Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

University of Waterloo

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff. The school is notable for being the first university in North America to create a Faculty of Mathematics, and for having the largest co-operative education program in the world.[citation needed] Waterloo maintains one of the lowest endowments of all large Canadian universities, something officials have been trying to improve over the last 10 years. The school is also known for having more company spin-offs than any other Canadian university, and as such, the university has been called the “Silicon Valley of the North”. The enrollment for Fall 2009 was 24,891 undergraduate and 3,497 graduate students, with 1,030 full-time faculty members and 2,190 staff. The school has approximately 140,000 alumni in 141 countries. The university press, @UW and The Boar (Arts Faculty) are members of CUP. Other university newspapers include Imprint (The Official Student Newspaper), The Iron Warrior (Engineering), and mathNEWS (Math). (more…)

McGill University

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

McGill University (or simply McGill) is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university. Founded in 1821, McGill is one of the oldest universities in Canada, chartered during the British colonial era, 46 years before Canadian Confederation. Having shifted from a private institution to a public institution, McGill has evolved during its history, especially in the area of anglophone–francophone relations.

The university’s main campus is set upon 32 hectares (80 acres) at the foot of Mount Royal in Downtown Montreal. A second campus, the Macdonald Campus, is situated on 6.5 square kilometres (1,600 acres) of fields and forested land in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 30 kilometres west of the downtown campus. With 21 faculties and professional schools, McGill offers degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, including medicine and law. Although the language of instruction is English, students have the right to submit any graded work in English or in French, except when learning a particular language is an objective of the course. Over 34,000 students attend McGill, with international students comprising one-fifth of the student population.

McGill is recognized for its award-winning research and participates in research organizations both within Canada and in the world, including the G13, the Association of American Universities, and Universitas 21. Its undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools consistently ranks the top university in national rankings such as those published by Maclean’s, and among the top 50 universities in regional and worldwide rankings, including the Times Higher Education (THE) – QS World University Rankings and Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities. With around 200,000 living alumni worldwide, students and professors at McGill have been recognized in fields ranging from the arts and sciences, to business, politics, and sports. Notable alumni include six Nobel Laureates(out of eight Nobel Laureates affiliated with the university), three astronauts, two Canadian prime ministers, four justices of the Canadian Supreme Court, three foreign leaders, nine Academy Award winners, three Pulitzer Prize winners, and twenty-five Olympic medalists. A nation-leading 130 students have also won Rhodes Scholarships to pursue graduate studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. (more…)

University of Toronto

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

The University of Toronto (U of T, or simply Toronto) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city’s Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen’s Park. It was founded by Royal Charter in 1827 as King’s College, the first institution of higher learning in the colony of Upper Canada. Originally controlled by the Church of England, the university assumed the present name in 1850 upon becoming a secular institution. As a collegiate university, it comprises twelve colleges that differ in character and history, each retaining substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs.

Academically, the University of Toronto is noted for influential movements and curricula in literary criticism and communication theory, known collectively as the Toronto School. The university was the birthplace of insulin and stem cell research, and was the site of the first practical electron microscope, the development of multi-touch technology, the identification of Cygnus X-1 as a black hole, and the theory of NP completeness. By a significant margin, it receives the most annual research funding of any Canadian university. (more…)

York University

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

York University (French: Université York) is a university located in Toronto, Ontario. It is Canada’s third-largest university and has produced several of the country’s top leaders across the humanities and in sciences such as chemistry, meteorology and space science.

York supports a student population of approximately 60,000 and staff of 7,000, as well as 200,000 alumni worldwide. It has eleven faculties, including the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Schulich School of Business, Osgoode Hall Law School, Glendon College, Faculty of Fine Arts, Faculty of Health and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, as well as 24 research centres.

York University has always enjoyed a strong participation in the Canadian Space Program. The Faculty of Science and Engineering is Canada’s primary research facility into Martian exploration and has designed several space research instruments and applications currently used by NASA. (more…)