Update: Senate approves motions to transfer graduate programs and close the College for Interdisciplinary Studies
Message from Hugh Brock, CfIS Principal
Date: 21 March 2013
It is with mixed emotions that last night, Senate passed motions to transfer graduate programs from the College for Interdisciplinary Studies to Faculties effective September 1, 2013, and to close CfIS effective October 1, 2013. My emotions are mixed because I have been Director of the Genetics Graduate Program since 2000, and have had students in the GGP since the 80's, and because the Faculty of Gradaute Studies, and then CfIS represented a grand and unusual experiment in ways to support interdisciplinarity at UBC.
While the CfIS research units had much to be proud of, and contributed enormously to UBC, in the end, CfIS proved to divisive rather than supportive. CfIS lacked the resources it needed to flourish and to support interdisciplinary initiatives, and this was exacerbated when the research units left.
The other side of the coin is that I am delighted that the Faculties have done an outstanding job supporting the CfIS research units that were transferred last year. Those units are thriving in ways they have not before. I am confident that your graduate programs also will thrive in your new administrative homes.
I express my deepest appreciation to the graduate program Directors. I thank them for being such good colleagues over the years, for their dedication to students, to student success, and to student welfare. I express my thanks to the Deans who are taking the graduate programs, and thank them for their commitment and willingness to support these programs in the future.
