QUEST FACTSQuest University Canada is Canada’s firstindependent, not-for-profit, secular university forthe liberal arts and sciences

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)ranks Quest #1 in Canada

Degree: Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BA&Sc)

Accredited by the DQAB (Province of BritishColumbia) and EQA-approved

Founded by former University of British Columbiapresident, Dr. David Strangway

Quest’s current president is Dr. David J. Helfand

Opened with inaugural class on September 1,2007

As of Fall 2013, our student population is 540

Student demographic: 53% Canadian, 33% US,14% from other countries

40 countries represented on campus

Courses scheduled on a “Block Plan” wherestudents take one course at a time for three anda half weeks

Maximum class size of 20 students and anaverage class size of 15

12:1 student-to-faculty ratio

Each student has a faculty advisor for all four years

Field work, study abroad, and internships areincluded in the curriculum

Emphasis on communication, critical thinking,personal and intellectual development, civicengagement, and employability

Location: Squamish, British Columbia (pop.17,000)

Situated on a 60-acre hilltop campus on the edgeof Garibaldi Provincial Park

Quest’s “green” campus buildings are geothermallyheated and cooled

Quest mascot is the Kermode Bear, also knownas the Spirit Bear, highly regarded in First Nationsculture

Varsity sports are men’s and women’s basketballand soccer, PACWEST Conference

Clubs & ActivitiesThere’s never a lack of excitement at Quest, giventhe wide variety of engaging out-of-class activitiesorganized by the Student Representative Council(SRC) or by the Student Affairs Office. Iron Chef cook-offs, student showcases, musical concerts, special workshops, community gardens, festivals, and weekend excursions all contribute to the vibrant community of Quest. Clubs at Quest include EcoQuest, Model UN, Adventure Club, Swing Dance Club, Chess Club, Language Club, Arts and Culture Club, the Global Issues Network, and many more.

CommunityA strong sense of community is at the heart ofQuest. With a maximum student population of800, Quest was designed to be an intimate learningexperience built around a close-knit communitythat includes all students, faculty, and staff. Queststudents are also an active part of the surroundingcommunity, volunteering for local causes, workingat various local businesses, and hosting events forSquamish residents on campus.

Squamish, BCOur 60-acre campus is located in Squamish,British Columbia, ‘The Outdoor Recreation Capitalof Canada’. The title says it all as Squamish offersworld-class hiking, biking, climbing, skiing,kayaking, kiteboarding, and windsurfing. Surroundedby coastal mountains, ocean inlets, and rivers,Squamish promotes a healthy, westcoast lifestyle.Squamish is only 30 minutes south ofWhistler/Blackcomb Ski Resort, 45 minutes northof the cosmopolitan city of Vancouver, and 4hours north of Seattle, Washington.

ResidenceQuest’s fully residential campus creates anall-encompassing living and learning environmentwhere curricular and co-curricular activities areseamlessly integrated. Students reside on campusfor all four years. The residences, with balconiesoverlooking the Tantalus Mountain Range,highlight the beauty of their natural surroundings.Elected student “Floor Reps” coordinate activitieson themed floors, provide support for all students,and foster an atmosphere that promotes personalgrowth and academic success.

Arts & CulturePassion for the arts runs high at Quest, wheremany of our students are talented musicians,filmmakers, actors, and painters. Our choir meetsweekly to sing everything from Renaissancepolyphony to the Beatles. Open mic nights areheld regularly to showcase our singer-songwriters,instrumentalists, and bands. Students organizeInternational Film Festivals, various theatricalperformances throughout the year, and a year-endMusic Festival on campus. In addition to on-campusevents, students frequent cultural and musicalevents in Squamish, Whistler, and Vancouver.

InternationalQuest is an international community, reflecting theglobalization of the new century. Students andfaculty, from all corners of the world, bring invaluableperspectives to our North American classroomswhich enhance cross-cultural understanding.Through partnerships with other universities,we offer exchange programs in a dozen countries,providing the opportunity for our students to live,study, and work abroad. We are a founding memberof the UN Academic Impact and the first universityto host Global Issues Network conferences.

FacultyAt Quest, we don’t call our faculty ‘professors’, we callthem ‘tutors’, because their role is not to ‘profess’ butrather to work individually with each student to fosterpersonal and intellectual growth. Our faculty membersare models of the kind of people we hope tograduate: bright, relentlessly curious, and cross-culturallyfluent. Committed teachers, scholars, and mentors whohave come from universities around the world, our facultypride themselves on generating new ideas throughwriting and research and in daily interactions that breakdown disciplinary boundaries to foster creativity.

AthleticsQuest believes outdoor recreation and competitivesports encourage not only the mastery of skills, buthelp to cultivate teamwork, achievement, leadership,commitment, determination, and self-development. TheUniversity’s state-of-the-art athletics and recreationcentre offers a gymnasium, squash courts, weightrooms, an indoor rock climbing wall, a FIFA 2-starall-year playing field, tennis courts, and outdoorbasketball courts. Quest offers a complete recreationand athletics program, including varsity-level men’s andwomen’s basketball and soccer within the PACWESTConference.

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

3200 University BoulevardSquamish, BC

Canada V8B 0N8

www.questu.ca

Quest University Canada, an independent, not-for-profit, Liberal Arts and Sciences Universityfor undergraduates, has a simple philosophy: Education, in its truest sense, comes not fromknowing the right answers, but in learning how to ask insightful questions.

Quest University Canada was designed for intellectually curious, global thinkers.

Quest provides a four year undergraduate educational experience that produces informed andengaged leaders for the twenty-first century: graduates who are international in outlook, skilled incommunication, inherently trans-disciplinary in their approach to problems, technologically literate,instinctively collaborative, cross-culturally fluent, and engaged in their local and global communities.All students graduating from Quest will earn a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences (BA&Sc) degree. Students learn essential and transferable skills that not only prepare them for future academic pursuits but also form the foundation of their evolving careers. Our unique curriculum includes:

THE BLOCK PLANQuest is the first university in Canada to operate on the “BlockPlan.” Students take only one course at a time, three hourseach day, over a three-and-a-half week period, successfullycompleting four courses a term. This innovative system allowsstudents to immerse themselves in each topic, producing anengaged learning environment that deepens understanding andretention.

CLASSROOMS, NOT LECTURE HALLS At Quest, all classes are held in seminar rooms designed to seatno more than 20 students and a faculty tutor. Students are notnumbers, they are names and faces—exceptional individualswith valuable insights. Classroom discussions are vibrant andengaging, where questions are welcomed and opinions mustbe defended.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNINGOur curriculum emphasizes the importance of experientiallearning beyond the four walls of the classroom. Field courses,study-abroad opportunities, volunteer work, internships, andwork experience allow students to relate their education to the“real world”, to make connections with professionals in theirareas of interest, and to apply the knowledge and skills theyhave gained at Quest. All students are required to take a minimumone block of Experiential Learning in order to graduate.

THE FOUNDATION PROGRAM Years 1 & 2Today’s world demands leaders unconstrained by disciplinaryboundaries. With this in mind, all students spend their first twoyears at Quest taking the Foundation Program, which is comprisedof 16 courses in the Arts and Humanities (including a second language), Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Mathematics. The Foundation Program provides students with a background in a variety of disciplines where they learn to think like a philosopher one month, an economist the next, and an astrophysicist the month after that. Most importantly, the Foundation Program empowers students to identify the links between these different disciplines, preparing them to develop creative and comprehensive solutions to the world’s great challenges.

THE QUESTION BLOCK As students near the end of the Foundation Program, all musttake a block dedicated to the development of their ‘Question’.At Quest, we do not have one-word, pre-programmed majors.Instead, we require all students to formulate their own majors inthe form of personalized Questions guided by their academicpassions, outside interests, and career goals. Quest undergraduateseach select a faculty mentor to help develop their Questions.Faculty mentors assist students in selecting upper-year coursesand experiential learning opportunities that allow for a deepand meaningful exploration of their Question in the ConcentrationProgram.

THE CONCENTRATION PROGRAM Years 3 & 4The Concentration Program is where students havethe freedom to capitalize on their curiosity and topursue their passions. Once students select theirQuestion, they design a Course Plan that includesa minimum of six upper-level blocks relevant to theirQuestion. In addition, students must take a minimumof three elective blocks that might provide interestingperspectives on their topic but may not be directlyrelated to it. Students must also select from one tofour blocks of Experiential Learning that provide anopportunity for hands-on experiences outside ofthe classroom, be it with an NGO, a business, a government organization, or some other entity.

Before graduating, students submit a Keystone Project.This project is a serious and carefully plannedrepresentation of a student’s progress on his or herQuestion. Keystone Projects may take many forms: adocumentary film, a research paper presented at apublic symposium, the results of lab research, or awork of creative writing, just to name a few.

EXAMPLE “MAJORS” AT QUEST

ADMISSIONS While academic performance is an important criterion foradmission, we want to know more about you than just yourgrades. Have you traveled? Volunteered in your community?Do you write creatively? Play a sport or instrument? What areyour passions? What do you want to do in the world?

Application Requirements• FREE online application applynow.questu.ca• Most recent high school transcript• 300-word essay from a choice of five topics• Original piece of work that illustrates your passions and talents• Interview with an Admissions Counsellor

Important Fall Term Deadlines• December 1st Early Action Deadline• March 1st Recommended Application Deadline • March 1st Scholarship Deadline

After these deadlines, Admissions applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until the class is full.

COST OF ATTENDANCE Quest University Canada is a not-for-profit institution andreceives no funding from any level of government. All students,regardless of nationality, pay the same tuition fees and haveequal opportunity to apply for Merit-based Awards/Scholarshipsand Need-based Awards/Bursaries. Quest is committed tohelping make its program affordable and accessible to allqualified students.

2014–2015 Tuition: $30,000/year Room and Board: Approximately $10,000/year

SCHOLARSHIPSApplication Deadline – March 1st

DAVID STRANGWAY AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCEFull Tuition – six offered each year

QUEST UNIVERSITY CANADA SCHOLARSHIPS$2,000–$24,000/year

NEED-BASED AWARDS/BURSARIES Students applying for Need-based Awards/Bursaries are alsoexpected to take advantage of government loan programs.

For more information about applying, or to visit QuestUniversity Canada, please contact the Admissions Officetoll-free at 1.888.QUEST.08 or by email at admissions@questu.ca.

I realized that, to succeed in today’s world, a broader base of interdisciplinaryknowledge would be more useful than specializing right away. I believe Questexposed me to many different disciplines and perspectives, and allowed me toexplore creative, entrepreneurial opportunities in many different fields.Mawuena Mallett (Quest Graduate, Class of 2011)

What is need?How do we keep imagination alive?How can I create a social movement that will bringabout effective and lasting change?How do environmental factors affect humanvulnerability to disease and illness?What is a just foreign policy?How does story shape human experience?What are the links between economics, a democracy andcorruption?

ALLISON’S QUESTION: What are the social obstructions topublic health delivery in developing nations?

Course Plan

Electives

Experiential Learning

I undertook a comparative health internship through Viva!Nicaragua. I spent one month in Costa Rica and then onemonth in Nicaragua, in rural and urban settings, seeing howthe different levels of development, socioeconomicstratification, culture, and history have affected the provisionof public health and the spread of disease within these twocountries.

Keystone ProjectMy research project charted an outbreak of hemorrhagicfever in the Bolivian Amazon. This project examined both thelocal and international responses to the outbreak.

Potential Career PathAttend graduate school (either a Masters in Public Health ora Masters of Science in Epidemiology), work with internationalNGOs such as the UN or WHO, or with local NGOs indeveloping countries as a social epidemiologist.

Exploring the Ecological Self

Development Economics Social Sciences: Philosophy and Method

The Practice of Statistics

Environmental Changes & Human Health

Modeling Our World with Mathematics

HIV/AIDS

Philosophy of Science

Organic Chemistry 1 Organic Chemistry 2

Experiential Learning

•••

•

•••

HumanitiesChoose two of:· Fate & Virtue

· Identity & Perspectives· Reason & Freedom

Choose one of:· Dimensions of Music

· World Religions

Language

Cornerstone

Rhetoric

Earth, Oceans,Space

Energy & Matter Mathematics

What is Life?

Evolution

Biodiversity ofBritish Columbia

Social SciencesChoose three of:

· Democracy & Justice· Global Perspectives· Political Economy

· Self, Culture & Society

Your Question