Former UBC boss – Toop – on student ethnic diversity and enclaves
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Even though he is “genuinely excited” that UBC has so many international students, the campus is also shaped by a Metro Vancouver population that is 45 per cent born outside the country.
As a consequence, Toope, like others, has noticed increasing “self-segregation” on campus based on ethno-cultural background.
The proportion of first-year students entering UBC in 2012 who identified as Chinese was 39 per cent. The proportion who said they are white was 35 per cent. Nine per cent of those who filled out surveys said they were South Asian, five per cent were Korean, two per cent Japanese, one per cent aboriginal and seven per cent reported “other.”
Unlike the University of Toronto, where diversity is “spread out among many, many different ethnicities,” Toope says a few ethnic groups at UBC are unusually large, such as Chinese and Korean. “It is therefore easier for some groups to focus attention on themselves and for other groups to not be as welcoming.”
Source: Vancouver Sun, BY DOUGLAS TODD, VANCOUVER SUN COLUMNIST JULY 4, 2014
Tags: British Columbia, Chinese, diversity, international, segregation, South Asian, students, UBC, Vancouver
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