The Faculty of Dentistry at the University of British Columbia has opened a clinical research centre focusing on best practices and evidence-based patient care thanks to a $1 million donation from Frontier Dental Laboratories.

Named the Frontier Clinical Research Centre, the new initiative allows researchers and industry participants to evaluate and generate scientific data for existing procedures and materials.

“This gift will ensure that B.C. continues to maintain the highest standards of dentistry,” says Dr. Charles Shuler, Faculty of Dentistry Dean. “The Frontier Clinical Research Centre will be an important resource for oral health providers, industry professionals and patients.”

“The rate of change in approaches to oral health care will continue to increase,” says Shuler, “and it will be imperative for all dentists to have access both to the information and to the experts who can help them choose the best approaches in treating their patients.”

Over the past 40 years, the progression from basic science findings to new dental procedures, new materials, new therapeutics and improvements in oral health has been dramatic. Given the speed of change, the materials and procedures used for routine dental practice are an often overlooked point of the clinical research cycle.

“We’re very excited to work with UBC in this commitment to the highest standards of clinical research,” says Paolo Kalaw, Frontier Dental Laboratories CEO.

“Products need to stand up to claims. For that, we need exacting analyses and robust data,” says Kalaw, a UBC alumnus who studied microbiology.

The Frontier Clinical Research Centre will provide contracted services including protocol review, statistical consultation, budget planning, regulatory compliance, recruitment of subjects, data collection and maintenance, data analysis and report preparation.

Prominent Canadian and British Columbian Irving K. Barber passed away peacefully at home on April 13 at the age of 89.

“Ike,” as he preferred to be called, graduated from UBC’s Faculty of Forestry in 1950, having previously served during World War II for five years with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

“Ike was a great Canadian, a great British Columbian and a great friend of UBC,“ said UBC President Stephen Toope. “He believed passionately in education as the way to create citizens of the world and to improve life for all in B.C. Ike was a visionary, but he also remained very involved personally with the projects he supported. His contributions to our campuses have been dramatic and permanent – Ike’s contributions will benefit people from all over for generations to come. “

In 1978, Barber founded Slocan Forest Products Limited, building it into one of North America’s leading lumber producers. He retired as chairman in 2002.

Dr. Barber – who received an honorary degree from UBC in 2002 – was instrumental in establishing programs to promote education and research throughout B.C. He had a life-long belief in the value of education and the importance of access to education, regardless of income, especially in remote communities of the province.

Dr. Barber remained closely involved with UBC both in Vancouver and in the Okanagan. The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, to which he donated $20 million in 2006, remains a world-leading facility and a hub of the Vancouver campus and accessible worldwide. In, 2004 he donated $10 million to establish the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre Interface Program at UBC’s campus in the Okanagan.

He is survived by his wife Jean, whom he married in 1943, his three children, Linda (Brooke) Williams, James (Lynne) Barber and Gregory (Linda) Barber, nine grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren. A Celebration of Life service is planned for June.

A $5-million gift from arts philanthropist Michael Audain, through his family foundation, will establish a major new centre for the visual arts at the University of British Columbia, providing a leading-edge facility for future generations of Canadian artists.

The donation will create the Audain Art Centre, an important new facility for UBC’s Dept. of Art History, Visual Art and Theory. The department has fostered some of Canada’s best known visual artists – including Jeff Wall, Ken Lum and Ian Wallace – helping to make Vancouver an international hub for the visual arts.

The gift ties with the largest donation ever received by UBC’s Faculty of Arts, and follows Audain’s recent donation to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, valued at $1.2 million, which returned a ceremonial club received by Captain James Cook from B.C.’s Nuu-chah-nulth people to Canada. The gift brings Audain’s total donations to UBC to over $10 million, more than he has given to any other single institution.

“Since the launch of its program in 1955, UBC has played a major role in putting Vancouver on the world map for visual arts,” says Audain, whose personal collection includes art by several UBC graduates, including Lum and Wall. “UBC played a vital role in my education over 50 years ago.  This splendid new centre is an opportunity for me to recognize that, while providing a better learning environment for the next generation of art students.”

“A strong and vibrant artistic community is crucial for any civil society, driving innovation and progressive thinking,” says UBC President Stephen J. Toope, noting that Audain has now donated $35 million to Canadian arts organizations, personally or though the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts. “Thanks to Michael Audain’s extraordinary leadership and generosity, UBC students and faculty will enrich society and challenge us with new ways of seeing the world for years to come.”

Expected to open in September 2013, the Audain Art Centre will span four storeys in Ponderosa Commons, a new student housing and academic facility, currently under construction on UBC’s Vancouver campus. Highlights of the centre will include: a flagship art gallery; 16 professional artist studios; advanced digital arts, new media and animation labs; a print media library and research centre, and modern, flexible academic space for 500 students, staff and faculty in UBC’s acclaimed visual arts program.

The 2,600 square-metre art centre will replace existing studios – currently housed in aging campus facilities, including temporary huts built for armed forces personnel returning from the Second World War – dramatically improving teaching, learning and creative opportunities. The 230 square-metre, street-level art gallery will replace a small underground gallery in the Koerner library, offering greater prominence and space for faculty and student art and exhibitions.

“This facility will help to attract the best students and faculty and transform visual arts teaching and learning at UBC,” says Gage Averill, dean of UBC’s Faculty of Arts, calling it most significant investment in the department since its creation, and noting that current arts students will exhibit year-end projects on April 10. “The Audain Art Centre will guarantee that generations of creative arts students will have the kind of leading-edge and inspirational facilities that can nurture their visual imaginations and deepen their education.”

This gift forms part of UBC’s start an evolution campaign, the most ambitious fundraising and alumni engagement campaign in Canadian history. For more information, visit http://startanevolution.ubc.ca.

BACKGROUND

Michael Audain, O.C., O.B.C., is one of Canada’s leading arts philanthropists and chairman of Polygon Homes Ltd. A UBC alumnus and chair of the National Gallery of Canada’s Board of Trustees, he has previously supported UBC’s Critical and Curatorial Studies Program, the Audain Gallery at UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, and exhibitions and contemporary art acquisitions at UBC’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

UBC’s Dept. of Art History, Visual Art and Theory (formerly the Dept. of Fine Arts) was established in 1955. With innovative teaching and interdisciplinary research in three areas – art history, critical and curatorial studies and visual arts – department faculty members have included acclaimed artists such as Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace, Ken Lum, b.c. binning, Gathie Falk and Alvin Balkind. Learn more atwww.ahva.ubc.ca.

UBC’s Ponderosa Commons is one of five proposed hubs designed to increase student housing and academic space on UBC’s Vancouver campus. Located at University Boulevard and West Mall, the 54,000 square-metre mixed-use facility will provide new housing for more than 1,100 students. Phase 1 occupancy is scheduled for September 2013.

An object of global historical and cultural significance, received by explorer Captain James Cook from a Canadian First Nation during his final voyage (1776-1779), is being donated to the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA) by a leading arts philanthropist.

Recently purchased through a private dealer in New York, and valued at $1.2 million, the rare ceremonial club was the last remaining object from Captain Cook’s personal collection not housed in a public museum. Thanks to the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts, the club returns to British Columbia, where the famous explorer received it from the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Vancouver Island’s west coast in 1778, or 234 years ago.

“This ceremonial club has immense historical and cultural value. I am delighted to play a part in its return to Canada’s west coast,” says Michael Audain, chairman of the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts, and one of Canada’s most active arts supporters. “While certain Nuu-chah-nulth objects collected by Cook exist in museums abroad – for example, in London, Berlin, and Vienna – this is the first and only in Canada. With our Foundation’s donation, I hope to encourage the repatriation of other Northwest Coast art works to public museums and cultural centres in British Columbia.”

Misattributed in some historical documents as a “curious war instrument” from the “Sandwich Isles” (Hawaii), the club was carved by an Aboriginal Northwest Coast artist as early as the mid-1700s, placing it within the last generation of traditional objects created before European contact.

Considered the oldest known and most finely executed club of this style, it is carved from yew wood in the shape of a hand holding a sphere. It may have been both a ceremonial symbol of its owner’s high rank and a functional tool or weapon.

On Cook’s final voyage, his third to the Pacific, the explorer sailed the HMS Resolution to Hawaii (1776–1777) and become the first European to set foot on the Northwest Coast when he arrived at B.C.’s Nootka Sound on March 28, 1778. After sailing north in search of the Northwest Passage, Cook returned to Hawaii, where he was killed in 1779.

Like much of Cook’s personal collection, the club found its way from his family into the private Leverian Museum in London, where it was sold in 1806, passing through several private collections in Britain and the United States until it was obtained by the Audain Foundation and returned to B.C.

“We welcome the homecoming of this great gift by the Audain Foundation—a treasure once given by our people to Captain James Cook, and now returned to us to share with the people of Canada and those who come to visit,” says Margarita James, President of the Land of Maquinna Cultural Society, speaking on behalf of Mowachaht hereditary chief Yahɬua, Michael Maquinna, and Muchalaht hereditary chief Norman George. “The Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, one of 15 nations comprising the Nuu-chah-nulth people, greeted and hosted Captain James Cook in 1778 at Yuquot (Friendly Cove), Nootka Sound. As our Council of Chiefs said in 1997:

“‘Many of the early visitors were anxious to take home our gifts as souvenirs of their time among us. As part of our diplomacy, we presented carved images of our great ancestors to representatives of European governments visiting our territory. These ancestors are now living in your great treasure houses, which you call museums. They are our representatives in your cities and capitols. They are your acknowledgement of our diplomacy and the greatness of our nation. They are our boundary markers showing the extent of our influence throughout the world.’”

“Thanks to the Audain Foundation and the Mowachaht-Muchalaht and Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations, this important artifact will be a catalyst for new research and thinking on both the object itself and its global journey,” says Anthony Shelton, MOA director.

The club will be displayed at MOA in its Multiversity Galleries, which house more than 10,000 objects from around the world. Learn more at www.moa.ubc.ca.

This gift forms part of UBC’s start an evolution campaign, the most ambitious fundraising and alumni engagement campaign in Canadian history. For more information, visit: http://startanevolution.ubc.ca.

BACKGROUND

Michael Audain, O.C., O.B.C., is one of Canada’s leading arts philanthropists and chairman of Polygon Homes Ltd. A UBC alumnus and chair of the National Gallery of Canada’s Board of Trustees, Audain and his family foundation have given more than $30 million to arts organizations, including over $5 million to UBC.

UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, one of the world’s leading museums, is internationally renowned for its collections, research, teaching, public programs and meaningful commitment to collaboration with the Aboriginal and other originating communities it serves.

Features

Departments

The UBC Plan: Have Your Say

UBC is seeking community input on updates to both Place and Promise: The UBC Plan and the Community Engagement Strategic Plan.

Events and Notices

Event highlights for this spring include The Next Step, and UBC Dialogues events in Burnaby and Victoria. The program for Alumni Weekend 2012 is also going to be announced shortly.

Take Note: UBC News & Research

Research about shark fisheries, sports concussions, hand-controlled speech synthesis, and more.

Featured Branch – SPARK

Meet UBC’s new SPARK alumni entrepreneurship branch. Its next event is coming up on March 28th and will highlight up-and-coming alumni and student business start-ups as part of a “best pitch” competition.

Lifelong Learning

Hundreds of learning opportunities sure to engage, inspire and enlighten you are open for registration right now at the UBC Point Grey campus and in downtown Vancouver at UBC Robson Square.

Caption Contest

Show your wit. Enter our caption contest by April 15th for your chance to win a UBC Alumni stainless steel travel flask (it’s so much more than a mug). One entry per person. All readers eligible.

UBC Alumni Association Governance Review

The Board of Directors is reviewing its governance structure with the goal of enhancing the UBCAA’s effectiveness in serving alumni, students, and the university.

An important collection of early works by one of Canada’s best loved artists, Bill Reid, can be seen by the public for the first time thanks to a major donation to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology (MOA) from Vancouver’s Friedman family.

The Haida artist created eleven intricate pieces of gold and silver jewellery over a 20-year period (1954-1974) for Sydney Friedman and his late wife Constance Livingstone-Friedman, who were longstanding UBC professors and early patrons of Reid.

Standouts of the collection include an exquisite gold bracelet featuring a raven with cut-out wings and feathers, a gold brooch and matching earrings, a hinged silver bracelet with an eagle motif, and a silver picture frame fully engraved with a bear motif.

“This collection has outstanding significance, not only as a representation of Bill Reid’s extraordinary early work – and the value of such material for the study of Canadian art history – but also in encompassing one collector-family’s relationship with the artist over a 20-year period,” says MOA curator Bill McLennan.

The new pieces, valued at more than $500,000, expand MOA’s Bill Reid collection – already the world’s largest public one – to 250 pieces, including carvings, drawings, metalwork, and sculptural masterpieces such as The Raven and the First Men, which depicts a version of the Haida people’s origin story, and is on permanent display at the museum.

“My wife cherished wearing these beautiful pieces by our friend Bill, and wanted the greater community to enjoy them,” says Friedman, noting that only two pieces in the collection have previously been exhibited. “I am very proud to make this gift, because it honours one of Constance’s dearest wishes, and because it also reflects our deep history with UBC.”

The Friedmans were founding faculty members of UBC’s Faculty of Medicine in 1950. Dr. Sydney Friedman, 96, led UBC’s Dept. of Anatomy for 30 years, authoring a three-volume “visual atlas” for medical students. Dr. Constance Livingstone-Friedman, who passed away in June 2011 at the age of 91, taught histology and anatomy to medical and dental students. Together they published more than 200 research papers on salt and hypertension.

Bill Reid (1920-1998) was a pivotal force in introducing to the world the great art traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast. His legacies include infusing these traditions with modern ideas and forms of expression.

The Friedman collection displays Reid’s technical and artistic virtuosity at a period when he was experimenting with European goldsmithing techniques (casting, overlay and repoussé), exploring and seeking to ‘make modern’ the motifs of historical Haida art and mythology, McLennan adds.

The Friedmans’ eleven-piece collection of jewellery is on display in MOA’s Bill Reid Rotunda starting today. Their gift includes two other objects – a print by Reid and a historical Northwest Coast bracelet by an unknown artist – which will be exhibited later this year. Learn about MOA at www.moa.ubc.ca.

This gift forms part of UBC’s start an evolution campaign, the most ambitious fundraising and alumni engagement campaign in Canadian history. For more information, visit: http://startanevolution.ubc.ca.

Photo By: PictureBC

One of the largest private film collections in Canada, which provides a fascinating document of rural B.C., will be housed and preserved by UBC Library thanks to a generous donation from the Halleran family and the support of community partners including Columbia Basin Trust (CBT).

The Halleran Collection, valued at $750,000, consists of about 250 nature-oriented video programs produced in British Columbia over the decades – first by Mike Halleran and then by his son Terry.

These shows, known collectively as the Westland series, were broadcast by the Knowledge Network from 1984 to 2007. They examine a broad range of issues associated with forestry, fresh water fishing, endangered species and ecosystem restoration. The donation also includes an extensive library of 2,000 source tapes.

Terry Halleran donated the bulk of the collection to UBC Library, and the remainder was purchased. Halleran was introduced to the Library by Don Laishley, a UBC alumnus and member of the Library’s Advisory Board.

“We took a lot of pride in what we did. It wasn’t always easy, but we believed in environmental education,” says Halleran. “UBC Library was the obvious choice for us, considering the long-standing relationship between our series and the expertise UBC faculty and students brought to the table.”

Halleran notes that the Westland programs have been used as teaching tools in classrooms at UBC and elsewhere since the 1980s. The programs also feature some former UBC faculty members.

“We anticipate that with increasing interest in natural resource management, environmentalism and sustainability, this collection will be of considerable interest to a variety of researchers at the University and the broader community,” notes Chris Hives, University Archivist.

Columbia Basin Trust is providing $100,000 to support the acquisition and digitization of the Westland series tapes. “We’re delighted to contribute towards preserving the collection and making it available to all to study, reflect on and simply appreciate,” says Neil Muth, CBT’s President and CEO. “Thanks go to UBC for organizing this and to Terry Halleran for donating a huge portion of the collection.”

Other community partners that provided funds to support the purchase of the collection include the Okanagan Region Wildlife Heritage Fund Society, the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation and the Regional District of Central Kootenay.

Halleran would like to recognize the Kootenay Wildlife Heritage Fund and the British Columbia Conservation Foundation for their support with the preservation and management of the Westland series in advance of its transfer to UBC. University Archives staff have begun preparing an inventory to enable access to the Halleran Collection.

About UBC Library

UBC Library is a high-ranking member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). It has 21 branches and divisions, and is the largest library in British Columbia. Its collections include more than 6.3 million volumes, more than 875,000 e-books, more than 883,000 maps, audio, video and graphic materials, and more than 165,000 serial titles. The Library provides access to expanding digital resources and houses an on-site Digitization Centre. For more information, visit www.library.ubc.ca.

About Columbia Basin Trust

CBT delivers economic, social and environmental benefits to the residents of the Columbia Basin. To learn more about CBT programs and initiatives, visit www.cbt.org or call 1-800-505-8998.