Corporate body

Family and Nutritional Sciences, School of

• Home Economics, Department of (1943-1951); Home Economics, School of (1951-1984)

1943-1999

Pressure to establish a Home Economics course at the University of British Columbia began as early as 1923. By the mid-1920s, the Provincial Parent-Teacher Federation mounted a campaign amongst BC women to establish a degree course at UBC. The organization initiated a fund to endow a chair, and by 1927 it had reached $11,000. The money came in small donations from across the province, and public demand for a program continued to accelerate. In response, the University instituted a Home Economics Degree Course in 1931, but deep cuts in University funding the following year resulted in the temporary suspension of the course. The Provincial Parent-Teachers Federation established a permanent committee in 1933 to oversee the use of the development fund, which continued to grow. In addition, the committee provided bursaries to eight students who had begun the UBC program to complete their education at another university. In 1943, the Senate and Board of Governors approved the re-establishment of the course at the earliest possible moment. The Parent-Teacher Federation turned over $20,000 to the University in 1945 to help finance the construction and furnishing of facilities on campus. Finally, after holding classes in the campus army huts and enduring a terrible fire in 1948, the new Home Economics Building opened in September 1949.
Dorothy Lefebvre served as the first head of the Department of Home Economics. She resigned within a few years and was replaced by Charlotte Black, who served as director until the 1960s. In 1951, the program's status changed as it became the School of Home Economics, part of the Faculty of Arts and Science. It moved to a new building near the UBC Bookstore on East Mall in 1982 and was renamed the School of Family and Nutritional Sciences in 1984. Administrative responsibility for the School was transferred to the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences in 1992, following an earlier academic review which recommended that the dietetics and nutrition programs be relocated in a science-based faculty. There was strong support for the move. There were already several close links between the School and Agricultural Sciences, particularly between the School's nutritional sciences program and the Faculty's departments of Food Science and Animal Science. By 1992 the School was offering a Dietetics program leading to a BSc (Dietet.) degree, a Family Science major leading to a BA degree, a Home Economics program leading to a BHE degree, a Nutritional Sciences major leading to a BSc degree, an MA in Family Studies, and MSc and Ph.D. degrees in Human Nutrition. The School was discontinued in 1999 -- the dietetics and nutrition programs remained within the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, while the family studies program was transferred to the School of Social Work.