Photo: Martin Dee
Applicants to Master’s and Doctoral degrees are not affected by the recently announced cap on study permits. Review more details
Arts has more than 25 academic departments, institutes, and schools as well as professional programs, more than 15 interdisciplinary programs, a gallery, a museum, theatres, concert venues, and a performing arts centre. Truly unique in its scope, the Faculty of Arts is a dynamic and thriving community of outstanding scholars – both faculty and students.
Here, our students explore cutting-edge ideas that deepen our understanding of humanity in an age of scientific and technological discovery. Whether Arts scholars work with local communities, or tackle issues such as climate change, world music, or international development, their research has a deep impact on the local and international stage.
The disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches in our classrooms, labs, and cultural venues inspire students to apply their knowledge both to and beyond their specialization. Using innovation and collaborative learning, our graduate students create rich pathways to knowledge and real connections to global thought leaders.
UBC Library has extensive collections, especially in Arts, and houses Canada’s greatest Asian language library. Arts graduate programs enjoy the use of state-of-the-art laboratories, the world-renowned Museum of Anthropology and the Belkin Contemporary Art Gallery (admission is free for our graduate students). World-class performance spaces include theatres, concert venues and a performing arts centre.
Since 2001, the Belkin Art Gallery has trained young curators at the graduate level in the Critical and Curatorial Studies program in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory. The Master of Arts program addresses the growing need for curators and critics who have theoretical knowledge and practical experience in analyzing institutions, preparing displays and communicating about contemporary art.
The MOA Centre for Cultural Research (CCR) undertakes research on world arts and cultures, and supports research activities and collaborative partnerships through a number of spaces, including research rooms for collections-based research, an Ethnology Lab, a Conservation Lab, an Oral History and Language Lab supporting audio recording and digitization, a library, an archive, and a Community Lounge for groups engaged in research activities. The CCR includes virtual services supporting collections-based research through the MOA CAT Collections Online site that provides access to the Museum’s collection of approximately 40,000 objects and 80,000 object images, and the Reciprocal Research Network (RRN) that brings together 430,000 object records and associated images from 19 institutions.
The Faculty of Arts at UBC is internationally renowned for research in the social sciences, humanities, professional schools, and creative and performing arts.
As a research-intensive faculty, Arts is a leader in the creation and advancement of knowledge and understanding. Scholars in the Faculty of Arts form cross-disciplinary partnerships, engage in knowledge exchange, and apply their research locally and globally.
Arts faculty members have won Guggenheim Fellowships, Humboldt Fellowships, and major disciplinary awards. We have had 81 faculty members elected to the Royal Society of Canada, and several others win Killam Prizes, Killam Research Fellowships, Emmy Awards, and Order of Canada awards. In addition, Arts faculty members have won countless book prizes, national disciplinary awards, and international disciplinary awards.
External funding also signifies the research success of our faculty. In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, the Faculty of Arts received $34.6 million through over 900 research projects. Of seven UBC SSHRC Partnership Grants awarded to-date, six are located in Arts, with a combined investment of $15 million over the term of the grants.
Since the 2011 introduction of the SSHRC Insight Grants and SSHRC Insight Development Grants programs, our faculty’s success rate has remained highly stable, and is consistently higher than the national success rate.
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Arts.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Dr. Krayenhoff studied cities with trees, such as Vancouver. He developed and tested a computational model of atmospheric exchanges of heat and wind. Novel developments include how trees shade and shelter buildings. The new model helps us predict the effects of tree planting on air temperature and air pollution levels in cities. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Rogers studied ways in which archivists and records managers protect the authenticity of digital records. She found records professionals place their trust in technological means of proving authenticity, rather than traditional archival means. Her findings have implications for trusting records over time and for organizational accountability. | Doctor of Philosophy in Library, Archival and Information Studies (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Horacek studied central European art from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She examined the fusion between art and knowledge as imbued in artefacts that were collected and exchanged as gifts by monarchs of that period. Her research brings forward the socio-political agency of works of art and how they mattered to people who exchanged them. | Doctor of Philosophy in Art History (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Yates conducted ethnographic research into peer-to-peer adult education, within rural communities in Peru's Southern Andes. He explored government and non-government programs that promote indigenous methods of peer-to-peer adult education, and yet paradoxically prioritize employability and rural productivity over indigenous knowledge. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Wang examined the connection between corporate behaviour and macroeconomic phenomena. He found physical investment is decreasing with outsourcing, which contributes to the general downward trend of investment in the US. His research also includes connection between macro volatility and micro volatility, and the effect of monetary policy. | Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Salnykova demonstrated that ethnic conflict is associated with the level of deliberative capacity. She studied this relationship on the cases of post-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia. She explored the factors of deliberative capacity and the types of deliberative systems that may exist. | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Cienciala examined how the physical environment in stream channels influences the distribution, quality and disturbance of fish habitat. This research informs natural resource management, conservation and restoration. It also provides insights into the potential consequences of land use and climate change for fish populations in running waters. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Leach studied winter stream temperature in the rain-on-snow zone of the Pacific Northwest. He found that winter stream thermal regimes are influenced by transient snow cover and hill-slope runoff during rainstorms. This research improves our ability to effectively manage stream ecosystems as they respond to environmental change. | Doctor of Philosophy in Geography (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Toleno studied food and morality in the history of premodern Chinese Buddhism. Translating passages from a tenth-century Buddhist encyclopedia, he found eating portrayed as a skilled activity rather than one governed by rules. His study will help scholars of Chinese religion re-evaluate the question of what motivated Buddhist food practices. | Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Studies (PhD) |
| 2015 | Dr. Tenove explained why the principle of inclusion is critical for international organizations to promote justice and democracy. He investigated the relationship between the International Criminal Court and victims of crimes, and he suggested ways in which this institution and others might be more inclusive of the people they seek to assist. . | Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science (PhD) |