Dalhousie University
Dalhousie University is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, and two satellite medical school campuses, in Saint John, New Brunswick and in Cape Breton. Dalhousie offers over 200 degree programs in 13 undergraduate, graduate, and professional faculties. The university is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada.
The institution was established as Dalhousie College, a nonsectarian institution established in 1818 by the eponymous Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie, with education reformer Thomas McCulloch as its first principal. However, the college did not hold its first class until 1838, with operations remaining sporadic due to financial difficulties. The college was reorganized in 1863 and renamed The Governors of Dalhousie College and University. The university formally changed its name to Dalhousie University in 1997 through the same provincial legislation that merged the institution with the Technical University of Nova Scotia.
Dalhousie's varsity teams, the Tigers, compete in the Atlantic University Sport conference of Canadian Interuniversity Sport. Dalhousie's Faculty of Agriculture varsity teams are called the Dalhousie Rams, and compete in the ACAA and CCAA. Dalhousie is a coeducational university with more than 20,000 students and 150,000 alumni around the world. The university's notable alumni include a Nobel Prize winner and 94 Rhodes Scholars.
History
Dalhousie was founded, as the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie, desired a non-denominational college in Halifax. Financing largely came from customs duties collected by a previous Lieutenant Governor, John Coape Sherbrooke, during the War of 1812 occupation of Castine, Maine; Sherbrooke invested £7,000 as an initial endowment and reserved £3,000 for the physical construction of the college. The college was established in 1818 though it faltered shortly after, as Ramsay left Halifax to serve as the Governor General of British North America. The school was structured upon the principles of the University of Edinburgh, located near Ramsay's home in Scotland, where lectures were open to male students, regardless of Christian religion or nationality.In 1821, Dalhousie College was officially incorporated by the Nova Scotia House of Assembly under the 1821 Act of Incorporation. The college did not hold its first class until 1838; operation of the college was intermittent and no degrees were awarded. In 1841, an Act of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly conferred university powers on Dalhousie.
Dalhousie's first principal was Thomas McCulloch. A Presbyterian minister and naturalist, he was the founder of Nova Scotia's second degree-granting institution, Pictou Academy in Pictou, Nova Scotia, which attracted students from PEI, Cape Breton, as well as the Caribbean due to McCulloch's views and the school's ecumenical stance.
In 1838, the board of Dalhousie College was able to convince McCulloch leave Pictou Academy and take on the floundering Dalhousie. With a reputation as an anti-papal pamphleteer and firmly against the Church of England's hold on higher education in Nova Scotia, McCulloch carried with him from Pictou his education theory and pedagogy, "If Dalhousie College acquires usefulness and eminence, it will be not by an imitation of Oxford, but as an institution of science, and practical intelligence." His approach to education was radical: he firmly believed that all schools "ought first to be ascertained, how far it is calculated to improve the community; and, if its general utility appear, it is, in proportion to its value and to the extent of the public funds, unquestionably entitled to the protection of Government, whether it belong to churchmen or dissenters, protestants or catholics, ought to be entirely disregarded!" He was responsible for creating a chair of natural history at Dalhousie to teach "geology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology."
Following McCulloch's death, the college fell into decline once again and was reorganized as a high school in 1848. In 1863, the college opened for a third time and was reorganized by another legislative act, which added "University" to the school's name: "The Governors of Dalhousie College and University". Dalhousie reopened with six professors and one tutor. When it awarded its first degrees in 1866, the student body consisted of 28 male students working toward degrees and 28 occasional students.
Despite the reorganization and an increase in students, money continued to be a problem for the institution. In 1879, amid talks of closure due to the university's dire financial situation, George Munro, a wealthy New York publisher with Nova Scotian roots, began to donate to the university; Munro was brother-in-law to Dalhousie's Board of Governors member John Forrest. As such, Munro is credited with rescuing Dalhousie from closure. In honour of his contributions, Dalhousie observes a university holiday called George Munro Day on the first Friday of each February. The first female graduate was Margaret Florence Newcombe from Grafton, Nova Scotia, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1885.
Originally located at the space now occupied by Halifax City Hall, the college moved in 1886 to Carleton Campus and spread gradually to Studley Campus. Dalhousie grew steadily during the 20th century. From 1889 to 1962 the Halifax Conservatory was affiliated with and awarded degrees through Dalhousie. In 1920, several buildings were destroyed by fire on the campus of the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Through a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, King's College relocated to Halifax and entered into a partnership with Dalhousie that continues to this day.
Dalhousie expanded on 1 April 1997 when provincial legislation mandated an amalgamation with the nearby Technical University of Nova Scotia. This merger saw reorganization of faculties and departments to create the Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Computer Science and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning. From 1997 to 2000, the Technical University of Nova Scotia operated as a constituent college of Dalhousie called Dalhousie Polytechnic of Nova Scotia until the collegiate system was dissolved. The legislation that merged the two schools also formally changed the name of the institution to its present form, Dalhousie University. On 1 September 2012, the Nova Scotia Agricultural College merged into Dalhousie to form a new Faculty of Agriculture, located in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia.
Campuses
Dalhousie has three campuses within the Halifax Peninsula and a fourth, the Agricultural Campus, in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia.Studley Campus in Halifax serves as the primary campus; it houses the majority of the university's academic buildings such as faculties, athletic facilities, and the university's Student Union Building. The campus is largely surrounded by residential neighbourhoods.
Robie Street divides it from the adjacent Carleton Campus, which houses the faculties of dentistry, medicine, and other health profession departments. The campus is adjacent to two large teaching hospitals affiliated with the school: the IWK Health Centre and the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre.
Sexton Campus in Downtown Halifax hosts the engineering, architecture and planning faculties. Sexton Campus served as the campus of the Technical University of Nova Scotia prior to amalgamation. The Agricultural Campus in Bible Hill, a suburban community of Truro, served as the campus for the Nova Scotia Agricultural College prior to its merger with Dalhousie in 2011. The university presently operates the largest academic library system in Atlantic Canada, and hosts the headquarters for the Ocean Tracking Network.
The buildings at Dalhousie vary in age from Hart House, which was completed in 1864, to the Collaborative Health Education Building, completed in 2015. The original building of Dalhousie University was completed in 1824 on Halifax's Grand Parade. It was demolished in 1885 when the university outgrew the premises, and the City of Halifax sought possession of the entire Grand Parade. Halifax City Hall presently occupies the site of the original Dalhousie College.
Libraries and museums
The university has five libraries. The largest, Killam Memorial Library, opened in 1971 and claims to be the largest academic library in Atlantic Canada. The W. K. Kellogg Health Science Library provides services largely for the faculties of dentistry, medicine, and other health professions. The Sexton Design & Technology Library is located within Sexton Campus. Its collection largely serves those in the faculties of engineering, architecture and planning, and houses the university's rare books collection. The Sir James Dunn Law Library holds the university's collection of common law materials, legal periodicals, as well as books on international law, health law, and environmental law. MacRae Library is located at the university's Agricultural Campus, and has the largest collection of agricultural resource material in Atlantic Canada. The Dalhousie University Archives houses official records of, or relating to, or people/activities connected with Dalhousie University and its founding institutions. The archives also houses material related to theatre, business and labour in Nova Scotia. The collection consists of manuscripts, texts, photographs, audio-visual material, microfilm, music, and artifacts. The university's first library, Macdonald Memorial Library, was built after alumni raised funds on the death of professor Charles Macdonald, who had left the university $2,000 to buy books in English literature on his death in 1901.The biology department operates the Thomas McCulloch Museum in its Life Sciences Centre. The most notable of the museum's exhibits include its preserved birds collection. Other collections include its Lorenzen ceramic mushrooms, its coral and shell collection, and its butterfly and insect collection. The museum's namesake Thomas McCulloch was a Scottish Presbyterian minister who served as Dalhousie's first president and created the Audubon mounted bird collection which is now housed at the museum.
The Dalhousie Art Gallery is both a public gallery and an academic support unit housed since 1971 on the lowest level of the Dalhousie Arts Centre. Admission is free of charge. It is host to a permanent collection of over 1000 works. Some of the outdoor sculptures around the campus are part of this collection, such as the distinctive Marine Venus which has sat in the median of University Avenue since 1969. A notable exhibition from the Dalhousie Art Gallery includes "Archives of the Future" exploring the relationship between art creation and commerce with work by artists Zachary Gough, Dawn Georg, Sharlene Bamboat, Katie Vida and Dana Claxton.