Okanagan University College
| Type | public, post-secondary educational institution - University College |
|---|---|
| Active | c. 1990–30 June 2005 |
| Location | Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada |
Okanagan University College (OUC) was a public, post-secondary educational institution (c. 1990 to 30 June 2005) based in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. It evolved from Okanagan College (1965 to c. 1990), and the college's predecessor, the B.C. Vocational School 1963-1965. On 30 June 2005, OUC was split to create two new institutions, a new Okanagan College and UBC Okanagan.
In the 1980s, a Kelowna community group began a concerted effort, lobbying the British Columbia provincial government for better access to undergraduate university programs. Their campaign, "Getting There By Degrees", facilitated a change in Okanagan College's mandate, allowing the college to offer undergraduate degree programs to students in the Okanagan region. The college informally adopted the new name, Okanagan University College (OUC) in 1992. This name was adopted as the institution's legal name in 1995.
Although the degree programs were mostly based on a new, North Kelowna campus which opened its doors to students in January 1993, the first degrees were awarded earlier, on 11 June 1991. Initially, students completed their degrees through collaborations with the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the University of Victoria, and the degrees were granted in the names of the university collaborators (e.g., "a Bachelor of Science from University of British Columbia, at Okanagan University College"). In 1998 OUC began granting degrees under its own authority.
New faculty in the degree programs continued to lobby for changes in the institution's mandate, eventually helping to establish a new community group, "University 2000", with the slogan "OU? Oh yes! Full University Status for OUC". The goals of this group were to further expand the university college's postsecondary role, principally by adding graduate studies and research to OUC's mandate. The growth of the degree programs, the expansion of the North Kelowna Campus, and the activities of this lobby created some tensions between degree-program faculty, largely based at North Kelowna, and other parts of the institution. Some faculty favoured splitting the institution into a new university and a new community college.
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