Upper Canada College
Upper Canada College is an independent day and boarding school for boys in Toronto, Ontario, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The college is widely described as Canada's most prestigious preparatory school, and it has produced many notable graduates. With around 1,200 students, UCC is highly selective. The school has a financial aid program which currently awards more than $5 million annually to Canadian citizens.
The secondary school segment is divided into 10 houses; eight are for day students and the remaining two are for boarding students. Aside from the main structure, with its dominant clock tower, the Toronto campus has a number of sports facilities, staff and faculty residences, and other buildings. UCC also owns and operates an outdoor education campus in Norval, Ontario.
UCC was founded in 1829 by Sir John Colborne, then Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, and modelled on Elizabeth College, Guernsey. After facing closure by the government on more than one occasion, UCC became fully independent in 1900, nine years after moving to its present location. It is the oldest independent school in the province of Ontario and the third oldest in Canada. UCC maintains links with the Canadian royal family through its members or representatives of the monarch, sometimes serving as the college's Visitor and/or on its Board of Governors.
History
Beginnings and growth
UCC was founded in 1829 by Major-General Sir John Colborne, then Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, in the hopes that it would serve as a feeder school to the newly established King's College. UCC was modelled on the public schools of Great Britain, such as Eton College. Though now an independent school, the college was created with public funds, including an initial land grant of 6,000 acres of crown lands, later increased to 66,000 acres.The school began teaching in the original Royal Grammar School. However, within a year, it was established on its own campus, known as Russell Square, at the north-west corner of King and Simcoe streets. Colborne brought educated men from the United Kingdom's Cambridge and Oxford Universities, attracting them with high salaries. Still, despite ever increasing enrolment, popularity with leading families of the day ; a visit in 1847 from the Governor General of the Province of Canada, the Earl of Elgin; and praise from many, including Charles Dickens, UCC was faced with closure on a number of occasions. Opponents of elitism sought to curtail provincial government funding and remove the college from its premises.
The school merged with King's College for a period after 1831 and moved 60 years later to its present location in Deer Park, then a rural area. The school expanded in 1902 to take in lower-year students with the construction of a separate primary school building, the Prep, allowing for boys to be enrolled from Grade Three through to graduation.
In 1900, the government of Ontario stopped funding UCC, making it a completely independent school. By 1910, however, UCC was facing declining enrolment and capital; it considered selling the Deer Park campus and moving again to become a full boarding school on a property purchased in Norval, Ontario. Plans were halted by the outbreak of the First World War, and the college remained where it was. It eventually thrived there, both physically and culturally, as the buildings were expanded and bright instructors attracted.
Principal William Grant spearheaded further development. Shortly after assuming his position in 1917, he oversaw recruitment of teachers described as "eccentric, crotchety, quaint, though widely travelled and highly intelligent." His tenure also saw other improvements. Student enrolment doubled, and bursaries increased. Teacher salaries also doubled, and their benefits now included a pension plan.
UCC maintained a Cadet Corps from around 1837, which became a rifle company attached to the Volunteer Militia Rifles of Canada in 1860. It was one of only two student corps called to duty in Canadian military history when it assisted in staving off the Fenian Raids in 1866. Historian Jack Granatstein, in his book The Generals, demonstrated that UCC graduates accounted for more than 30 per cent of Canadian generals during the Second World War, and 26 Old Boys achieved brigadier rank or higher. A war memorial display case and plaque in the Upper School's main entrance hall is dedicated to the UCC Old Boys who distinguished themselves during Canadian military service periods.
After the Second World War
In 1958, UCC faced a major crisis when it was discovered that the Upper School's main building was in danger of collapse due to poor construction. At the time, despite its benefactors, UCC had no endowment. An emergency building fund was started and, with the assistance of Prince Philip, all of the necessary $3,200,000 was raised. Ted Rogers and his family paid for the clock tower, while Robert Laidlaw donated the funds necessary to build Laidlaw Hall. Construction of the present main building began in early 1959, and it was opened by former governor general Vincent Massey near the end of 1960.The crisis forced the school government to rethink their stance on foresight and planning, leading to a years-long program of new construction, salary improvements, and funding sources. Furthermore, in conjunction with Principal Sowby, whom he had helped select, Massey had additional influence on the college and brought about somewhat of a renaissance at the school – a number of distinguished visitors were brought in, and leading minds were hired as masters. At this time, the curriculum began to shift from offering a classical education to offering one grounded in the liberal arts; language options besides Latin were first offered after 1950.
The period from 1965 to 1975 was a decade of constant change at UCC; global and local cultural influences collided head-on with the conservative and traditional culture and environment at UCC. Individual freedoms trumped institutional discipline, and moral authority had lost its clout. Patrick T. Johnson, principal from 1965 to 1974, managed the cultural transition during these years, successfully integrating societal trends, traditional values, and individual self-expression. One of the casualties, though, was the cadet corps; it was disbanded in September 1975 in favour of a smaller volunteer corps. Under principals educated at Oxford and Cambridge, the college refused to adopt the new provincial educational standards issued in 1967, which it considered lower than the old standards. UCC also moved forward with new educational and athletic facilities across the campus, while opening the campus to the wider community at the same time. By the 1990s, summer camps were set up on the campus for any child who wished to enroll.
The college embarked on another building campaign, again with the aid of Prince Philip, beginning in 1989 and ending in 1994, with the construction of new athletic facilities at the Upper School and the replacement of the 1901 Peacock Building at the Prep. Two years later, UCC adopted the International Baccalaureate, which augmented the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. Following this, Grade Two was added in 1998 and Grade One the next year. Since 2003, UCC has offered places from Senior Kindergarten to Grade Twelve.
Into the 21st century
In the years following 1998, five UCC staff were accused of sexual abuse or of possessing child pornography; three were convicted of some of the charges. In 2003, 18 students launched a $62 million class-action lawsuit against UCC, claiming sexual abuse by Doug Brown, who taught at the Prep from 1975 to 1993 and was eventually found guilty in 2004 of nine counts of indecent assault. UCC agreed to a confidential settlement with the victims.UCC followed the trends in environmentalism when the Board of Governors unanimously voted in 2002 to establish the Green School initiative, wherein environmental education would become "one of the four hallmarks of a UCC education." Plans to carry this out saw not only upgrades of the school's physical plant to meet environmentally sustainable standards, but also an integration of these new initiatives into the curriculum. After the appointment in 2004 of Jim Power as principal, the curriculum further evolved to address reports of wider, societal trends showing a rise in boys' behavioural problems and a decline in their educational performance. Simultaneously, UCC's status as an all-boys school found support following years of pressure to become co-educational, especially as other prominent, formerly all-boys schools in Ontario began to make the switch, such as Lakefield College School, Appleby College, and Trinity College School.
As part of the strategic plan for the school, the board of governors decided in 2007 to close the 180-year-old boarding programme, citing market changes and the neglect of boarding over preceding decades. However, students, the Old Boy community, and others associated with UCC reacted negatively to the announcement, leading the board to revisit its conclusion. It was subsequently decided that boarding should be retained, but only if, among other requirements, it housed no less than 60 students, the facilities were improved, and boarders be drawn from across the country.
Campus and facilities
Toronto campus
Upper Canada College occupies an open, 17 hectare campus in Deer Park, near the major intersection of Avenue Road and St. Clair Avenue, in the residential neighbourhood of Forest Hill. There are 15 buildings on the site:The main structure, constructed between 1959 and 1960, central on the campus, and with a dominant clock tower, houses the secondary school component of the college, in a quadrangle form. Laidlaw Hall, the principal assembly hall, featuring a full theatre stage and a pipe organ, is attached to the west end of the Upper School and, at the other end, is the Memorial Wing, the school's main infirmary. Closing the north end of the main quadrangle is one building, built in 1932, that contains the two boarding houses, as well as two private residences for the associated boarding masters, adjacent to which is the school chapel, donated by Governor General Vincent Massey.
Satellite to this complex are townhouse-style residences for masters and their families; the residence of the college's principal, Grant House, built in 1917; and a small, two-storey cricket pavilion, inaugurated by Governor General Ramon Hnatyshyn. The Preparatory School, part of which was designed by Eden Smith, is at the south-west corner of the campus, near which is a home for the Prep headmaster and a small gatehouse.
The athletic facilities include an indoor pool and three gymnasiums, as well as, around the campus, the William P. Wilder sports complex, a sports activity bubble, tennis courts, a sports court, a running track, and nine regulation sized sports fields. The two major fields of the Upper School are called Commons and Lords, after, respectively, the British House of Commons and House of Lords, and one of the main central fields is known as the Oval. In the summer of 2006, the latter, along with the encompassing running track, was renovated, with the grass replaced by a partially synthetic astroturf/grass hybrid and the track paved with a rubber turf. Several metres below the field, geothermal pipes were laid to provide alternative energy heating for both the Upper School and the adjacent sports complex. A number of these facilities are the result of a decade long, $90 million capital building campaign launched in the 1990s. Still planned are an Olympic-standard, 50-metre swimming pool; a new racquet centre for squash, badminton, and tennis; a rowing centre; the expansion of both the Prep and Upper School academic buildings; and an expansion of the archives.
The Ontario Heritage Trust, a non-profit agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, erected three plaques outlining UCC's presence and history in Toronto. One is on the north-east corner of 20 Duncan Street, the second at the south-east corner of 212 King Street West, and one at the main entrance of the current campus at 200 Lonsdale Road.