Local News | Over the Edge Feb, 07, 1996 page 3
First Time University Enrollments Rise in Northern BC

By Karin Fennell

The University of Northern BC is seeing a steady rise in enrollment of first time students. These are students who could
be either directly from high school or adults who have never attended a college or university since graduating from high
school.

In addition, the number of northern residents attending diaiversity has increased. First-time student enrollment from
the north has jumped to 612 first-time students from a previous 250 students in 1994.

In the Prince George School district #57 alone there has been an increase of 300 students enrolling in university compared
to 80 in 1993 and 129 students in 1994.

60% of students from the north are choosing UNBC compared to 50% going to UBC alone prior to the opening of the
University. Now less than 20% of northern students go to UBC. This downward trend in enrollment of Northern students
is also clearly evident at SFU and UVic. In addition, 73% of first-time university students now enroll at UNBC.

“As expected, there was a big jump in university enrollment when UNBC opened for full operations last year,” says
UNBC President Charles Jago. “We’re finding that the trend is continuing and strengthening. We are attracting more
students to the University, and it’s heartening to everyone at UNBC to see that so many northerners recognize UNBC as
‘their’ university.”

(note: the above statistics were taken from the UNBC Institutional Research office report on Northern BC Students
attending university for the first time)

Fire! Fire! Fire...or was it? ~T

Since the beginning of _ being cleared to system monitors all but on this day, the completely evacuated
this semester, there avoid damage tothe fire hydrants and hydrant was opened to immediately. This
have been two fire pipe when one sounds if one of clear the water line theory of evacuation

alarms at the
University but not one
fire. So why the false
alarms? The cause of
the first alarm was the
system itself. U.N.B.C.
uses a fully
incorporated alarm
system, the first of its
kind; and as with all
new things, there are
always bugs to work
out. So we have one
less bug in the system;
and for the safety and
convenience of the
students and faculty,
hopefully the last. But
that was not the last of
the fire alarms. Less
than one week later,
the alarms sounded
once again for quite
another reason. A
frozen water line was

necessary step was
‘missed, and again
the technologically
advanced system
came into play. Asa
safety measure, the

them is opened.
Since they are
usually only opened
to fight a fire, this
seems a reasonable
safety precaution;

| ag en) fa EP epee ee
aI

5A replica of the
“Residence 1 building is
_tested for fire safe

i pes a ed cal eal Tt a ee eee eet

without first bypassing
the monitoring system
and, not failing to work,
the alarm was sounded.
So besides why the
alarms were going off,
many people seemed
curious about the alarms
themselves. There are
two levels that the
alarms sound at:
warning and alert. The
warning is an
interrupted ringing,
which means that there
is fire on campus but not
in that building and
evacuation is not
necessary, although
could still be
recommended. The.
second, a steady ringing,
means that the fire is

= located in the building

and should be

did not become a
reality during the two
fire alarms this
semester as people
remained inside, not
daring to brave the
weather, even with the
steady alarm. Since
the alarms were false,
this may seem
justified as conditions
were worse outside
than they were inside;
but at the time of the
alarms, there was no
guarantee. People did
not seem to
understand the
seriousness had the
alarms been real.
Overall, although the
system may have its
problems, its biggest
one seems to be not
getting its point
across.