University of Guelph
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University of Guelph |
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| Motto | Rerum cognoscere causas (To understand the causes of things) |
| Established | 1964 |
| Type | Public |
| Endowment | $149.7 Million |
| Chancellor | Pamela Wallin |
| President | Alastair Summerlee |
| Staff | 830 |
| Undergraduates | 15,708 |
| Postgraduates | 1,894 |
| Location | Guelph, ON, Canada |
| Campus | Urban/Suburban—4.1 km² (1017 acres) |
| Sports | Gryphons |
| Colours | Red and Yellow/Gold |
| Mascot | Gryph |
| Athletics | www.gryphons.ca |
| Website | www.uoguelph.ca |
The University of Guelph is a medium-sized university located in Guelph, Ontario, established in 1964. While the U of G offers degrees in many different disciplines, the university is best known for its focus on life sciences, based in part on a long-standing history of achievement in Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine and within Canada for its School of Fine Art and Music.
The University of Guelph is currently ranked by Maclean's magazine as the top comprehensive university in Canada ("comprehensive" indicating institutions with significant research activity and a range of programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including professional degrees). It has also held this ranking in 1999, 2002, and 2003, with its reputation, innovative research-intensive programs, and lively campus life cited as particular strengths.
The university is also home to the Ontario Veterinary College, Ontario's only veterinary school.
The university is represented in Canadian Interuniversity Sport by the Guelph Gryphons.
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[edit] History
The Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) began in 1873 as an associate agricultural college of the University of Toronto. Its first building was Moreton Lodge, located where Johnston Hall now stands, which included classrooms, residences, a library, and a dining room. (Several buildings constructed during this time period are still a part of campus life today, including President's Residence, Raithby House, and Day Hall.)
The Macdonald Institute was established in 1903 to house women's home economics programs at the college. The growth spurt from 1900 to 1906 also saw the construction of MacDonald Hall, Massey Hall and the Bullring.
Several important buildings were opened in 1922, including the Ontario Veterinary College main building, Mills Hall (formerly a men's residence, converted to co-ed in 2000), and Food Science. Johnston Hall was constructed in 1931, taking the place of the torn-down Moreton Lodge. Johnston would house the OAC Administration from that year forth.
In 1964, the Ontario Agricultural College, the Macdonald Institute, and the Ontario Veterinary College amalgamated and were granted University status, giving life to the University of Guelph as it is now known.
Shortly after, during the period of 1967 to 1975, massive construction took place, giving rise to many new and expansive buildings such as the McLaughlin Library, the MacKinnon Building, the University Centre and South Residence.
New construction has been taking place since 2001 as a result of the anticipated rise in enrolment due to the Ontario double cohort and population increases. New buildings already constructed include the Gryphon Dome, the East Village Residences, and Rozanski Hall. A state-of-the-art science complex is currently being constructed. Guelph now enjoys a global reputation as "the Warwick [University] of Canada".
[edit] Campus
The main university campus spans 1,017 acres (4.1 km²), including the 408 acre (1.7 km²) University of Guelph Arboretum and a 30 acre (0.1 km²) research park. It is home to 16,219 full-time students (graduate and undergraduate) and 2,740 faculty and staff (2003). The Arboretum is rumoured to be haunted by the ghosts of former Presidents and Chancellors.
The campus, which mixes old-fashioned brick buildings with more contemporary stone structures, is generally regarded as scenic. It is well-populated with trees, including those which line the main walkways, many of which are paved with red brick. The campus includes an arboretum with an impressive collection of trees.
Another highly visible landmark is Johnston Hall, constructed in 1931. The Johnston Clocktower overlooks Winegard Walk and is visible from much of the campus. The building also overlooks Johnston Green, a popular location for recreational sporting activities and outdoor concerts.
[edit] Residences
A large portion of students reside on campus in co-ed residences. Those that do typically live in the East Residence (610 residents), Johnston Hall (315), Lambton Hall (400), Lennox (265) Addington (255) Hall, Macdonald Hall (150, female only), Maids Hall (50, also known as Artz Haüs), Mills Hall (160), Watson Hall (67, also known as International House) and South Residence (1700 residents evenly distributed across Mountain, Prairie and Maritime Halls).
The LLC (Living Learning Centre) community is made up of Maids and Watson Halls, as well as two sections of the Dundas area in East known as Eco and French Houses (Freco). The program is conducted such that students who are interested in extra-curricular development of their interests peripheral to academic achievement can cohabitate among others with the same goal. Each individual community has Residence Life Staff personnel assigned to facilitate programming and community development centred around their respective focuses.
Also on campus are the East Village Townhouses that were opened during the Fall of 2001. The townhouses consist of 164 four-, five- and six-bedroom self-contained units. These primarily house upper-year students.
South Residence, the largest residence on campus, is home to 1700 students, as well as over 50 Residence Life Staff members.[1]. South Residence is split into three self-contained Halls with independent fire alarm grids. It was built in 1965 by Australian architect John Andrews, a brutalist architect who has designed several Canadian university residences.[2] The persistent rumour that the residence was designed by the same architect as the Kingston Penitentiary is false. This would be all but impossible, as the iconic Canadian prison was constructed over a century before South Residence.
Across campus, members of the Residence Student Government, known as Interhall Council, contribute to the programming in each hall. This group of 60 elected members works with students within their halls and are also responsible for facilitating a hall council for hall members to attend. Interhall Council also acts as a liaison between students and Student Housing Services, University Administration, and other on-campus organizations.
[edit] Guelph-Humber Campus
The University of Guelph-Humber is university-college partnership between the University of Guelph and Humber College. It is located on Humber's North Campus in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The school offers seven regular four-year academic programs, each of which grant both a university honours degree and college diploma.
[edit] Athletics
The school colors are red, black and yellow or gold, and the student athletes are referred to as Gryphons.
The University of Guelph participates in Ontario University Athletics and offers 15 varsity sports for men and 15 for women. OUA only sports include baseball (men), figure skating (women), golf, nordic skiing, rowing, and rugby (men).
Nationally, the OUA is one of the CIS conferences, along with Atlantic University Sport, Canada West Universities Athletic Association, and the Quebec Student Sports Federation. CIS sports which UG participates in include basketball, cross country, field hockey (women), Canadian football (men), ice hockey, rugby (women), soccer, swimming, track & field, volleyball and wrestling.
Since the University of Guelph varsity sports teams are called the Gryphons, UG's mascot is a Gryphon named Gryph.
The current athletic director is Tom Kendall.
[edit] Student Media
[edit] Newspapers and Magazines
- The Ontarion - since 1951 and publishes every Thursday
- The Peak - alternative magazine style publication
[edit] Online
- thecannon.ca is an online publication created for, and funded by, undergraduate students. Although it has a paid editor, all students are encouraged to submit news articles, announcements for upcoming events, opinion pieces, digital photographs and other content that Guelph students may find interesting or useful.
Founded in September of 2002, the site has features such as Rate-a-Prof, where students share insight and opinions regarding professors, and a free classifieds section, available as a means of buying and selling used textbooks and course materials.
The name of the site is a reference to Old Jeremiah, as the website parallels the use of the cannon as a campus-wide message board.
[edit] Radio
[edit] Campus Traditions
[edit] Painting Old Jeremiah
Old Jeremiah is the name of an antique British naval gun that rests in Branion Plaza, at the heart of the University of Guelph campus. Rumoured to have seen battle during the War of 1812, Old Jeremiah was last fired in April of 1913. After World War I, the gun's barrel was plugged and it was brought to campus by students as a sign of remembrance for those lost in battle. It is often referred to simply and affectionately as The Cannon. During the 1970s, Old Jeremiah was briefly relocated to Johnson Green and renamed The Big Johnson.
Due to its location, the cannon is highly visible and accessible. It lies along Winegard Walk, the main path through campus, and has become one of the university's landmarks.
However, this was not always the case. As a result of jovial rivalry between Engineering and Agricultural Science students ("Aggies"), the cannon has enjoyed plenty of movement around the Guelph campus as a result of practical jokes between the two majors. Although it is nearly impossible to nail down the exact previous locations of the cannon, it is rumoured to have travelled all over campus, at one point even perching ontop of MacNaughton (a prominent university building containing the Bookstore), and at another even disappearing altogether and showing up a day later on the University of Waterloo campus. Eventually, fed up with the movement of Old Jeremiah, university officials cemented the cannon in place where it sits today. However, as a final stab at humour, a group of students shifted the still-mobile direction of the cannon's face, and aimed it at the fourth floor of the University Center, home of the institution's senior administration. Old Jeremiah rests in this position today.
Despite its movement, the cannon enjoyed relative tranquility until the 1950s when an entrepreneuring student came up with the idea of painting a message on the highly visible landmark. The act of "painting the cannon" has since become a campus tradition with students, residences, sports teams, clubs and others braving the early morning hours to paint messages on the cannon, most often about upcoming events but also including birthday announcements, wedding proposals and public insults. The etiquette governing "painting the cannon" is unofficial but well-understood: 1) do not begin painting the cannon until the sun has set, 2) be finished by the time the first students arrive for classes in the morning, and 3) avoid profanity or coarse language. It is well-accepted practice to "guard" the cannon until sunrise so as to avoid another person or group painting over one's message.
[edit] Winding Your Toy
"Winding Your Toy" is a type of dance. The dance involves holding one hand in front of the body and the other hand near the buttocks. A winding motion is made with the rear hand (as if winding a wind-up toy) and the knees are bent in rhythm with the arm rotations.
The dance is initiated with a ritualised exchange between two people (or two groups):
- Jack: Hey Jill!
- Jill : Hey what?!
- Jack: HEY JILL!
- Jill: HEY WHAT?!
- Jack: I want to see YOU wind your TOY!
- Jill (Optional): Only if YOU do it WITH ME!
- (dancing begins)
- Both: Wind your toy. Wind, wind your toy. (repeat)
Winding Your Toy is a relatively new Guelph tradition, most commonly seen during frosh, and especially during the first pep rally of the year, when all the residences perform dance medleys to various popular songs (an event often referred to as the Hall Boogies). Winding your toy is almost always incorporated into each boogie in some way, usually to a bass-heavy dance track.
The Dance is also used at Orientation and Special Event Days at the University of Guelph-Humber Campus
The origins of "winding the toy" are not well known, yet it retains notoriety among students and friends of students at the university.
[edit] Administrative structure
The governance of the University of Guelph is a bicameral system consisting of:
The University of Guelph consists of seven faculties (or colleges, as they're known at Guelph):
- College of Arts
- College of Biological Science
- College of Management & Economics
- College of Physical & Engineering Science
- College of Social & Applied Human Sciences
- Ontario Agricultural College
- Ontario Veterinary College
Other areas of academic specialization include the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, and the Office of Open Learning.[3]
[edit] Chancellors
- George Drew (1965–1971)
- Emmett Matthew Hall (1971–1977)
- Pauline Mills McGibbon (1977–1983)
- William Atcheson Stewart (1983–1989)
- Edmund Bovey (1989–1991)
- Lincoln Alexander (1991-2007)
- Pamela Wallin (2007–)
[edit] Presidents
- John D. MacLachlan (1964-1967)
- William Winegard (1967-1975)
- Donald Forster (1975-1983)
- Burton Matthews (1983-1988)
- Brian Segal (1988-1993)
- Mordechai Rozanski (1993-2003)
- Alastair Summerlee (2003-Present)
[edit] Alumni
The University of Guelph alumni keep touch with the university by a magazine which is named "The Portico". This magazine is sent to University of Guelph alumni each semester and they can find university news there. For names and articles about University of Guelph alumni, see category:University of Guelph alumni.
[edit] College Royal
An annual feature of the university is its open house, known as College Royal. For a weekend each March, every part of the campus and its programs is exhibited to the public, from the barns of the Agricultural College to the sugar bush in the arboretum. It is highly popular to visitors of all ages, especially families with children who take advantage of the March break (the usual Ontario school break) to have an outing.
The 2006 College Royal was visited by Rick Mercer, taping a segment for his show, the Rick Mercer Report.
[edit] See Also
[edit] External links
- University of Guelph
- MyPortico the University of Guelph's Web Portal
- University of Guelph Library, Archival and Special Collections has records for history of founding colleges: OAC, Macdonald Institue, and OVC
- University of Guelph-Humber
- University of Guelph Central Student Association (Student Union)
- thecannon.ca
- University of Guelph Photos
- Guelph Book Club
