To Learn but Not Live Together? The Early History of the University of British Columbia’s International House

Abstract

Abstract The University of British Columbia (UBC) opened Canada’s first International House (I-House) in 1959 after a decade of activism from students and faculty. Students had demanded an I-House to help them find housing, and to ensure that “brotherhood may prevail,” as the I-House motto promised. The I-House campaign received support from community groups that raised the funds to build the UBC I-House. UBC’s administration wanted I-House as a social center that could coordinate fledgling international student services and resisted the residential I-House model. Ultimately, UBC’s administrators won out and the residential component was never built. This paper examines the conflict about building a residence to house international and domestic students together, chronicling the competing visions of international student policy and services that were circulating at one of Canada’s largest universities in the early days of the Cold War.