Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Kelowna School of Resource Management
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1978 - 1979
History
The Kelowna School of Resource Management (KSRM) was a proposed school that Simon Fraser University intended to establish in British Columbia's Interior, offering an undergraduate degree program based on core courses in natural and social sciences and in techniques of resource management and planning. The project was never realized.
Planning began in 1977 as part of SFU's response to the provincial government's Commission on University Programs in Non-Metropolitan Areas (Winegard Commission). The province's degree-program approval authority at that time – the Universities Council of British Columbia (UCBC) – gave approval in principle to SFU's proposal in early 1978. By August the university had appointed John M. Munro (then SFU's Dean of Arts) as the School's first Director, and KSRM began recruiting faculty. The curriculum was designed to provide undergraduate instruction for third- and fourth-year students who had already completed their first two years at community colleges in the province or at other universities. KSRM was to begin operations in September 1979, using facilities on the campus of Okanagan College.
In February 1979 UCBC reversed its earlier decision and rejected the proposal, citing several factors: lack of professional infrastructure at SFU; the employability of graduates; the professional qualifications of graduates; the need for a permanent building; and the financial requirement of $1 million annually. SFU contested each point of the rationale but was unable to overturn the decision. All planning activities were discontinued and the School dissolved. Its Director, Professor Munro, returned to SFU's Department of Economics and Commerce; in June 1979 he became SFU's Vice-President, Academic.