The Anti-Apartheid Network (AAN) ran from 1985 to 1990 as an umbrella organization for British Columbian organizations addressing issues in Southern Africa to coordinate anti-apartheid action. Apartheid in South Africa and South West Africa (the latter now Namibia) was an institutionalized system of racial segregation imposed from 1948 to 1990s by a minority white population to execute political, social, and economic domination over the majority non-white population. It created a racial hierarchy which determined one’s access to public facilities, events, housing, and employment opportunities. The ruling National Party’s violent enforcement of apartheid caused thousands of deaths and detentions, as well as over three million forced evictions. Significant internal resistance from political movements African National Congress (ANC) and Pan African Congress (PAC), alongside extensive international condemnation and sanctions, eventually led to negotiations abolishing apartheid.

According to its by-laws, AAN’s purposes included: working for an end to the apartheid system in South Africa; supporting sanctions against South Africa, including the severing of diplomatic relations between Canada and South Africa; supporting the peoples of Southern Africa in their struggles against apartheid and racial oppression; organizing non-partisan activities to support the aforementioned purposes; and providing a communication network for anti-apartheid activities in B.C.

According to AAN’s by-laws, its member organizations fell into the following categories: unions, including union federations, individual unions, and union locals; religious organizations, including provincial “umbrella groups,” social concerns organizations within churches, and individual churches; officially registered international development NGO’s; and community organizations, such as registered political parties, women’s organizations, student groups registered with their university, professional organizations, ethnic and cultural groups, and solidarity groups. Member organizations included the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, B.C. (IDAFSA), the International Development Education Resources Association (IDERA), the New Democratic Party Vancouver Point Grey and Vancouver South Constituencies, and OXFAM, among others. Individuals could also become members if they had a valid reason for not representing an organization and agreed to attend regular meetings.

AAN was run by a committee known first as the Steering Committee, then as the Executive Committee. This committee consisted of the following seven offices elected at annual meetings: Chairperson, Co-Chairperson, Treasurer, Secretary, Communications Director, Membership Secretary, and one to three Members-At-Large. The committee was authorized to act on behalf of AAN membership between meetings, with all decisions subject to review at regular meetings held once a month.

AAN’s central focuses included educational activities and workshops, as well as campaigns and actions aimed at keeping the anti-apartheid movement in the public eye. It curated and promoted materials for K-12 educators, coordinated and participated in various conferences and workshops aimed at anti-apartheid activists and teachers, and organized several boycotts and protest campaigns. The AAN’s anti-apartheid actions usually addressed South Africa, but some also targeted other Southern African countries including Mozambique and Namibia.

The Skeena Collieries, Limited, Company issued prospectuses and underwriting agreements to become incorporated as a company in 1911. It aimed to obtain coal mining licenses over an area of 48,000 acres in British Columbia’s Skeena River District from the London & Vancouver Syndicate, Ltd., of London.

This record is for testing purposes and will be removed when testing is complete.

The Greater Vancouver Visitors and Convention Bureau was founded in 1922. Known originally as the Greater Vancouver Publicity Association, its activities were primarily advertising in the Western United States, the Canadian Prairies and Eastern Canada, publicizing the city through news releases and entertaining convention delegates and news media. In 1936 the name was changed to the Greater Vancouver Tourist Association. During the late 1930s, the Vancouver Auto Club amalgamated with the Tourist Association. The two organizations operated jointly until 1951. In 1962 the name of the Association was changed to the Greater Vancouver Visitors and Convention Bureau.

The 1908 University Act articulates the duties of the Chancellor as a member of the Board of Governors and a member of the Senate. Over the years, the official functions of the Chancellor have also evolved to include the duty of conferring all degrees granted by the University, serving as chair of Convocation, and undertaking the unofficial honour of representing the University on social and ceremonial occasions. The Chancellor is elected by members of the Convocation to hold the office for a three-year term and may be re-elected but may not hold office for more than six consecutive years. In addition, the Chancellor serves as the ceremonial head of the University. Since 1912, the Chancellors of UBC have been Francis Lovett Carter-Cotton (1912-18), Robert E. McKechnie (1918-44), Eric W. Hamber (1944-51), Sherwood Lett (1951-57), Albert E. Grauer (1957-61), Phyllis Ross (1961-66), John M. Buchanan (1966-69), Allan M. McGavin (1969-72), Nathan T. Nemetz (1971-75), Donovan F. Miller (1975-78), John V. Clyne (1978-84), W. Robert Wyman (1984- 87), Leslie R. Peterson (1987-93), Robert H. Lee (1993-96), William Sauder (1996-2002), Allan McEachern (2002-07), Sarah Morgan-Silvester (2008-2014), Lindsay Gordon (2014-2020), Steven Lewis Point (2020-2024) and Judy Rogers 2024-present.

Edwin G. "Ted" Pulleyblank was a Canadian sinologist and professor at UBC’s Department of Asian Studies, known particularly for his work on the history of the Chinese T’ang Dynasty and on the historical phonology of the Chinese language. He was born in 1922 in Calgary, Alberta. A bright student, he taught himself Ancient Greek while still in high school. He attended the University of Alberta from 1939 to 1942, majoring in Latin and Greek while also tutoring other students in math and physics.

After graduation, his aptitude for both mathematics and languages led one of Pulleyblank's professors to recommend him to the “Examination Unit”, Canada’s civilian code-breaking office during World War II. In 1943 Pulleyblank was sent to England to train with the British Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park. He returned to the Examination Unit in Ottawa later that year, where he joined the Japanese Diplomatic Section, and began studying Chinese at Carleton University. He married Winona Relyea in 1946.

In 1946, Pulleyblank received a Chinese government scholarship to study Chinese at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London. In 1948, the School made Pulleyblank a lecturer in Classical Chinese, even though he later claimed that his command of Japanese at that time was still better than his Chinese. He taught while pursuing doctoral studies at the University of London, and received his Ph.D. in 1951 for a dissertation entitled "The Background and Early Life of An Lu-shan" – published by Oxford University Press in 1955 as The Background of the Rebellion of An Lu-shan. He spent a year doing further research in Japan, and also did additional studies in Chinese at Cambridge, receiving an M.A. in 1953. That year he was hired as Chair of the Chinese programme at Cambridge, where he remained for 13 years.

As Pulleyblank and his wife wanted to return with their family to Canada, in 1966 he left Cambridge to join the Asian Studies department at UBC, where he remained until his retirement in 1987. He served as department head from 1968 to 1975, succeeding William L. Holland. During his time at UBC Pulleyblank continued his research in Chinese linguistics and Chinese history, publishing extensively in both fields. He returned as acting department head in 1985-86, and hosted the 1987 International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics at UBC. After his retirement he continued with a number of research projects. Pulleyblank’s first wife Winona had died in 1976, and he married his second wife Pan Yihong in 2002. Pulleyblank was still regularly publishing papers and attending conferences until 2008, when Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases made that impossible. He died in 2013.

Anne Brearley Piternick was born on October 13th, 1926, in the town of Blackburn in Lancashire County, England. Anne graduated from Manchester University in 1948 with an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature. In exchange for free tuition, Anne completed a one-year Teacher’s Diploma following graduation and worked as a teacher for two years. She then worked as an Information Officer for the Manchester-based textile company, Tootal Broadhurst Lee. During this time, Anne took afternoon courses in librarianship and successfully became an Associate of the Library Association (the equivalent of accreditation with the American Library Association today).

In the spring of 1956, Anne accepted a position at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in the library’s Reference Department and immigrated to Canada. Neil Brearley, a colleague from Tootal Broadhurst Lee, joined Anne at UBC shortly after and the two married in December 1956. After working the Metallurgy and Engineering departments as an Information Officer and then as Head of the Social Sciences Division at Main Library, Anne was hired as a full-time Assistant Professor at UBC’s School of Librarianship (currently known as the School of Information or iSchool) in 1966. She became a full Professor in 1978. Anne met fellow iSchool faculty member George Piternick, whom she would marry in 1971 following the end of her first marriage. They remained together until George’s passing in March 1999.

At the iSchool, Anne taught a variety of courses related to special libraries, indexes and indexing, and, as technology advanced, electronic information services and information retrieval systems. Anne authored or co-authored dozens of articles and reports with research interests relating to librarianship in the sciences, bibliographic control, and indexing. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Anne worked to legitimize and bolster the field of Information Science and successfully chaired a committee to make professional studies — such as Information Science — eligible for funding by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC). In 1985, Anne became the first woman in UBC’s history to serve in the Dean’s Office, where she was an Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts. Anne retired in 1991 but stayed connected to UBC as an executive member of the Association of Professors Emeriti as well as the President’s Advisory Committee on Campus Enhancement (PACCE).
Anne passed away on January 20, 2023.

Leah Edelstein-Keshet was born in Israel in 1953, and earned both her Bachelor and Master of Science at Dalhousie University. She completed her PhD in 1982 at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, specializing in applied mathematics. Edelstein-Keshet was employed as a visiting professor at Brown University and Duke University before being hired as an associate professor in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Mathematics in 1989. Her research began in mathematic biology, and evolved to include cell biology and biophysics.

Edelstein-Keshet has published numerous articles and written several books, including Mathematical Models in Biology, an influential text for the field of mathematical biology. She has also won various awards: the Canadian Mathematical Society’s Krieger-Nelson Prize, the Arthur Winfree Research Prize of the Society for Mathematical Biology, the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society Research Award, and the John von Neumann Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). From 1995 to 1997, she served as the Society for Mathematical Biology’s first female President; in 2017, the Society created the Leah Edelstein-Keshet Prize to recognize notable contributions by women to the field of mathematical biology. Edelstein-Keshet retired in 2023 after 34 years as a professor at UBC.