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University of Regina

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The University of Regina is a degree granting institution located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It presently has an enrollment of over 12,500 full and part-time students.

Contents

History

Origins

In 1911, the Methodist Church of Canada established Regina College, a private residential high school, on College Avenue in Regina, Saskatchewan, starting with an enrollment of 27 students; it was adjacent to the now long-defunct St Chad's Qu'Appelle Diocesan School, also on College Avenue.

Regina Normal School, Regina, Saskatchewan, 1914.
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Regina Normal School, Regina, Saskatchewan, 1914.
In 1934, the United Church of Canada, the successor to the Methodist Church, was financially hard pressed by the Great Depression and in any case its history from the great Egerton Ryerson of urgent advocacy of universal free public education made its involvement in private schools anomalous. It accordingly gladly surrendered Regina College to the University of Saskatchewan, although Regina College and its successor Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan and University of Regina have — possibly unawares — retained the Methodist motto "as one who serves" (Luke 22.27).

Junior College of University of Saskatchewan

With the transfer of control to the University of Saskatchewan the range of courses offered was somewhat broadened. The upgrading process accelerated in 1961 when the college was granted full-degree granting status as the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan.

Regina Campus

The front entrance of the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage.
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The front entrance of the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage.
The arts and sciences programs evolved with the growth of Regina Campus, which held its first convocation in 1965. The new campus was begun in 1966 to the southwest of the old campus whose buildings, however, remain in use: the old Girls' Residence is now used by the Regina Conservatory of Music; the Normal School is now the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage. The original design of Regina Campus (as of Wascana Centre itself) and its initial buildings, in a stark concrete modernist style, were by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the original World Trade Center in New York. Further building has been in accord with Yamasaki's vision, notwithstanding some controversy over the years as to its suitability for the featureless Regina plain; by 1972 with the demolition of Yamasaki's 1955 Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis, Missouri — such demolition being considered by some to be the beginning of postmodern architecture — Yamasaki's modernist aesthetic was already somewhat passé in the view of many architects.

Campion and later Luther Colleges, which like Regina College had been denominational junior colleges affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan, established "federated college" status on the model of Victoria, Trinity, St Michael's and University Colleges at the University of Toronto (and ultimately the collegiate system of Oxford and Cambridge) and built facilities at the new campus.

As with other rapidly expanding universities in the late 1960s, the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan was able to benefit from a significant outflow of academics from American universities during the Vietnam era of U.S. history at a time when the supply of Canadian PhDs could not yet keep up with demand; it had the dubious distinction of being labelled by a deputy commissioner of the RCMP (the Canadian federal police force) as one of the three most radical campuses in Canada, along with Burnaby's Simon Fraser University and Sir George Williams University (now part of Concordia University) in Montreal.

University of Regina

Disappointment as to the nonfulfilment of plans by the University of Saskatchewan to situate various faculties at the Regina rather than the Saskatoon campus led to a Faculty Council being formed with the goal of making the campus an autonomous institution.

In 1974, the University of Regina was established as an institution independent of the University of Saskatchewan, although its development was slow until the 21st century, when a renewed burst of building and expansion occurred. That being said, numerous of the university's faculties are significantly smaller in the 21st century than they were in the 1970s as priorities have shifted from liberal arts to vocational training.

In the summer of 2005 the University of Regina hosted the 2005 Canada Games. Many events took place in the newly completed, state of the art Centre for Kinesiology and Health Studies. The administration of the games proceeded from the University of Regina Students Union offices.

The campus has experienced a recent spurt of growth and expansion. Future plans include construction on the east side of the ring road. The goal is to accommodate an enrollment of 25,000. As of 2006 a lab building extension is under construction. Construction should be finished in May 2007 and will add 150,000 square feet to the university. Being discussed in early 2006 was the construction of a multipurpose arena on the University of Regina campus. The Regina Research Park is located immediately adjacent to the main campus and conducts many of its initiatives in conjunction with university departments.

Federated Colleges

The University has three federated colleges:

Campion and Luther colleges had been high schools offering junior college courses accredited by the University of Saskatchewan on the same basis as the old Regina College. The First Nations University of Canada grew out of the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College which was an original foundation at the University of Regina.

Faculties

The University has the following faculties:

Notable faculty and alumni

Sports

The University of Regina is a member of Canadian Interuniversity Sport and fields teams in ice hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer, track and field, swimming and football. The football team is called Regina Rams; teams in other sports are called the Regina Cougars.

Media

The university's student newspaper is The Carillon.

The University of Regina does not have its own campus radio station, although the independent community radio station CJTR-FM actively solicits volunteers among the school's student body.

See also

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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