The story
History
The university was chartered in 1906 in Edmonton, Alberta as a single, public provincial university through the University Act, passed during the first session of the then-new Legislative Assembly, with Premier Alexander C. Rutherford as the legislation's sponsor. The university was modelled on the American state university, with an emphasis on extension work and applied research. The governance was modelled on Ontario's University of Toronto Act of 1906, with a bicameral system consisting of a senate (faculty) responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) controlling financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and perform institutional leadership.
Establishment in Edmonton
Heated wrangling took place between the cities of Calgary and Edmonton over the location of the provincial capital and of the university. It was stated that the capital would be north of the North Saskatchewan River and that the university would be in a city south of it. The city of Edmonton became the capital and the then-separate city of Strathcona on the south bank of the river, where Premier Alexander Rutherford lived, was granted the university. When the two cities were amalgamated in 1912, Edmonton became both the political and academic capital.
With Henry Marshall Tory as its first president, the University of Alberta started operation in 1908. Forty-five students attended classes in English, mathematics and modern languages, on the top floor of the Queen Alexandra Elementary School in Strathcona while the first campus building, Athabasca Hall, was under construction. In a letter to Rutherford in early 1906, while he was in the process of setting up McGill University College in Vancouver, Tory wrote, "If you take any steps in the direction of a working University and wish to avoid the mistakes of the past, mistakes which have fearfully handicapped other institutions, you should start on a teaching basis."
Of the 45 students in the university's first cohort in 1908, seven were women. These original seven formed a type of sorority, called Seven Independent Spinsters, or S.I.S., with the intention of supporting the women's social and academic needs. In 1909, the group changed its name to the Wuaneita Club, and then to the Wuaneita Society in 1910. All female students at the university were initiated into the Society every fall. The group heavily appropriated from Cree culture: the name Wuaneita is a rough equivalent to the Cree word meaning "kind-hearted"; their initiation ceremonies featured costumes with feathers and headdresses; the society president was called the "Big Chief": and the motto of the group was "payuk uche kukeyow, mena kukeyow uche payuk,” a rough translation into Cree of "all for one, one for all" that is still engraved above the outer doors of Pembina Hall on main campus. For much of the Wuaneita Society's existence, as they were coopting First Nations traditions and ceremonies, the Potlatch ban was in effect in Canada. The group wound down in 1973 once the population of female students on campus had outgrown the need for a supportive society.
Under Tory's guidance, the early years were marked by recruitment of professors and construction of the first campus buildings. Today, he has a building named after him that houses classes of all types. Among the first professors Tory hired was William Muir Edwards, the second child of women's rights activist Henrietta Edwards.
Percy Erskine Nobbs & Frank Darling designed the master plan for the University of Alberta in 1909–10. Nobbs designed the Arts Building (1914–15), laboratories and Power House (1914). With Cecil S. Burgess, Nobbs designed the Provincial College of Medicine (1920–21). Architect Herbert Alton Magoon designed several buildings on campus, including St. Stephen's Methodist College (1910) and the residence for professor Rupert C. Lodge (1913). The University of Alberta awarded its first degrees in 1912, the same year it established the Department of Extension. The Faculty of Medicine was established the following year, and the Faculty of Agriculture began in 1915.
But along with these early milestones came the First World War and the global influenza pandemic of 1918, whose toll on the university resulted in a two-month suspension of classes in the fall of 1918. The university organized the recruitment of staff and students for XI Canadian Field Ambulance (Western Universities) in early 1916, and soon afterward it raised 'C' Company of the 196th (Western Universities) Battalion. Both of these units were organized by a committee composed of representatives from the University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, University of Saskatchewan, and University of Manitoba, with each institution encouraging their staff and students to volunteer. The University of Alberta's recruits for XI Canadian Field Ambulance were billeted in Athabasca Hall before departing for Winnipeg in March 1916, while the men of C Company stayed in Assiniboia Hall until June of that same year. Between 1914 and 1918, the number of students and staff serving overseas (in a number of different units) was greater than the number of students registered in each academic year. Roughly half of the university's staff and students were serving overseas by 1916. 82 staff and students from the University of Alberta died during their service in the First World War, and hundreds more were wounded.
Despite these setbacks, the university continued to grow. By 1920, it had six faculties (Arts and Sciences, Applied Science, Agriculture, Medicine, Dentistry, and Law) and two schools (Pharmacy and Accountancy). It awarded a range of degrees: Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Science (BSc), Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (BSA), Bachelor of Laws (LLB), Bachelor of Pharmacy (PhmB), Bachelor of Divinity (BD), Master of Arts (MA), Master of Science (MSc), and Doctor of Laws (LLD). There were 851 male students and 251 female students, and 171 academic staff, including 14 women.
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Campus expansion
The Breton Soil Plots were established at the faculty of agriculture from 1929 – present to provide agricultural research on fertilization, usage, crop rotations and farming practices on Gray-Luvisolic soils (Gray-Wooded), which cover many regions in western Canada.
The University of Alberta spearheaded an extraordinary rate of volunteerism in the province of Alberta to the First World War, especially from its medical faculty. Experience gained was used by returning veterans to rapidly mature the young Faculty of Medicine. The War Memorial Committee commissioned a War Memorial Pipe Organ to be erected by the Casavant Frères in U of A Convocation Hall in 1925 in memory of 80 University of Alberta comrades who gave up their lives during the Great War.
In the early part of the 20th century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law and medicine. Graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis was introduced. In 1929, the university established a College of Education. This period of growth was to be short-lived, though, as the Great Depression and the Second World War curtailed enrolment and expansion until 1945. The university also gained new public powers. In 1928, the university's senate was granted the power to oversee and appoint half of the Alberta Eugenics Board, charged with recommending individuals for sterilization.
Spurred by postwar growth in the student population and the discovery of oil in Leduc in 1947, the University of Alberta underwent expansion through the 1950s that continued through the 1960s as the baby-boom generation swelled the enrolment ranks. These two decades also saw expansion of campus buildings, including new buildings for the faculties of physical education and education, and the Cameron Library. The University of Alberta Press, concentrating on western Canadian history, general science and ecology, was founded in 1969.
The policy of university education initiated in the 1960s responded to population pressure and the belief that higher education was a key to social justice and economic productivity for individuals and for society. In addition, the single-university policy in the West was changed as existing colleges of the provincial universities gained autonomy as universities. On September 19, 1960, the university opened a new 130-hectare campus in Calgary. By 1966, the University of Calgary had been established as an autonomous institution.
From the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, the university enjoyed sustained growth. In 1970, the Collège Saint-Jean, now known as Campus Saint-Jean, began offering French-language instruction in arts, science and education. In 1984, the School of Native Studies was established. Buildings that had been started in the 1960s, such as Biological Sciences, its biotron facility, and the Central Academic Building, were completed in the early 1970s. Extensive renovations restored the venerable Arts Building, as well as the Athabasca and Pembina halls. New buildings completed in the early 1980s included the Business Building and the first phase of the Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre. Another new building, the distinctive Universiade Pavilion (nicknamed the "Butterdome"), was completed as part of the university's preparations to host the World University Games in 1983, the first time the event was held in North America.
Modern challenges
The 1990s were a time of financial constraint as the Alberta government made budgetary cutbacks. However, there was a time in which the university benefited from philanthropic support. The $11 million Timms Centre for the Arts, which began construction in 1993, was made possible by a large donation from its namesake, Albert Timms. In 1998, Gladys Young's $3.5-million donation to the university undergraduate scholarship fund in memory of Roland Young, who graduated from the U of A in 1928, was the largest private donation for undergraduate scholarships in the university's history.
The early 2000s brought substantial funding increases. High energy prices drove Alberta's energy boom resulting in multibillion-dollar government surpluses and the subsequent creation of a $4.5 billion provincial post-secondary educational endowment. In 2005, the university hired Indira Samarasekera as its 12th president, embarking on an ambitious plan to establish itself as one of the world's top public research universities. These plans were hampered by the 2008 economic downturn, and by late March 2008, the university's endowment had shrunk by more than $100 million, almost 14 per cent of its value. The university predicted a $59-million budget shortfall in 2009 before provincial cuts brought that figure to $79 million. To close the budgetary gap, the university increased non-instructional fees by $290 per year laid off teaching and support staff, and even eliminated phones in some departments (such as English and Film Studies).
The 2013 Alberta Budget cut provincial post-secondary grants by $147 million, including a 7.2 per cent cut to the university's base operating grant. The university is covering its resulting shortfall by reducing total spending in 2013 by $28 million, then cutting an additional $56 million to balance its budget by the spring of 2015.
The 2015 Alberta Budget released in October 2015 restored a 1.4 per cent cut to the U of A's operational funding, and provided for an additional two per cent increase in the 2015-16 fiscal year. The budget also included a two-year tuition freeze. October also saw the launch of an institutional strategic planning process intended to prompt discussion and gather feedback on the university's strategic priorities, with the goal of assuming a national leadership role in post-secondary education.
The 2019 Alberta Budget released in October 2019 reduced grants to the provincial post-secondary sector, including a $44-million reduction for the U of A and an additional freeze of $35 million allocated for infrastructure. In early 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, the United Conservative Party announced an additional $110-million cut to funding for the U of A. While outgoing University President David H. Turpin announced that the cuts would necessitate 400 job losses by March 31 and more than 600 additional positions would need to be eliminated in 2020–2021, incoming University President Bill Flanagan began campus discussions about how to manage the cuts, including reducing the number of faculties and departments, and streamlining administration staffing.
In April 2026, two former students and an associate professor launched a charter challenge against the University for directing the Edmonton Police Service to forcibly dismantle a Palestine solidarity encampment. The lawsuit argues that the University breached multiple charter rights, including freedom of expression, assembly and association.
History of Queer life
In 1984, students formed "Gays and Lesbians On Campus" (GALOC). In 1985, a "Pink Triangle" supplement first appeared in The Gateway student newspaper. That same year, GALOC organized U of A's first pride event, GALA Week, which became an annual event. In 1990, GALOC held "Blue Jean Day", when gays, lesbians, and supporters wore denim jeans for a day; incidents of homophobia were reported. Since 2013, the university has held a Pride Week each mid-March, which includes a pride parade across North Campus. In 2021, events were held virtually.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of Alberta, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3