperative Christian Campus Ministry at UBC.
Frank Read was born on March 1, 1911. In the early 1930s, he became an accomplished oarsman with the Vancouver Rowing Club. Following a back injury, suffered while playing football, that ended his rowing career, he went into the hotel industry. In late 1949, Read agreed to coach the University of British Columbia rowing team which, at the same time, began a formal co-operation with the Vancouver Rowing Club. In recognition of both institutions, it was decided to call these new members "VRC/UBC" oarsmen. Despite very limited resources for UBC’s fledging rowing program, Read focussed on the importance of training and conditioning and instilling in his athletes dedication to the sport.
His intensive training program soon produced results. Competing against other top Canadian teams to represent the country at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, the UBC team was beaten by the Toronto Argonaut club. Two years later, Read’s eight-oared crew represented Canada at the 1954 British Empire Games in Vancouver. There the team won Canada’s first ever gold medal for the eights. The following year, invited by the Duke of Edinburgh to compete against the world’s best at the Henley Regatta in England, the students scored an upset victory over the world champion Russians in the semi-finals, and finished second to the U.S. team in the finals. In 1956 Read lead his rowing teams to the Melbourne Olympics where the coxless four won a gold medal and the eights came a very close second to capture a silver medal – these were the first Olympic medals won by Canada in rowing.
After a brief retirement (1957-60) Read returned to coach the rowing team at the 1960 Rome Olympics. That year, his eights finished second, earning Canada’s only medal at the games. Following the Olympics, Read once again retired, bringing to a close an important era in this country’s rowing history.
Read was also a mentor to those who followed him as rowing coaches. During his first retirement, John Warren coached the UBC team which represented Canada at the 1958 Empire Games in Cardiff, Wales, winning a gold and two silver medals (in the eights, fours, and coxless fours, respectively). Two others, Wayne Pretty and Glen Mervyn, were on the coaching staff for Canada’s rowing teams at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo (resulting in one gold medal in the pairs) and the 1967 Pan American Games in Winnipeg.
John Carver in "The Vancouver Rowing Club: A History, 1886-1980" offered the following assessment of Frank Read’s accomplishments:
Starting with almost nothing, operating on the most meagre budgets. he took his crews to the top international competition and, incidentally put himself among the top rowing coaches in the world. He had the drive, and the patience to stand the rugged twice daily grind in all kinds of weather; he demanded discipline and condition, and got them, and he had the
knowledge and knew how to impart it to his crews. He will say to himself that it is the horses in the boats that win races and of course he is right. But no sport demands more coaching than crew rowing and Read supplied it beyond measure.
Frank Read died in Vancouver in 1994.
Geoffrey Blundell Riddehough was born on March 18, 1900, in Bramhall, Cheshire, England. Educated in Penticton, B.C., he went on to become a UBC Fairview graduate, earning a first class honours B.A. (1924) in Latin and English in addition to being awarded the Governor Generalʹs gold medal as head of his graduating class. Riddehough obtained his M.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley (1925). After teaching in the English Department at the University of Alberta for several years on a contract basis, the Nichol Scholarship enabled Riddehough to pursue his studies and research interests in London and at La Sorbonne in Paris (1929‐1932). Returning to Canada in the autumn of 1932, he set aside his PhD. studies at the University of Toronto to become a classics instructor at UBC. Riddehough joined the UBC faculty in 1933 and remained a member of the Department of Classics for the next thirty‐eight years. While at UBC, he continued to pursue his education, obtaining a M.A. (1939) in classics and a Ph.D. from Harvard (1951) with a thesis on the medieval poet Joseph of Exeter. While studying at Harvard, his dissertation essay ʺDe Medeae In Iasonem Odioʺ won the Bowdoin Latin Prize (1950). At UBC, Riddehough specialized in Medieval Latin and was noted for his satirical verse.
Riddehough was a prolific writer and a number of his essays, poems, and short stories were published in a variety of journals and newspapers. Two of his better known works were his collection of verse, Dance to the Anthill (1972) and the posthumously published Rueful Rhymes: The Satirical Verse of a Couple of Anti‐Bodies (1994) that was co‐authored by Geoffrey A. Spencer. Riddehough was familiar with several languages, including French and Cornish, as well as being versed in ancient Greek and Latin. An interest in the paranormal led Riddehough to participate in a Wicca witch‐naming ceremony on the Isle of Man. He wrote numerous short stories about his female witch persona, “Anaitis”, and the majority of the correspondence from Riddehough within the Pegeen Brennan and Doreen Nalos sous‐fonds are signed with the Anaitis symbol. Riddehough died suddenly on April 6, 1978, in London, England, while returning to Vancouver after a holiday in Malta.
The history of the University of British Columbia Resources Office can be traced to 1964 with the establishment of the Resources Committee Office. In the early 1970s, the organization became the University Resources Council based at Cecil Green Park. In 1980, the name was changed to the Resources Office and it appears to have operated until 1983.
Laurence "Laurie" R. Ricou was born in Brandon Manitoba on October 17, 1944 and earned his B.A. at the University of Manitoba in 1965. He moved to the University of Toronto where he earned his MA in 1957 and Ph.D. in 1971. Ricou then went to the University of Lethbridge where he taught English for eight years beginning in 1970. While at Lethbridge he became a specialist on Canadian Prairie regionalism and prairie writing. In 1978 he moved to Vancouver and joined UBC's Department of English. Ricou has written or co-authored a number of books including "The Arbutus/Madrone Files: Reading the Pacific Northwest" (2002), "A Field Guide to Dungeness Spit" (1997), "Everyday Magic: Child Languages in Canadian Literature" (1991), and "Vertical Man/Horizontal World: Man and Landscape in Canadian Prairie Fiction" (1973). He has also contributed numerous journal articles, conference papers and chapters for books.
Verna Huffman Splane was born in 1914 in Peterborough, Ontario. She became a nurse after high school. In 1939 received a diploma in Public Health from the University of Toronto School of Nursing, and worked from the Victorian Order of Nurses until she entered Columbia University where she graduated with a Bachelor in Science in 1957 and then went on to earn a master’s degree in public health from the University of Michigan. After she graduated she worked for the World Health Organization as a nurse advisory in the health ministries of Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the Windward and Leeward Islands. Upon her return to Canada she joined the federal Department of National Health and Welfare as a public health nursing consultant from 1963-1966, though she returned to the WHO to work on a national health planning project in Libya in 1966. In 1967 she once again returned to Canada, becoming Canada’s first Chief Nursing Officer, a position that she held until 1972. After her marriage to Richard Splane in 1971 the couple moved to Vancouver in 1973 where Verna joined the UBC School of Nursing from 1975 to 1984, and in 1985 she joined the University of Victoria School of Nursing faculty until 1991. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and was granted the Queen’s Silver and Golden Jubilee medals (1977 and 2002). She held several honorary degrees and won awards such as the Jeanne Mance Award and the Lillian Carter Centre for International Nursing Award from Emory University. She died in January 2015.
Verna and Richard were married in 1971 following the death of Richard’s first wife Marion. After their move to Vancouver they were active members of the University Hill congregation of the United Church of Canada, and together undertook a study on Chief Nursing Officer positions around the Globe, which resulted in the 1994 publication Chief Nursing Officers in National Ministries of Health: Focal Points for Nursing Leadership. In 1996 they were awarded UBC’s first ever-joint honorary degree.
John Gordon Spaulding earned a B.A. at Pomona College, California, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. After teaching at Stockton Junior College in California, he joined the UBC Department of English in 1946, where he remained on faculty until his retirement in 1972. His areas of scholarly interest included the history of literary criticism, Romantic poetry and prose, semantics, and the relationships between literary criticism and philosophy, science, and psychology.
While conducting research at the British Museum in 1961 Spaulding was using "The Preacher's Assistant", a catalogue of sermons presented and published in Great Britain, Ireland, and the American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, compiled by the Rev. John Cooke and published in 1783. Spaulding saw the possibility of gaining new insights into the political, social, and literary history of the period covered by the catalogue by correlating the entries in the first volume (the sermons) with the entries in the second volume (the authors), using then-new computer technology. By 1966 he had both volumes encoded on punch cards, and then spent the next 25 years correlating the two sets of records. An early print-out version was deposited at the Huntington Library in California in 1988. The final version was published in 1996, shortly after Spaulding's death, as "Pulpit Publications 1660-1782", in six volumes. As he wrote in the preface:
"By translating the data from Cooke's two volumes into six volumes it lays out the data in ways that make them accessible for purposes that Cooke did not have in mind. His catalogue of sermons is herein transformed from an Assistant to Preachers into an Assistant for Historians who wish to search out the vital relations between religion and literature, philosophy, science and politics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries or, more generally, are making bibliographical, philological and economic studies concerning the period. The usefulness of the sermon catalogue in historical studies is enhanced by the fact that the data within the catalogue come close to being exhaustive in regard to certain aspects of the period and, in the form presented within the present edition, make some novel statistical studies quite possible."
Ian Slater was born in Australia in 1941, and worked for the Australian navy, as a cipher clerk in that country’s Department of External Affairs, and as a defence officer for the Australian Joint Intelligence Bureau. After leaving Australia he became a marine geology technician with New Zealand’s Institute of Oceanography, and later with UBC’s Institute of Oceanography. In 1977 he earned his Ph.D. in political science. As an author and lecturer he has taught a wide variety of courses in the humanities.
Dr. Slater is the author of twenty-three adventure thrillers, including his best-selling "Firespill"; "Sea Gold"; "Air Glow Red"; "Storm"; "Deep Chill"; "Forbidden Zone"; "MacArthur Must Die"; "Showdown"; "Battle Front"; and "Manhunt". He is also the author of eleven books in his World War III series. His non-fiction book "Orwell: The Road To Airstrip One", a study of George Orwell’s social and political thought, has been acclaimed by publications from the Times Literary Supplement to the Washington Post. The latter wrote, “It is doubtful that any book provides a better foundation for a full understanding of Orwell’s unique and troubling vision.” ABC Book World states, "In Slater's revised version, his new preface contains a true story that Slater was part of and which is at once so moving about the power of one good, brave man and the power of literature to change events that it alone is worth the price of the book."
Dr. Slater also served as editor of the UBC academic quarterly "Pacific Affairs" from 1988 to 2002; has written book reviews for major North American newspapers; worked as a film critic; and written radio dramas and short stories for the CBC. He also wrote the screenplay for the National Film Board’s animated film, "Flash Point", based on his novel "Firespill".
Harry Keith Ralston was born in Victoria, B.C. on 3 September 1921. Graduating from Victoria High School in 1938, he earned the Royal Institution Scholarship for Victoria District. He then attended Victoria College and the University of British Columbia, receiving his BA in 1942 with 1st Class Honours in History. Ralston entered the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1942 – beginning as an Ordinary Seaman, he worked his way up the ranks to Lieutenant, and served on the Atlantic Coast, before being discharged in 1945. He was the legislative correspondent for the left-wing weekly "Pacific Tribune" from 1952 to 1955, and also wrote for "The Fisherman" and other labour periodicals – he was a life-long supporter of socialist and labour causes. Turning to teaching, Ralston entered the Vancouver Normal School, graduating in 1956 “with distinction”, in the top ten among 500 graduates. He taught at Templeton High School in East Vancouver from 1956 to 1960. In 1960 he was hired as the first curator of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, where he assembled its original collections and mounted the first exhibits. Returning to UBC, he completed his MA in History in 1965; his dissertation was entitled "The 1900 strike of Fraser River sockeye salmon fishermen". He joined the the UBC Department of History in 1967. His teaching focussed on the history of British Columbia and the Canadian West. Ralston retired in 1986 with the rank of Assistant Professor, although he continued to write and conduct research. He published articles on B.C. and labour history in "B.C. Studies" and "The Beaver", as well as a number of articles for the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography". He died 20 June 2009.
Linda Peterat holds a B.Sc., B.Ed., M.Ed., and Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies from the University of Alberta. Prior to coming to UBC she taught home economics in both junior and senior high schools. At UBC she directed the home economics teacher education program and graduate programs at UBC and taught graduate courses in curriculum studies and research methodologies. At the end of her career at UBC she pursued her interest in researching food as it relates to home economics. The research led her to become the co-creator of the Intergenerational Landed Learning Project in 2002 and its co-director until 2007. Following her retirement in 2006 she moved to Vernon BC, where she directs an Intergenerational Landed Learning Program in the Xerindipity Garden at the Okanagan Science Centre and is a Program Developer for the Okanagan Science Centre, Vernon.
Seymour Levitan was born in Philadelphia in 1936. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1961 but missed the Vietnam war. He received his B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and went on to join the Department of English at UBC, where he taught from 1966 to 1972. In addition to his work teaching English, Levitan also became well-known as a translator and editor of Yiddish poems and stories. Paper Roses, his selection and translation of Rachel Korn’s poetry, was the 1988 winner of the Robert Payne Award of the Translation Center at Columbia University. He also helped organize the Jewish Film Festival and the Chelm Film Series.
Kathleen How was born May 9, 1910 at Rouleau, Saskatchewan. She was a teacher at the Alberni Indian Residential School (1935-1937 and 1944-1947); Port Simpson (likely the Crosby Home for Girls, 1937-1940); Bella Bella (1940-1944 and 1965-1970); Kincolith (1948-1954); and Brocket, Alberta (residential school, 1954-1965). She died October 23, 1995 at Vancouver.
In 1986 and 1987 there were numerous meetings held by the Jubilee Park and Playing Field committee concerning the proposed upgrade of the Jubilee Park for Rossland Secondary School (now Rossland Summit School). They proposed a slight leveling and raising of the field, a double soccer field, jogging track, tennis court, and basketball court. Cook Pickering & Doyle Ltd. surveyed and presented comments and recommendations on the geotechnical matters affecting improved drainage for the playing fields. Members of the advisory committee included Jean Cormack, Hugo Smecher, Lloyd McLellan, Harry Lefevre, Stan Fisher, Iain Martin, and Jack Richardson. Ultimately, the plans never went ahead, possibly due to lack of funding by the Ministry of Education.
The first branch in B.C. of the Methodist Woman's Missionary Society was organized at the old Pandora Avenue Church in Victoria in 1888. It soon became the auxiliary of Metropolitan Church, and its original purpose was to help in the setting up of a "rescue home" for Chinese women and girls who had been forced into prostitution. Other local auxiliaries soon appeared throughout the province, and in 1891 they were unified through the establishment of the B.C. Conference Branch of the W.M.S. In 1904, District branches were created for Victoria, Vancouver, Westminster and Kamloops. Besides the rescue home in Victoria, the Methodist W.M.S. in B.C. supported Residential Schools such as the Crosby Girls' Home in Port Simpson (Lax Kw'alaams), the Coqualeetza Institute in Chilliwack, the Elizabeth Long Memorial Home in Kitamaat (Haisla); the Turner Institute in Vancouver; and Methodist hospitals at Port Simpson, Bella Bella and Hazelton.
Richard Beverly Splane was born in 1916 in Calgary, Alberta. During the Great Depression Richard worked in construction camps with Frontier College in Alberta and then taught in a one-room school for two years. Following this he went on to earn a B.A. in economics and history from McMaster University (1944) and M.A. (1945), M.S.W. (1951) and D.S.W. (1961) from the University of Toronto. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, afterwards staying in London to complete a certificate in Social Science and Administration from the London School of Economics. He returned to Canada with his wife, Marion, to continue his education at the University of Toronto after which he worked for the federal government in various important positions in the Department of National Health and Welfare including: Economist, Research Division; Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister of National Welfare; Director, Unemployment Assistance; Director General, Welfare Assistance and Services; Assistant Deputy Minister, Social Allowances and Services. In addition to his significant contributions to the development of the social welfare system in Canada, Splane was also very interested in international welfare issues. He served as Canada's representative on the UNICEF Board and was a member of the United Nations' Expert Group on Social Welfare Policy and Planning. In 1973 he became a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia and served as acting director of the School 1980/81. He retired from UBC in 1982. Before and after his retirement he served on the boards of many organizations such as the International Council on Social Welfare, the International Association of Schools of Social Work, the World Federalists, and the Vancouver Branch of the the United Nations Association of Canada. He held many honours and awards – he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was awarded honorary degrees from Wilfred Laurier University, McMaster University, the University of Toronto, and UBC. He died in November 2015.
Verna and Richard were married in 1971 following the death of Richard’s first wife Marion. After their move to Vancouver they were active members of the University Hill congregation of the United Church of Canada, and together undertook a study on Chief Nursing Officer positions around the Globe, which resulted in the 1994 publication Chief Nursing Officers in National Ministries of Health: Focal Points for Nursing Leadership. In 1996 they were awarded UBC’s first ever-joint honorary degree.
The Presbyterian Woman's Missionary Society, nationally organized with a few auxiliaries in B.C., was originally concerned with foreign missions. Both native Indian and Chinese work in B.C. (as they were known at the time) were included as foreign. As an outgrowth of the committee, which supported the Atlin Hospital, a new organization emerged in 1903: the Woman's Home Missionary Society. In 1914, the two societies were united nationally as the Woman's Missionary Society and a provincial synod branch was organized. In addition to its support for the Atlin Hospital and a hospital at Telegraph Creek, it took special interest in the Loggers' Mission. Support was also give to Indian Residential and Day Schools at Alberni, Ahousaht, and Ucluelet. After church union in 1925, the society was merged into the Woman's Missionary Society of the United Church of Canada.
William Ridington - also known as Robin Ridington - joined the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at UBC in 1968 after completing his Ph.D. at Harvard. Ridington began a study of the Beaver Indians in 1963 while an undergraduate majoring in archaeology at Harvard.
Peggy Thompson graduated from Point Grey Secondary School in 1972 before attending the University of British Columbia. Later, she became a professor of screenwriting in the Creative Writing department at UBC. She has worked as a writer, producer, and director for film, television, radio, and stage.
Thompson is the screenwriter of the feature films "Better Than Chocolate" and "The Lotus Eaters". "Better Than Chocolate" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won numerous international awards, while "The Lotus Eaters" was nominated for 11 Genie Awards, and won three. She also won a Genie for the short film "In Search Of The Last Good Man". Her short documentary film "Broken Images – The Photography Of Michelle Normoyle" has played festivals worldwide. "It’s A Party!", another short film, was nominated for a Genie. Peggy Thompson has also written for series television ("Da Vinci’s Inquest", "Big Sound", "PR", "The Beachcombers", and "Weird Homes"). Her radio play "Calamity Jane And The Fat Buffalo Moon" was published by Blizzard Press and was staged in New York. Her stage work has been nominated for both Chalmers and Jessie Awards. She was one of four producers on the feature film "Saint Monica", which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, won the Cultural Expressions Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Sarasota Film Festival, and was nominated for two Genie Awards. "Saint Monica" received its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. She has recently produced the animated short "Chanterelle Rain", was the Executive Producer on the Crazy 8 short drama "Sacrifice", and is one of the producers on Sharon McGowan’s award winning documentary "Bearded Ladies: The Photography Of Rosamond Norbury". She also co-authored, with Saeko Usukawa, the books "Hard-Boiled: Great Lines from Classic Movies" (1995) and "Tall in the Saddle: Great Lines from Classic Westerns" (1998).
As of 2017, Thompson is a Professor Emerita of UBC’s Creative Writing Program, and has served on the Board of Directors of Women in Film and Television Vancouver as well as Out On Screen. She is currently on the From Our Dark Side Screenplay Genre Competition’s Steering Committee, a national competition for genre screenwriters run by Women in Film and Television Vancouver.
The School of Kinesiology was originally named the Bachelor of Physical Education Program, and in the interim was called the School of Physical Education, the School of Physical Education and Recreation, and then the School of Human Kinetics. The first physical education courses were offered in 1946 after the appointment of Robert Osborne (who directed the program until 1972) in 1945. The Bachelor of Physical Education Program ran until 1952 when the program was formed into the School of Physical Education in the Faculty of Arts and Science. In 1960 “recreation education” was added to the name, though Bachelor of Recreation Education were only conferred starting in 1969. In 1958 a master’s program was added to the School of Physical Education. In 1963 the School moved to the Faculty of Education. When Robert Osborne retired in 1978, he was replaced by Robert Morford. At the same time the school began to align with the greater University’s goals of implementing more academically centred programs. There was a new emphasis on science relating to physical activity, and the School’s laboratories began to develop and grow. In 1979, a Sports Medicine Clinic opened in the School’s John Owen Pavilion on the south campus with specific faculty of this clinic also being associated with the School in both teaching and research. In 1992 the School was renamed the School of Human Kinetics and The Bachelor of Recreation Education was phased out in 1995. In 2011 it was renamed the School of Kinesiology.
The School of Kinesiology’s mission is to “generate, advance, and disseminate knowledge about the biophysical, psychosocial, managerial, and pedagogical dimensions of human movement to enhance the health and quality of life of all populations across diverse settings.” Their specific goals are to advance knowledge about a) the factors underlying human physical performance, (b) the nature of the human quest for excellence in competitive and expressive forms of human movement, and (c) the role of sport, leisure and exercise in society from both a contemporary and a historical perspective; teach students about physical activity in general and about sport, exercise and leisure in particular; to prepare educated professionals to serve the present and future needs of society in a variety of professional settings related to the active health, leisure, sport and physical education fields; and facilitate the application of pertinent knowledge to professional and lay agencies concerned with the promotion of recreation, physical education, sport, fitness and active health at local, provincial and national, and international levels.
The B.C. Mining School in Rossland was original an open pit program at the Molybdenum mine on Red Mountain which started in June 1971. It was a twelve-week course, and the students were chosen by Canadian manpower. The students were typically from the metropolitan Vancouver area with an average education level of grade eight. Due to its success, an underground program was suggested, with the site of the school moving to the base of Kootenay Columbia Mountain. The first sixteen-week course started in October 1943. The school was to later produce the first open pit, and underground female worker. On fifth August 1981 newly arrived students came to the school to find a padlock on the door. The school was abruptly closed with little warning. The last open pit and underground classes had their graduation take place on third July 1981 and nineteenth June 1981. Multiple letters and resolutions were sent to the Minister of Education (later Minister of Energy Mines, and Petroleum Resources), Brian Smith (1975-1983), and many other ministers and organizations to try and reopen the school. This included a considerable amount of action was taken by Harry Lefevre.
There are multiple different reasons that were given for the student closure of the school, two of which being that (1) according to Smith, that the Canadian Employment & Immigration Commission refused to sponsor any more students after September 1981, and that, (2) according to Gerald Bell of Western Industrial Relations, major mining companies no longer wanted to employ graduates from the school. This, apparently, had nothing to do with the standard of teaching but rather that Canada Manpower had not carried about sufficient screening of potential students, which resulted in an excess of poor-quality students. Harry Lefevre attributed the closure to a breakdown in the financial support agreement between the Ministry of Education and Canadian Manpower.
The Salmon Arm Grebe Festival functioned under the umbrella of the Salmon Arm Bay Nature Enhancement Society (SABNES) which was formed in 1988 to lead the effort to protect the local marshlands and enhance the nesting areas of Grebes and other species in the area.
In 1994, SABNES commissioned a study to determine the feasibility of staging a festival centred around Grebes to draw attention to the species and Salmon Arm’s unique location in providing habitat for the largest nesting colony of Grebes in Western Canada. In 1995, prominent festival organizer Dick Finkle was commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce to make recommendations about holding a Grebe festival. In 1996, SABNES organized a “Celebration of the Grebe” day and the success of the event resulted in consideration of a multi-day festival moving forward. In October 1996, the Salmon Arm Grebe Festival was officially announced and a committee was formed comprised of SABNES members, local business owners and citizens who were tasked with planning and coordinating a three-day festival in 1997. The first Salmon Arm Grebe Festival was held May 16 – 19, 1997.