UNBC kicked off its 25th anniversary celebrations Tuesday with plans to expand its bioenergy heating system, thanks to funding from the provincial government, TransCanada, the B.C. Bioenergy Network, Pacific BioEnergy and the Omineca Beetle Action Coaltion that will cover most of the $2.2 million project.
When completed, the expanded system, which uses wood pellets and sawmill waste as fuel in high-efficiency burners, will heat the forestry lab, the student residences and the daycare centre at the university.
Like the university itself, the bioenergy system is a made-in-Prince-George success story unique to the region. Even the most optimistic of signatories to the petition asking Victoria to create a northern B.C. university could not have imagined the incredible benefit this post-secondary education institution would bring. For the first time, young people raised in the north could earn academic degrees in the arts and sciences at a school much closer to home. That formal education would lead to opportunities, not just in their hometowns, but with various organizations and in various capacities throughout the region and the world, for the school's 11,175 graduates (full disclosure: I graduated from UNBC with an M.A. in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies in 2004).
Heading into its 25th year, UNBC has been an incredible accomplishment that should make Prince George and the entire region proud. It has tripled in size since 1990, its faculty have been nationally and internationally recognized for their research and the school is home to the Northern Medical Program, a partnership to train doctors in Prince George and the North under the auspices of UBC in Vancouver.
It hasn't always been easy. UNBC has endured numerous challenges in recruitment and retention of both students and faculty. The construction of the Teaching and Learning Centre cost $2 million more than was budgeted. Provincial funding has become increasingly tight. The board of governors made a bad hire in Don Cozzetto in 2006 and his severance deal cost the school nearly half a million dollars, even though Cozetto was president for just two years.
And it's not going to get any easier for UNBC. There are fewer young people coming up through primary and secondary schools in central and northern B.C. and the overall population in the region is flat at best and declining in many communities. When the school opened its doors, it was the province's fourth university and the only university outside of Vancouver and Victoria. Today, there are 11 universities in B.C., as well as a semi-autonomous UBC Okanagan campus in Kelowna.
Although good for students, that amount of competition complicates UNBC's efforts to establish itself as a small but robust university. As a result, however, the university has stepped up its efforts to be a one-of-a-kind institution that offers both faculty and students unique learning opportunities at first-rate facilities in the main Prince George campus, as well as its satellites in Quesnel, Terrace and Fort St. John.
Establishing itself as Canada's Green University, UNBC turned its efforts to create an environmentally sustainable campus into research opportunities and unique development projects, becoming a model for other campuses in northern climates across Canada and the world.
Bioenergy now provides nearly three quarters of the university's heat. The funding announced Thursday to further expand UNBC's bioenergy system and help the school reach its goal of reducing its fossil fuel consumption for heating by 85 per cent from 2010 levels.
Now with a new president in Daniel Weeks, UNBC is in a good position to continue its evolution but he can't do it alone. The entire region and its residents have benefited from UNBC and it will take even more support than it has received in the past to keep it successful in such a competitive environment.
