Geography at Simon Fraser University

Abstract

THE POST-SPUTNIK DECADE witnessed an almost frantic expansion of universities throughout the western world, and it was in September 1965 that Simon Fraser University (SFU), including the Department of Geography, opened its doors to its first students. The planning and construction of the university had proceeded quickly. The provincial government of British Columbia had established a committee, chaired by J. B. Macdonald, the president of the University of British Colum bia (UBC), and consisting largely of academics, to study provincial needs in higher education. Macdonald submitted his report in January 1963 to the minister of education. It argued that the threshold required to support an additional university within the province had been reached and that the most sensible location would be in the eastern suburbs of the Vancouver metropolitan area. Such a location, along with UBC to the west, offered university education to the area's residents within a roughly thirty-minute commuting range and was accessible to expected population increases. The government accepted the committee's recommendations and on May 9,1963, appointed Gordon M. Shrum as chancellor and authorised him to select a site and arrange for construction of the new university with all possible speed. The selection of the site involved