Years of experience As UBC marks its centennial year, we look back on UBC Sauder history compiled by
SUE BUGOS
1929 – UBC begins offering courses leading to a bachelor of commerce degree.
1920 s
1931 – The University Senate votes to expand Commerce by adding six classes; three in accounting, two in commercial law and one in marketing and sales management.
1939 – The Senate votes in favour of a separate Department of Commerce under the Faculty of Arts and Science. Thirty-four students graduate with a BCom this year.
1930s
1942 – The Commerce Club is established, later becoming the Commerce Undergraduate Society (CUS) in 1945.
1947 – James Kwong becomes the first ChineseCanadian student to graduate with a C.A. designation in BC.
19 40s
PEOPLE 1929 – As the first Head of the Division of Commerce, Professor Theodore Boggs becomes the “father” of UBC Commerce as the proposal he made in 1916 to establish a Department of Economics, Political Science, Commerce and Sociology becomes reality. 1929 – Joseph Day, Associate Professor of Economics and Commerce, begins collecting his $5000 annual salary as the first hire of the new department. He would spend the next ten years adding courses, developing curriculum and introducing the BA/BCom double major.
1931 class expansion
1930 – Henry Forbes Angus is named the head of the department and works with his colleagues to lead Commerce to become its own department, then school, within the Faculty of Arts, and ultimately its own faculty.
1930 – James W. Horne becomes the first recipient of a BCom degree at UBC.
WORLD EVENTS 1929 – The Great Depression begins as Black Tuesday as its $14 billion market crash signals dark days. UBC suffers along with the rest of the world as its budget in 1932 is slashed from $626,000 to $250,000.
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SPRING/SUMMER 2016 VIEWPOINTS
1939 – World War II begins and the Point Grey Battery is developed on the site of the current Museum of Anthropology; it becomes a strategic point of defence for the City of Vancouver. 250 soldiers staff this outpost at the height of the war.
1945 – Leslie Wong receives his BCom from UBC and later spearheads Commerce’s international business education efforts in Singapore and Malaysia as a highly respected member of the Commerce teaching faculty. Prof. Wong died suddenly in 1968, but one of his many legacies is the Portfolio Management Foundation (PMF), which was named in his honour in 1986.
1947 – UBC enrolment soars as returning soldiers head back to university. 4800 students (over half of the entire student population) are veterans.