For the past 50 years our community has been a fortunate beneficiary of being home to the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV).
Having a high-quality, local option for post-secondary education and training has been vital to our City and region’s long-term economic growth and prosperity. With UFV’s main campus located in the centre of our U-District neighbourhood, we’ve been able to keep bright and talented young people in our community and attract bright and talented young people to consider Abbotsford as an opportunity.
Being the cultural and economic hub of the Fraser Valley takes peoplepower, and for a half-century UFV has been producing the highly capable graduates that we need to be the kind of city we want to be in the future. It’s good to know that we can count on UFV alumni to be ready to be a part of that future.
UFV has long been an important partner for us beyond its cultural and economic impact. Together we collaborate on programs that aim to get students interested in the issues that matter in their community and pursue careers where they can make a difference.
For the past six years, the City’s partnership program with UFV, CityStudio, has provided students from a variety of academic programs with an opportunity to prototype innovative solutions to civic issues. These students provide valuable, fresh perspectives, experiment in ways City staff are not able to and develop innovative solutions to real-word problems that often defy traditional methods of providing City services.
While CityStudio focuses on innovative prototypes, UFV’s Community Health And Social Innovation (CHASI) Hub aims to turn those kinds of ideas into action, and has assisted the City with research on our Canada Day program and our Economic Development Business Retention and Attraction Strategy.
We’ve also partnered with UFV on the Civic Governance and Innovation certificate program, which is designed for those interested in local governance and those currently employed in municipal and regional government. And for those who want hands-on experience working within a municipality, we have partnered with UFV to offer co-op students with a variety of opportunities to fulfill their practicum requirements.
We are so very pleased to congratulate UFV as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. Over the years it has nurtured generations of thoughtful, motivated students who care about their community, and it has strengthened our belief that the future of Abbotsford is in good hands.
Abbotsford City Council