History of ECPS

When the Faculty of Education was established at UBC in 1956 there were no departments within the Faculty. Instead, the Faculty was organized into a series of program divisions. Across time, quasi-administrative units were formed as "departments" though they did not have this official status. Across the 1970's the number of quasi-administrative units within the faculty grew to at least 23 (although there are varying accounts of the exact number). A Faculty reorganization scheme was implemented in 1982 to form seven, formal university departments. Two of these were Counselling Psychology (CNPS) and Educational Psychology and Special Education (EPSE).

The formation of EPSE in 1982 involved the merger of a number of the previous administrative units. Initially, four distinct program areas in EPSE functioned as "departments within a department" with area coordinators forming an administrative council for the Head. These four areas were: (1) Human Learning, Development, and Instruction (HLDI); (2) Measurement, Evaluation, and Research Methodology (MERM); (3) School Psychology (SCPS); and (4) Special Education (SPED). Up until 1987, the Special Education program area continued to function as a separate department within EPSE, maintaining separate offices and secretarial services.

Starting in 1987, the EPSE department made a deliberate decision to foster development of a "truly integrated department of educational psychology and special education" (from the 1996 EPSE self-study document). This was to be accomplished by integrating and unifying programs, services, and personnel and developing a new administrative model. New faculty appointments were used strategically to foster cross-area collaboration. By hiring new faculty who could cut across at least two of the four program areas, EPSE hoped to foster greater collegiality and collaboration. According to EPSE's departmental self-study in 1996, this approach met with considerable success through the 1980's and 1990's. By 1996, the vast majority of EPSE faculty identified and/or were active within at least two of the department's programs.

CNPS became a distinct administrative unit in the Faculty of Education as early as 1968. It became a department unto itself in 1981 when the units within the Faculty were departmentalized. As a department, CNPS defined itself as the study of how individuals adjust to problematic events and accomplish life tasks within major spheres of living, such as work, education, relationships, family and recreation. Specifically, the Department has emphasized its professional role, its graduate preparation of scholars and practitioners whose work is informed by research, and the pursuit of research and development activities.

By the mid-1980's, CNPS was the flagship Canadian department for educating qualified and competent counseling professionals at both the magistral and doctoral levels. It was the largest department of its kind in Canada, and had the only magistral programs to be accredited by the Council of Accreditation for Counselling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), an affiliate of the American Counselling Association. Both the Canadian and American Psychological Associations accredit the CNPS doctoral program.

In April 1999, the former EPSE and CNPS departments were asked to merge. Since that time, the departments have been working to redefine their relationships and to become an integrated department. As we proceed in developing an integrated vision for the new department, we assert our commitment to equity, diversity and ethical practice in governance, faculty and student recruitment, models of professional training and pursuit of scholarship.

A continuing challenge facing the Department is the merger of the two original departments. Indeed, the long process of integrating EPSE into a department through the 1980's and 1990's, described earlier, is evidence for the difficulty of effecting a successful integration. At the moment, in ECPS, the legacy of the "merger" remains. In 2004-05 substantial strides have been made toward the greater integration of ECPS through the creation of new staff roles and responsibilities that serve the whole department, relocating all administrative functions centrally, and the creation of a more expanded committee structure to insure faculty participation in self governance.

A brief History of UBC