Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
The Faculty of Science is one of the three founding faculties of Simon Fraser University. The Faculty was established in September 1965, as mandated by the Universities Act, 1963. c.52 (RS 1979, c. 419). The four charter departments of the Faculty consisted of Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, and Physics. As of 2006, the Faculty has grown to eight departments and also includes Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and Statistics and Actuarial Science (the only program of its kind in western North America.)
The Dean of Science reports to the Vice-President Academic and Provost. Each department in the Faculty is headed by a Chair and the Dean is assisted by an Associate Dean. The Dean is both the chief officer and chair of faculty meetings and is responsible for ensuring that the various duties and responsibilities of the Faculty are carried out.
Each of the departments offers BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees and participates in the university's co-operative education program that allows students to combine relevant work experience with academic studies. The Faculty of Science also offers several courses that can be used by non-science students to fulfill degree requirements. In 2005 the Faculty began offering science programs at SFU's Surrey campus.
The Faculty of Science is a research-intensive faculty, traditionally accounting for half the external research support (and funding) brought to SFU. The Faculty has actively supported a high school recruitment policy through high school liaison programs established in the late 1960's and more recently, hiring a Director of Student recruitment. The Faculty of Science also plays a role in university outreach by promoting a general understanding of scientific discoveries and explaining the implications of science for setting social policy. Through the School for Continuing Studies, the faculty sponsors science seminar series that are held in the evenings at Harbour Centre. Graduate and undergraduate students from the faculty annually run summer science camps and maintain the “Science Alive!” and “Let's talk Science” programs.
SFU is one of five universities involved in research at TRIUMF, Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics located at the University of British Columbia. In addition, SFU is one of five universities that form the Western Canadian Universities Marine Biological Society (WCUMBS), a non-profit group that owns and operates the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, in Bamfield, BC.