Orientation – Faculty

General Information

The UBC Welcome Guide and Online Orientation provide helpful orientation information for new faculty and staff. It provides information on topics such as immigration, relocation, accommodation, childcare, important dates, and more.

In-person orientation sessions are available on campus on a quarterly basis. New faculty and staff from all sites are encouraged to attend.

Please review UBC Policies including the UBC Respectful Environment Policy.

The UBC Faculty & Administrative Directory provides contact information for all UBC faculty and staff.

The Department Directory provides detailed contact information for department faculty and staff.  Please contact Donna Bradley if need to have your information updated.

An inter-hospital shuttle offers free transportation between BC Children's/Women's Hospitals, Vancouver General Hospital, BC Cancer Agency, and St. Paul's Hospital. There is another shuttle that runs between VGH and UBC Hospital. This shuttle will also accept mail to courier between sites. Maps of each hospital site can be found at the following: BC Women's, VGH, St. Paul's.

The UBC Card can be used as your official UBC ID, library card, and to access facilities including the gym and aquatic centre. You can apply for your UBC Card on campus or online. If you choose not to obtain a UBC Card, you may obtain a UBC Library Card to borrow materials and to use online databases and services. UBC employees are also entitled to various perks including attraction and fitness discounts.

Faculty-Staff Housing & Relocation Services can provide information on the Faculty-Staff Restricted Rental Housing Program, Faculty Down Payment Assistance and Mortgage Assistance Programs, Faculty Home Ownership Program, special purchase incentives from third-party developers, and resources for finding off-campus rentals or for-purchase housing.

The MOST Program offers professional development workshops to support career and personal development. The workshops are open to the community, with discounts available for faculty and staff.

UBC Coaching offers free one-on-one professional coaching services to faculty and staff. Coaching is a series of confidential meetings focused on achieving the client's goal which could include any of: solving a program, developing performance, strategic planning, creating change, etc.

New to Vancouver/Canada

If you are new to Vancouver and Canada, the Before You Arrive site provides information on work permits, benefits, income tax, medical coverage, spousal employment, housing assistance, childcare, banking and driving.

The UBC Work-Life Relocation Centre offers assistance to faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and staff who are relocating to join UBC. They offer advice on housing, relocation, family care, health care, etc.

Faculty-Staff Housing & Relocation Services can provide information on the Faculty-Staff Restricted Rental Housing Program, Faculty Down Payment Assistance and Mortgage Assistance Programs, Faculty Home Ownership Program, special purchase incentives from third-party developers, and resources for finding off-campus rentals or for-purchase housing.

The Medical Services Plan (MSP) is the Provincial Government's medical insurance plan. It pays for medically required services of physicians and surgeons. In some cases, UBC administers the payment of staff and faculty premiums to the Provincial Government.

New or returning BC residents must complete a waiting period before they are eligible for MSP. The waiting period consists of the balance of the month of arrival, plus two months. New residents coming from other parts of Canada should maintain coverage with their formal provincial medical plan during this waiting period. New or returning residents from outside Canada should arrange for private coverage during the waiting period for MSP. Private coverage can be purchased through David Cummings Insurance Services.

Foreign academics who are visitors to Canada and are issued a Visitor Permit rather than a Work Permit are not considered residents of BC. These individuals should arrange for medical insurance coverage from the current insurance carrier or a private carrier such as David Cumming Insurance Services.

If you are accompanied by your spouse (including common-law partner) and provided your work permit is valid for at least six months, s/he may be eligible to apply for a spousal work permit. Please see the Citizenship & Immigration Canada website for more information.

If you will be paid via UBC Payroll, you must apply for a Social Insurance Number, in person at a Service Canada Office. The SIN is a 9-digit number used in administration of various Canadian government programs.

While at UBC, any earnings are considered Canadian income, unless otherwise indicated by the Canada Revenue Agency in writing prior to your arrival. Please note that by law, deductions are taken from your salary for Canada Income Tax, Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Employment Insurance (EI). If you receive fellowship earnings, CPP and EI will not be deducted. In the spring of every year, you will receive T4 and/or T4A slips from Payroll, which will be used to file your tax return. You must ensure that your forwarding address is up to date in the event you leave UBC prior to this time. Please contact a financial advisor or the Canada Revenue Agency for tax and financial information.

New Employees

The Campus-Wide Login (CWL) system provides access to many of the University’s online systems including Faculty & Staff Self-Service (to view pay stubs and employment info). Donna Bradley, the HR Manager, will provide you with your employee ID and CWL signup PIN, which you can use to create your CWL.

Faculty & Staff Self-Service is a portal where employees can view and update personal information, view employment information, review pay stubs, and download an electronic T4. This is also where UBC employees can apply for UBC jobs as an internal applicant.

Salaries are paid twice monthly (15th and the last day of the month). It is mandatory to have direct deposit at UBC. Sometimes there is a delay for the first pay cheque, and it may need to be picked up in person on campus. Pay stubs and T4 slips can be found on Faculty & Staff Self-Service.

Faculty and staff are entitled to various leaves including vacation, sick, medical/dental, personal, maternity/paternity/parental, etc. depending on the employee group. Please see the UBC Leaves site and select your employee group. Please contact Donna Bradley for questions about leave entitlements.

UBC offers wide-ranging benefits that vary by employee group. Benefits for specific employee groups can be found on the UBC Benefits site. The appropriate employee benefits enrolment forms can be found here - please use the enrollment code found in your offer letter.

The Department Ergonomics Representative is available to advise on computer workstation set-up, signs and symptoms of ergonomic injuries and control strategies to reduce or prevent symptoms. Contact Donna Bradley if you would like assistance.

From the UBC HR website, the purpose of performance development & review is “to enrich the existing job, expand an employee’s capabilities within the organization, help foster the working relationship between supervisors and employees, provides an opportunity to clearly identify performance expectations, as well as improve job satisfaction.” It is strongly recommended that performance reviews take place on an annual basis, providing an opportunity to identify areas of strength and areas for improvement and to set goals for the coming year. Please contact Donna Bradley for more information.

UBC employees are required to complete online training for the Prevention of Bullying & Harassment in the Workplace upon starting employment. Please take 10-15 minutes to complete this training and provide Donna Bradley with the completion certificate.

If you are leaving your position, please inform your manager and Donna Bradley as soon as possible, as it takes several weeks to process a resignation or transfer.

Research Staff Training

Lab safety training is offered free of charge to UBC faculty, staff, and students. Courses include Laboratory Biological Safety, Laboratory Chemical Safety, etc. Please contact Larisse Melo, Interim Research Program Manager, if you need assistance in determining appropriate training.

The Occupational & Preventive Health Program is a comprehensive in-house program that seeks to protect the health and well-being of UBC employees. This program offers services such as vaccinations, health screenings, lab tests and consultations for other occupational health concerns. These services are offered free of charge to UBC employees and are confidential. Anyone whose work involves exposure to animal species, human blood, body fluid, tissue or cell lines, human feces, urine, infectious biological agents and/or work in a hospital facility should enroll in this program.

Animal care training courses are offered to all employees who work with animals in teaching and research at UBC. The Experimental Animal User Training Program is required and is free of charge.

All personnel who will have contact with human research participants are required to complete the Introductory Tutorial for the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans.

UBC employees working at PHSA sites must complete mandatory privacy education through the online Privacy and Confidentiality course available through the PHSA Learning Hub.

Academic Faculty

The UBC Faculty Association Collective Agreement provides the terms and conditions of appointment for faculty members, as governed by UBC Policies and the agreement with the Faculty Association.

Research Orientation Day is held annually for new faculty members and/or researchers. Discussion topics include grant facilitation, risk management and liability, research services, funding, Tri-council awards, research ethics, and compliance, internal review and accounting procedures.

New Faculty Luncheons are intended to be informal small group meetings that provides new and junior faculty members the opportunity to meet the VP Research & International and discuss research matters over lunch.

To apply for hospital privileges, please contact the following individual for each site:

Medical practitioners in BC are required to enroll with the Medical Services Plan (MSP) to obtain an MSP billing number. Each practitioner is assigned a unique billing number consisting of two numbers: a practitioner number (identifies practitioner providing services) and a payment number (identifies the person or group to which payment is to be made). Once your CPSBC license is approved, please apply for this billing number. If you need to assign your billing number to a hospital, UBC or clinic, please see information here.

Faculty Association members are eligible for reimbursement from the Professional Development Reimbursement Fund for expenses related to professional development to a total of $1100 per year, plus borrow ahead amounts for up to five years.

Reappointment Meetings

You are expected to meeting with your Division Head each year to review your progress and receive advice on your career.  These are normally scheduled around spring each year.  You will be contacted by your Division Admin person to set these up and they will provide the documents you need to complete on advance of the meeting.

If you have hospital privileges you will also have to take part in a separate reappointment meeting with the Site Head at the site where you have privileges.  This is normally around the same time as the UBC meetings and will be set up by the Site Administrators.  They will also send you the paperwork that will need to be completed.

UBC Faculty Dues

Each year the Department requests that all Faculty members pay UBC Faculty Dues. These funds to towards supporting three major events sponsored by the department including Resident’s Day, Academic Day, and the Season Celebration.   The current fees are as follows:

Vancouver and Fraser Faculty - $375
All other Faculty - $75
Scientists - $75

These dues are not to be confused with Hospital dues.  Hospital dues are paid to the appropriate hospitals to support different initiatives.

For further information on UBC Faculty Dues please contact Andi Martin. For further information on Hospital Dues please contact your Site Head.

Promotion & Tenure

The Department Appointments, Reappointments, Promotion, and Tenure Committee is responsible for reviewing and recommending both clinical and academic appointments. It is chaired by the Department Head and is comprised of all academic faculty at the rank of Associate Professor or higher and several clinical faculty representatives.

Detailed information on the promotion & tenure processes can be found on MedNet. Please consult your offer letter for your promotion & tenure schedule or contact Donna Bradley for assistance.

Education Database

As a Faculty member you are not eligible to be compensated for your teaching contributions and your committee attendance as this is part of your academic appointment.  Although you are not eligible for compensation we want to track your contributions so that this record can be used for reappointment and promotion.

Undergraduate Teaching

The Teaching Tracking and Payment System (TTPS) is a new, province-wide system, which the Faculty of Medicine will use to document the teaching contributions of Clinical Faculty who teach in the MD Undergraduate Program (MDUP). Currently full time faculty are not being input into this system. In order to track your teaching we use the Departmental Education Database.

Undergraduate teaching scheduled is entered by the Departmental Undergraduate Staff.  If the schedules are not updated correctly then the teaching and payments will not be correct.  So it is important that if you are subbing in or someone is subbing in for you that you let the office know. Please contact Kathryn Tullis in the OBGYN Undergraduate Office or call 604 875 2424 Ext 6809.

Postgraduate Teaching

This teaching is tracked through our Departmental Education Database.  You can have your Administrator sign in as you to input both your teaching and committee attendance or you can do this yourself.  Here is a link to the database.  You should receive login details at the time of your initial appointment but if you do not have these please contact the Administrative Assistant, Brian Nelson or call 604 806 9066.

If you have any issues with your Residency teaching contact Scott Lewis.

If you have issues with Fellowship or Advanced Training please contact the relevant Program Assistant.

Committee Commitments

These should also be tracked by yourself or your Administrator in the Education Database.

CV Database

The Department has developed a CV database so that you can maintain your details there and pull reports in the UBC CV Format and also the Annual Activity Format.

If you do utilise the database please ensure that the information is up to date.  You're divisional admin support will be able to help you with that by pulling your current CV for you to review.

If you do not yet use the database you can provide an electronic copy of your CV to your divisional admin support they will be able to create your CV in the database.

The login please go to this link and you can use for the Education Database can be used for the CV Database.

Rounds

The Department holds multi-disciplinary rounds that can be attended in person, at one of our main sites or from home.  You will find further information on the topics, dates and how to attend in either person or remotely here. There is a quick link on the front page of our website at the right hand side.

We also record most rounds and they can be viewed at a later date – it is called Video on Demand.  To login click here.  You will need a password to access these and that is included in your welcome email.

News Stories

We want to promote your successes with the Department and the wider community. If you have a news story you would like to share with us that we can include on the front page of our website please click here.  There is also a quick link on the front page of our website at the right hand side.

Departmental Guidelines

The Department has developed guidelines on a number of matters and have archived them here for your convenience.  Please visit this link for guidelines on a variety of topics including faculty hiring, volunteers, locums and faculty dues.

Bullying and Harassment Course

At UBC, we strive to provide a safe, respectful and productive work environment for our faculty, staff and student employees. The Respectful Environment Statement sets out the expectations of everyone who is a member of the UBC community in this regard.

As part of this on boarding you are required to complete an online bully & harassment course. It is quite short but this is required of everyone who has an appointment at UBC.

Please see our Departmental guidelines on Bullying and Harassment here.

For more information on UBC Policy and the definitions of bullying and harassment click here.

Privacy and Information Security

Information sharing is so common today that it is understandable for people to become complacent about privacy and information security. Yet, everyone has the right to expect their personal information to remain safe and secure.

At UBC, we are responsible for substantial amounts of personal information about students, faculty, staff, alumni, and donors. Protecting this information is everyone's responsibility.

By taking the first simple steps to stay secure, you can make a big impact on privacy and information security, both at home and at UBC.

Privacy and Information Security – Fundamentals training is now a mandatory requirement for faculty, staff, researchers, student employees and contractors who use UBC Electronic Information and Systems. Visit our Training page for more information.

Employment Equity

UBC is committed to fairness in employment opportunity. Accordingly, UBC initiated an Employment Equity program based on guidelines established by the federal government. UBC’s Employment Equity measures include the removal of barriers to selection, promotion and training of members of the designated groups.

UBC’s Policy on Employment Equity was approved by the Board of Governors in November 1990 and upholds the principles of individual merit and achievement to ensure that selection, training, and promotion decisions are based on how well an individual’s skills, knowledge and experience match specific job performance criteria.

Employment Equity does not encourage or require hiring according to quotas or hiring unqualified or less well-qualified applicants. Instead, it works to increase the range of applicants to reflect all those — including women, Aboriginal people, visible minorities and persons with disabilities — who are qualified candidates. Thus, it helps identify and remove barriers that prevent the full participation of members of designated groups in the workforce.

One45

For those of you unfamiliar, One45 is UBC Faculty of Medicine’s Evaluation and Trainee Rotation Placement Management System.

If you wish a login for One45 please contact the Program Assistant for the relevant program.

Teachers who are going for promotion, re-appointment, tenure or awards and would like to ensure that they are assessed, should self identify by filling out the assessment request formprior to the start of the term or educational activity that they are teaching in.

Reports will be made available to faculty electronically via one45 usually twice a year, provided that they have been assessed by 5 or more learners. Depending on the program year, reporting will occur either after each term, or half way through the academic year and at the end of the academic year.

Aside from the regular feedback that teachers will receive bi-annually, more extensive historical report requests can be submitted by filling out the report request form. These are for teachers who are going for promotion, re-appointment, tenure or awards and require a multiple year history of their assessments by students.

Department Contacts

To apply for a faculty appointment please contact the Administrative Assistant, Brian Nelson or call 604 806 9066.

To check on the status of a faculty appointment please contact the Administrative Assistant, Brian Nelson or call 604 806 9066.

For assistance with your Campus Wide Login (CWL) please contact the Administrative Assistant, Brian Nelson or call 604 806 9066.

For assistance with your Education Database Login please contact the Administrative Assistant, Brian Nelson or call 604 806 9066.

To update your personal information please contact the Administrative Assistant, Brian Nelson or call 604 806 9066.

Sign up for direct deposit please contact the Administrative Assistant, Brian Nelson or call 604 806 9066.

Sign up for undergraduate teaching please contact Kathryn Tullis in the OBGYN Undergraduate Office or call 604 875 2424 Ext 5810.

Inform us of changes to your undergraduate teaching please contact Kathryn Tullis in the OBGYN Undergraduate Office or call 604 875 2424 Ext 5810.

Query a teaching statement please contact Kathryn Tullis in the OBGYN Undergraduate Office or call 604 875 2424 Ext 5810.

If you are looking for help with something else please click on our OBGYN Admin Contact List for assistance.

Postdoctoral Fellows

The hire a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department please contact the HR Manager for assistance.  The minimum salary for this rank is $40,000.

The Postdoctoral Fellow Office (PDFO) is a great resource for Postdocs at UBC. They provide helpful documents on orientation, resources, professional development events, awards & funding information, and career opportunities.

The Postdoctoral Fellow Association has the goal of enhancing the postdoc experience at UBC in personal, professional and social aspects. All postdocs are considered to be members of the PDA and all are encouraged to get involved.

Orientation Day for Postdoctoral Fellows is held twice a year by the PDFO. This is an opportunity to get connected with other PDFs on campus and to learn general campus and academic information.

Postdoctoral Fellow Research Day is held annually in September and is comprised of 6-8 talks and a poster session by postdoctoral fellow researchers, followed by a reception.