University of Alberta
The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, the university's first president. It was enabled through the Post-secondary Learning Act. The university is considered a "comprehensive academic and research university", which means that it offers a range of academic and professional programs that generally lead to undergraduate and graduate level credentials.
The university comprises four campuses in Edmonton, an Augustana Campus in Camrose, and a staff centre in downtown Calgary. The original north campus consists of 150 buildings covering 50 city blocks on the south rim of the North Saskatchewan River valley, across and west from downtown Edmonton. About 37,000 students from Canada and 150 other countries participate in 400 programs in 18 faculties.
The university is a major economic driver for Alberta. In 2022, it contributed $19.4 billion to Alberta's economy, or over five per cent of that year's gross domestic product. The University of Alberta has produced over 260,000 graduates; awards received by alumni and faculty members include 3 Nobel Prizes and 72 Rhodes Scholarships.
History
The university was chartered in 1906 in Edmonton, Alberta as a single, public provincial university through the University Act, passed during the first session of the then-new Legislative Assembly, with Premier Alexander C. Rutherford as the legislation's sponsor. The university was modelled on the American state university, with an emphasis on extension work and applied research. The governance was modelled on Ontario's University of Toronto Act of 1906, with a bicameral system consisting of a senate responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors controlling financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and perform institutional leadership.Establishment in Edmonton
Heated wrangling took place between the cities of Calgary and Edmonton over the location of the provincial capital and of the university. It was stated that the capital would be north of the North Saskatchewan River and that the university would be in a city south of it. The city of Edmonton became the capital and the then-separate city of Strathcona on the south bank of the river, where Premier Alexander Rutherford lived, was granted the university. When the two cities were amalgamated in 1912, Edmonton became both the political and academic capital.With Henry Marshall Tory as its first president, the University of Alberta started operation in 1908. Forty-five students attended classes in English, mathematics and modern languages, on the top floor of the Queen Alexandra Elementary School in Strathcona while the first campus building, Athabasca Hall, was under construction. In a letter to Rutherford in early 1906, while he was in the process of setting up McGill University College in Vancouver, Tory wrote, "If you take any steps in the direction of a working University and wish to avoid the mistakes of the past, mistakes which have fearfully handicapped other institutions, you should start on a teaching basis."
Of the 45 students in the university's first cohort in 1908, seven were women. These original seven formed a type of sorority, called Seven Independent Spinsters, or S.I.S., with the intention of supporting the women's social and academic needs. In 1909, the group changed its name to the Wuaneita Club, and then to the Wuaneita Society in 1910. All female students at the university were initiated into the Society every fall. The group heavily appropriated from Cree culture: the name Wuaneita is a rough equivalent to the Cree word meaning "kind-hearted"; their initiation ceremonies featured costumes with feathers and headdresses; the society president was called the "Big Chief": and the motto of the group was "payuk uche kukeyow, mena kukeyow uche payuk,” a rough translation into Cree of "all for one, one for all" that is still engraved above the outer doors of Pembina Hall on main campus. For much of the Wuaneita Society's existence, as they were coopting First Nations traditions and ceremonies, the Potlatch ban was in effect in Canada. The group wound down in 1973 once the population of female students on campus had outgrown the need for a supportive society.
Under Tory's guidance, the early years were marked by recruitment of professors and construction of the first campus buildings. Today, he has a building named after him that houses classes of all types. Among the first professors Tory hired was William Muir Edwards, the second child of women's rights activist Henrietta Edwards.
Percy Erskine Nobbs & Frank Darling designed the master plan for the University of Alberta in 1909–10. Nobbs designed the Arts Building, laboratories and Power House. With Cecil S. Burgess, Nobbs designed the Provincial College of Medicine. Architect Herbert Alton Magoon designed several buildings on campus, including St. Stephen's Methodist College and the residence for professor Rupert C. Lodge. The University of Alberta awarded its first degrees in 1912, the same year it established the Department of Extension. The Faculty of Medicine was established the following year, and the Faculty of Agriculture began in 1915.
But along with these early milestones came the First World War and the global influenza pandemic of 1918, whose toll on the university resulted in a two-month suspension of classes in the fall of 1918. The university organized the recruitment of staff and students for XI Canadian Field Ambulance in early 1916, and soon afterward it raised 'C' Company of the 196th Battalion. Both of these units were organized by a committee composed of representatives from the University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan, and University of Manitoba, with each institution encouraging their staff and students to volunteer. The University of Alberta's recruits for XI Canadian Field Ambulance were billeted in Athabasca Hall before departing for Winnipeg in March 1916, while the men of C Company stayed in Assiniboia Hall until June of that same year. Between 1914 and 1918, the number of students and staff serving overseas was greater than the number of students registered in each academic year. Roughly half of the university's staff and students were serving overseas by 1916. 82 staff and students from the University of Alberta died during their service in the First World War, and hundreds more were wounded.
Despite these setbacks, the university continued to grow. By 1920, it had six faculties and two schools. It awarded a range of degrees: Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Pharmacy, Bachelor of Divinity, Master of Arts, Master of Science, and Doctor of Laws. There were 851 male students and 251 female students, and 171 academic staff, including 14 women.
Campus expansion
The Breton Soil Plots were established at the faculty of agriculture from 1929 – present to provide agricultural research on fertilization, usage, crop rotations and farming practices on Gray-Luvisolic soils, which cover many regions in western Canada.The University of Alberta spearheaded an extraordinary rate of volunteerism in the province of Alberta to the First World War, especially from its medical faculty. Experience gained was used by returning veterans to rapidly mature the young Faculty of Medicine. The War Memorial Committee commissioned a War Memorial Pipe Organ to be erected by the Casavant Frères in U of A Convocation Hall in 1925 in memory of 80 University of Alberta comrades who gave up their lives during the Great War.
In the early part of the 20th century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law and medicine. Graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis was introduced. In 1929, the university established a College of Education. This period of growth was to be short-lived, though, as the Great Depression and the Second World War curtailed enrolment and expansion until 1945. The university also gained new public powers. In 1928, the university's senate was granted the power to oversee and appoint half of the Alberta Eugenics Board, charged with recommending individuals for sterilization.
Spurred by postwar growth in the student population and the discovery of oil in Leduc in 1947, the University of Alberta underwent expansion through the 1950s that continued through the 1960s as the baby-boom generation swelled the enrolment ranks. These two decades also saw expansion of campus buildings, including new buildings for the faculties of physical education and education, and the Cameron Library. The University of Alberta Press, concentrating on western Canadian history, general science and ecology, was founded in 1969.
The policy of university education initiated in the 1960s responded to population pressure and the belief that higher education was a key to social justice and economic productivity for individuals and for society. In addition, the single-university policy in the West was changed as existing colleges of the provincial universities gained autonomy as universities. On September 19, 1960, the university opened a new 130-hectare campus in Calgary. By 1966, the University of Calgary had been established as an autonomous institution.
From the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, the university enjoyed sustained growth. In 1970, the Collège Saint-Jean began offering French-language instruction in arts, science and education. In 1984, the School of Native Studies was established. Buildings that had been started in the 1960s, such as Biological Sciences, its biotron facility, and the Central Academic Building, were completed in the early 1970s. Extensive renovations restored the venerable Arts Building, as well as the Athabasca and Pembina halls. New buildings completed in the early 1980s included the Business Building and the first phase of the Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre. Another new building, the distinctive Universiade Pavilion, was completed as part of the university's preparations to host the World University Games in 1983, the first time the event was held in North America.