Dalhousie University

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Dalhousie University


Motto	Ora et Labora (Latin: Pray and work)
Established	1818
Type	Public
Endowment	$321 million^[1] (as of December 31, 2005)
Chancellor	Richard Goldbloom
President	Tom Traves
Undergraduates	12,060
Postgraduates	3,460
Location	Halifax,Nova Scotia, Canada
Campus	Urban
Nickname	Tigers
Website	http://www.dal.ca/

Coordinates: 44°38′13″N, 63°35′30″W Dalhousie University is a university located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

As the largest post-secondary educational institution in the Maritime Provinces it offers a wide array of programmes, including a Medical Programme and the Dalhousie Law School. The chancellor is Dr. Richard Goldbloom; Dr. Tom Traves serves as president and vice-chancellor.

1 History
2 Faculties
3 Current Issues
4 Trivia
5 Notable Dalhousie University people
- 5.1 Faculty members
- 5.2 Alumni
6 See also
7 External links
8 Notes

[edit] History

Dalhousie College was founded in 1818 by George Ramsay, 9th Earl of Dalhousie, the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia. Using money acquired from the duties collected during the occupation of parts of Maine in the War of 1812, Ramsay established Dalhousie as a college open to all people regardless of class or creed. At the laying of the cornerstone on May 22, 1820, Lord Dalhousie said that this University was "founded on the principles of religious tolerance." Dalhousie remained one of only three universities founded on secular constitutional premises until as late as the 1950s. Although it was technically founded in 1818, Dalhousie did not have its first students until November 1st, 1838. However, following the Death of the University's first principal, Thomas McCulloch, in 1843 the school was once again allowed to fall into inactivity. Dalhousie did not permanently open its door again until November 10th, 1863.

Dalhousie was distinctive as an urban institution, situated in downtown Halifax on the site of the present City Hall. This status was seen not only, in the early days at least, in the use of much of the college's lowest floor as vault space for Oland Brewery, but also in the consistent drawing of about one-third of the student body from the city and in the college's ability to draw upon local professional populations in the establishment of professional faculties such as medicine (1868) and law (1883). Finances remained difficult into the 1880s, but by the end of that decade the accumulated donations of the George Munro, brother-in-law of Board of Governors member John Forrest, had provided the stimulus that led to growth in student numbers and the emergence of Dalhousie as a centre of scholarship acknowledged throughout the dominion.

Henry Hicks building.

In 1920 the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, English Canada's oldest degree granting institution, burned down. Through a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, King's College was able to relocate to Halifax and entered into a partnership with Dalhousie University. While often seen as a separate but integrated institution it shares Dalhousie's Arts and Sciences Faculty, but offers several interdisciplinary humanities degree programmes, such as Contemporary Studies, History of Science and Technology and Early Modern Studies.

Dalhousie expanded its presence in south-end Halifax during the 1960s and 1970s when it built the Dalplex athletic facility, the Killam Library, the Life Sciences Centre, the Dalhousie Student Union building and a district heating plant, all on what is referred to as the Studley Campus (the main campus). Also at this time, Dalhousie built the Tupper Building for its Faculty of Medicine and expanded existing buildings to house the Faculty of Dentistry and College of Pharmacy, all on the adjacent Carleton Campus, located immediately to the east of the Studley Campus, and co-located with two of Halifax's teaching hospitals (the Victoria General Site of the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre and the IWK Health Centre for Women, Children, and Youth).

Following a period of government-mandated consolidation of post-secondary institutions during the 1990s, the Technical University of Nova Scotia was merged with Dalhousie University in 1997. It was initially known as Dalhousie University Polytechnic, or DalTech, but in 2000 the DalTech nickname was dropped and the engineering, architecture and computer science faculties of TUNS are fully integrated into Dalhousie University. The Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning are located on the Sexton Campus, east of the Carleton Campus and closer to downtown Halifax. The Faculty of Computer Science moved to its own building on Studley Campus in 1999.

[edit] Faculties

Dalhousie University, January 2005

Dalhousie comprises eleven faculties:

[edit] Current Issues

In 2005, 10,660 full-time undergraduate students and 2,640 full-time graduate students enrolled at Dalhousie^[2]. Dalhousie is still facing serious financial problems, such as being unable to pay for millions in deferred maintenance of buildings and grounds. In 2002 there was a month-long strike by the professors at the university demanding, among other things, that retiring professors be replaced by an equivalent new professor in hopes of maintaining the number of full-time professors, which had been declining for some years. The professors' demands on this issue were met.

The university is going through a building phase. A new building for the Faculty of Computer Science opened in October 1999 followed shortly thereafter by the Marion McCain Arts and Social Sciences Building. The Howe Hall residence was expanded with the addition of Fountain House and a new residence was also built, named John Risley Hall. The Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building opened in October 2005.

On March 6 and 7 2007, Dalhousie held a student-based referendum tagged Imagine '07. Imagine proposed the addition of new student areas, and the renovation of existing spaces across the Dalhousie campus^[3]. The final vote was No, with 57.3% of voters agreeing that the proposed improvements were unnecessary. Had the referendum succeeded, the construction and renovations would have been funded through the students paying a fee of $10.00 per course, reaching a maximum of $100 per year, for several decades.

[edit] Trivia

The current campus was designed by Andrew R. Cobb.
The school's Canadian Interuniversity Sport athletic teams are called the Dalhousie Tigers.
The first Friday in February of each year is Munro Day, a holiday celebrating financial contributions made to the school in its infancy by George Munro.
The newest building built on the Dalhousie Campus is the Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building.
Dalhousie's campus newspaper, the Dalhousie Gazette, was founded in 1868, making it the oldest student newspaper in Canada and one of the oldest continuously-running student newspapers in North America.
Dalhousie's colours of black and gold came from the jerseys worn by the Dalhousie University Rugby Football Club (who still wear those colours, as well as the school crest on their jerseys).
Among North American universities, only Harvard, Yale, Princeton, McGill and the University of Toronto boast more Rhodes Scholars than Dalhousie.

[edit] Notable Dalhousie University people

Further information: List of Dalhousie University people

[edit] Faculty members

Dr. Jonathan Borwein - Computer Science, Experimental mathematics
Dr. David M. Cameron - Political Science
Dr. J. Michael Lee - Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Patrick McGrath - Psychology
Dr. Keith R. Thompson - Oceanography, Statistics
Dr. Barry Lesser - Economics
Professor Susan Mansour - DRP fabricator extraordinaire

[edit] Alumni

Richard Bennett Hatfield, former Premier of New Brunswick
Scott Brison, Canadian Member of Parliament and past Candidate for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada - Bachelor of Commerce
Barbara Fris, Canadian operatic soprano - Bachelor of Music (Performance) http://www.barbarafris.com
Alexander Keith, Founder of Alexander Keith's Breweries
Eric Demaine - MacArthur Fellowship recipient
Cary Kaplan - founder of Cosmos Sports, former Hamilton Bulldogs President
Michael Leir, Canadian High Commissioner to Australia
Shaun Majumder, Actor/Comedian
Alexa McDonough, previous national leader of the NDP
Chris Murphy, Bassist and vocalist of rock group Sloan
Kathryn D. Sullivan, First American woman to walk in space
George Elliot Clarke, Author and recipient of the Governor General's Award
Charles Peter McColough, Xerox CEO "great American business leader"
Darrell Dexter, Leader of Nova Scotia's New Democratic Party
Glyn Berry, Senior Canadian Diplomat
Kishore Mahbubani, former Ambassador of the Republic of Singapore to the United Nations, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
See Dalhousie Law School for law school alumni.

[edit] See also

Dalhousie Law School
Dalhousie Tigers - varsity athletics teams
Fraternities and sororities at Dalhousie University
Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, a concert hall in the Dalhousie Arts Centre
University of King's College

[edit] External links

[edit] Notes

^ Vice-President (Finance and Administration) Investment Performance Notice (June 28, 2006). Dalhousie Investment Performance Notice. Retrieved September 20, 2006.
^ Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (2006). The Directory of Canadian Universities - Dalhousie University. Retrieved August 2, 2006.
^ Dalhousie News (2007). Dalhousie News - A chance to shape Dalhousie for the better.

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