November 16, 1998 For Release At 6:00am

In its eighth annual ranking of Canadian universities, Maclean's Magazine has ranked UNBC 9th out of 21 universities in the Primarily Undergraduate Category. This is UNBC's first year in the ranking. Some highlights:

• UNBC's faculty are among the highest ranked in the country. For example, 92.7% of the faculty have a PhD (2nd), they ranked fourth in national awards, and they were very successful in obtaining funding for research.
• In terms of research, UNBC ranked:
  

  #1 for both the number and value of research projects supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and
  #8 for research funding from the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council.

  The research cited in Maclean's often has direct relevance on northern economic and social issues. For example, there's research on forest ecosystems, land claims, air pollution, business inventory control, communication strategies in the classroom, forest soils, the genetics of salmon, bark beetles, and the fungi that assist in tree growth.

• The UNBC Library is tops in Canada for the percentage of its budget that goes to new acquisitions - 61%. The number of library materials per student has risen dramatically in recent years as a result. In the current ranking, UNBC has 273 library holdings per student (6th); the year before, it was 155. The collection is also heavily used: it's estimated that about 40% of the books and journals are circulated in an academic year.
• In the national Reputational Survey, UNBC placed third in the Leaders of Tomorrow category. Maclean's surveyed more than 3500 high school counsellors, academic administrators, and CEOs of major corporations across Canada.
• The average entering grade is 78.36% (9th), higher than many more established universities including the University of Manitoba and the University of Calgary.
• 68% of UNBC's first-year classes have fewer than 50 students, small by BC standards. The number of small classes increases as a student progresses through a degree: at the third and fourth-year level 83.4% of UNBC's classes have fewer than 25 students.

"The ranking is a remarkable achievement for a young university in only its fifth year of operations," says UNBC President Charles Jago. "It's a credit to our faculty whoseexceptional record of scholarly achievement makes UNBC an exciting place for teaching and research. It's also a credit to UNBC's dedicated staff, to its many supporters in northern BC and beyond, to the BC Government, and especially to our pioneering students who took the risk to come to a new university and whose many contributions have made it such a great place to study and live. We will continue to build on our success."

The Macleans' University Ranking issue is one the magazine's most popular.