How did the BCcupm(s) Originate?

In December of 1967, Dr. Ralph D. James, then Head of UBC's Department of Mathematics, assembled mathematics representatives from six other British Columbia universities and colleges for the following purposes:

• To promote mutual awareness of mathematics programs in the province.
• To announce contemplated course or program changes.
• To discuss particular concerns raised by the institutions.

The minutes of that initial two-day meeting record that Eugene McDaniels (Columbia Junior College), E. D. Pepper (Notre Dame University), John Peregrym (Selkirk College), Ronald Harrop and Steve Thomson (Simon Fraser University), R. D. James and Hugh Thurston (University of British Columbia), S. A. Jennings and D. E. Kennedy (University of Victoria), and J. A. Moore and E. W. Konesky (Vancouver City College) were in attendance.  This charter group agreed to call itself the British Columbia Committee on the Undergraduate Programme in Mathematics and to reconvene in February 1968.

Early meetings of the BCcupm devoted considerable time to a detailed examination of each of the first- and second-year mathematics courses offered by member institutions.   Course content, entrance requirements, evaluation procedures, textbooks and course transfer expectations were presented and debated.  Among the benefits of these meetings were a developing spirit of co-operation in maintaining quality post-secondary mathematics instruction in British Columbia, and the establishment of further communication pathways within the mathematics community.  Meetings of the BCcupm were held at university or college sites throughout the province contributing considerably to a further sense of community.

Although the community of educators in statistics from various departments had since 1998 already been recognised through the establishment of a separate Statistics Subcommittee of the BCcupm, the BCcupm moved in 2004 to change formally its name to "The British Columbia Committee on the Undergraduate Programme in Mathematics and Statistics", the BCcupms.