Of the 50,000 alumni who have graduated from a UFV program since 1974, 17,000 of those have earned a four-year bachelor’s degree. But if it weren’t for a determined group of students and community members who advocated for degree-granting status in 1991, UFV might still be a two-year college.   Jackie Rea was one of the students…

More than a dozen UFV students gained valuable experience this summer by participating in UFV's second Collaboratorium project. Run by UFV's Peace and Reconciliation Centre under the guidance of Professor Keith Carlson, the Collaboratorium is designed to provide community organizations with sophisticated research services at a fraction of the cost that would be associated with…

Jason Beck thought farming was his destiny. An Abbotsford boy born and bred, as a teenager he assumed that his future was literally in his backyard, working on his family’s farm. “That was my plan,” Beck, 39, says before quickly clarifying. “Well, it wasn’t even a plan, it’s just what I thought was going to…

Michaela Sapielak always had an affinity for buildings. Not just any buildings, but heritage ones in particular. When she looked up at the ceiling of her grade school, Dunach Elementary in Abbotsford, as a 9-year-old, she marvelled at the towering ceilings and craftsmanship of the now-defunct 19th century structure.  “There’s just something about old buildings…

Dr. Scott Sheffield was at a payphone in France in the mid-1990s when he made a spur-of-the-moment decision that would not only change the course of his career over the next quarter century, but would bring much needed global awareness to the historical contributions of Indigenous communities to the Second World War in Canada and…

A book about Indigenous culture and history will soon be available for Chinese readers, thanks to the financial generosity of a Canadian business person. Shandong University Press will publish the first English-to-Chinese translation of one of University of the Fraser Valley historian Keith Carlson's books on Canadian Indigenous history and settler colonialism. When Chris Pereira,…

The South Asian Studies Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley (SASI) with support from the Abbotsford Community Foundation has received $1.14 million in funding from the Province of BC to deliver Haq and History: A Punjabi Canadian Legacy Project. The funding allows SASI to continue work showcasing past and present contributions of the Punjabi…

Governor General Award-winning author Jean Barman will present a talk about Abbotsford teacher Irene Kelleher at the University of the Fraser Valley on February 10. In her new book, Invisible Generations: Living Between Indigenous and White in the Fraser Valley (Caitlin Press), Barman explores the history of the region and the prejudice people of mixed Indigenous and…

An ethnohistorian with a strong connection to the Indigenous people of Stó:lō territory is the newest Canada Research Chair at the University of the Fraser Valley. Dr. Keith Carlson joined UFV this fall as a Tier 1 Research Chair in Indigenous and Community-Engaged History. The federally funded Canada Research Chair program is designed to recruit…

Last month UFV alumnus Marc Forcier stood up in front of almost 400 people to accept an honour he wasn’t expecting at the Fraser Valley Cultural Diversity Awards (FVCDA). “It was shocking in a great way. I was just in awe, overwhelmed,” he says of receiving the Champion of Diversity trophy that now sits on…

A lifetime of helping people fund life-saving equipment has earned Liz Harris of Abbotsford the 2018 UFV Distinguished Alumni Award. Harris joins a growing list of DAA graduates honoured by the University of the Fraser Valley for their outstanding achievements in fields such as public service, business, the environment, and service to the community. After…

It has been 60 years since Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago won the Nobel Prize for Literature. UFV’s College of Arts will be marking the event with a multidisciplinary forum on the legacy of this work on Tues, Nov 13 from 11:30 am to 2:20 pm in the Abbotsford campus lecture theatre (Abby B101). Admission is…

A hereditary chief and residential school survivor who serves as ambassador for Reconciliation Canada will share his story at UFV on Wed, October 25 at 6 pm. Chief Dr. Robert Joseph will speak as part of the President’s Leadership Lecture Series at UFV, which this fall is aligned with the Witness Blanket exhibit currently on…

Will the European Union fall apart because of Brexit? Can the UK survive without the EU? What will the impact on Canada be? The United Kingdom (UK) is preparing to leave the European Union after the Brexit vote on June 23, 2016. What are the key factors that contributed to the turn of events in…

When Jason Beck signed up for a course in Canadian sport history at UFV, he had no idea that it would be a career-defining action. And when he wrote a directed studies paper on the famous Miracle Mile between Roger Bannister and John Landy, he didn’t know that it would one day grow into a…