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McMaster University (Mac) is a public research university located Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It bears the name of William McMaster, a prominent Canadian Senator and banker whose substantial bequeathed funds helped form the beginning of the university. The institution being incorporated under the terms of an act of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1887. The university was originally located in Toronto and moved to its present home in Hamilton in 1930. Originally controlled by the Baptist Convention of Ontario it became a non-denominational private institution in 1957.
The university operates six academic faculties; Science, Health Sciences, Engineering, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Business with an enrollment of 20,600 full-time undergraduate students and 2,901 postgraduate students. The main campus is located on 300 acres (1.2 km2) of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens.
McMaster is the major knowledge generator in the Hamilton region, providing both the human capital and the research output for the regional economy. The university is particularly renown for its strengths in the fields of Health Sciences and Engineering and has been named Canada's most innovative medical-doctoral university 8 times in the past 11 years. The university is ranked highly in national, regional, and worldwide rankings.
History
McMaster University was the result of the outgrowth of educational work initiated by Baptists in central Canada as early as the 1830's. Canadian Senator William McMaster, the first president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, bequeathed funds to endow a university which was incorporated through a merger of Toronto Baptist College and Woodstock College, under the terms of an act of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1887.). The new University, housed in McMaster Hall in Toronto, was sponsored by the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec as a sectarian undergraduate institution for its clergy and adherents. The first courses, initially limited to arts and theology, leading to the BA degree were taught in 1890, and the first degrees were conferred in 1894.
The university nearly became federated with the University of Toronto, as had been the case with Trinity College and Victoria College. However, the University was instead transfer from Toronto to Hamilton in 1930. The lands for the university and new buildings were secured through gifts from graduates, members of the churches of the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, and citizens of Hamilton. McMaster Hall, the original home of the university, now houses the Royal Conservatory of Music.
Professional programs during the interwar period had been limited to theology and nursing.By the 1940s the McMaster administration was under pressure to to modernize and expand the university's programs.During the Second World War and post war periods the demand for technological expertise, particularly in the sciences.This placed a strain on the finances of what was still a denominational Baptist institution. In particular, the institution could no longer secure sufficient funds from denominational sources alone to sustain science research. Since denominational institution could not receive public funds the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec decided to reorganize the University, creating two federated colleges. The arts and divinity programs were reconstituted as University College and science was reorganized under the newly created Hamilton College as a separate division capable of receiving provincial grants.
Through the 1950’s increased funding advanced the place of sciences within the institution.Public funding was eventually necessary to ensure the humanities and social sciences were given an equal place. Thus, in 1957 the University reorganized once again, merging the two colleges and becoming a private nondenominational institution eligible for public funding. The historic Baptist connection was continued through the separate incorporation and affiliation of a theological school, McMaster Divinity College. The University had traditionally focused on undergraduate studies, having not offered a PhD program until 1949.However, this also changed in 1957 with the creation of a Faculty of Graduate Studies, which was gradually expanded over the coming decades. Construction of the McMaster Nuclear Reactor also began in 1957 and was the first university-based research reactor in the Commonwealth when it began operating in 1959.
In 1965, with the support of the Ontario government, the University established a medical school and teaching hospital, graduating its first class of physicians in 1972.[14] In 1968, the University was organized into the Divisions of Arts, Science, and Health Sciences each with its own Vice-President, while Divinity College continued under its existing arrangement. In 1974 the divisional structure of the University was dissolved and the vice-presidents were replaced by a single Vice-President (Academic). The Faculties of Business, Engineering, Health Sciences, Humanities, Science, and Social Sciences were retained, each under the leadership of a dean.
Fight Song
Notable among a number of songs commonly played and sung at various events such as commencement and convocation, and athletic games are: 'The Alma Mater Song' (1935) with words by Mrs A.A. Burridge and music by Hugh Brearly; 'The McMaster March,' with words by Claire Senior Burke et al and music by Arthur Burridge; 'My Mac' (1982) with words and music by Fred Moyes.
Campus
Main campus
McMaster's main campus is bordered to the north by Cootes Paradise, an extensive natural marshland, to the east and west by residential neighbourhoods and to its south by Main Street West, a major transportation artery of Hamilton. Its northern boundaries are a popular destination for hikers and joggers who make use of the many trails that connect the campus to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Ontario's lands.
The buildings and facilities represent the ongoing development that has been happening on McMaster grounds since it purchased the property from the city of Hamilton in 1928. Its six original gothic-style buildings are now flanked by over 50 structures built predominantly during booms in the early 1970s and the late 1990s to present. Perhaps the most distinctive component of the campus skyline is that of the McMaster University Medical Centre, a multi-use research hospital that ranks among the largest public buildings in Canada. It is connected to the Life Sciences building and the recently completed (2004) Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning & Discovery which houses many well-funded research groups in areas of genetics, infectious diseases and several specific conditions.
The McMaster Nuclear Reactor is a university-based research reactor that is today the only Canadian medium flux reactor in a university environment. It is a "pool-type" reactor with a core of enriched uranium fuel moderated and cooled by light water. The MNR, provides wide range of irradiation, laboratory and holding facilities which include: A cyclotron, an accelerator, a small-angle neutron-scattering detector and wide-angle neutron scattering facilities.
Residences
Currently McMaster has 12 smoke-free residence buildings totalling approximately 3,756 bedspaces. The newest residence to be built is Les Prince Hall, just north of Hedden Hall. It is a large co-ed building completed in 2006. Prince was a long-serving hall master in the residence system, living with his family on campus until after his retirement in 1980.
Building choices include the traditional room and board style, furnished apartment style and suite-style. The McMaster Residence System is composed of Community Advisors who provide guidance and help the transition to university life for many first year students. Advisors trained Housing and Conference service employees and enforce policies which the university has put in place. They also provide programs for students that touch on one or more of its four pillars approach: Academic, Awareness, Social, and Wellness. Residence Students are represented by the Inter Residence Council (IRC). Each building has 2 representatives which program entertaining activities for students, facilitate social interaction, and represent student opinion to the upper administration.
Burlington
Recently, McMaster has begun spreading physically beyond its West Hamilton borders into other areas in the region.
In 2004 McMaster University announced that in partnership with the neighbouring city of Burlington, it would be constructing a new arts & technology intensive campus in that city. Plans call for a small initial cohort to be admitted in 2007 in leased space and the University hopes to have an enrolment at the Burlington campus of nearly 5000 students by 2020. The Burlington campus concept is contingent on provincial government approval, not yet sought, of the academic programmes and the necessary funding.
The proposed campus has proven controversial and the plan has been opposed by many deans and other faculty members.[citation needed] The McMaster Students Union has serious reservations with the project and may openly oppose the project dependent upon either a fall vote in the student representative assembly or a general referendum.
Other facilities
The McMaster's Centre for Continuing Education was relocated to the former Hamilton-Wentworth courthouse building on Main Street East in 2002. The centre offers a variety of certificate and diploma programs as well as personal and professional development programs.
The Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine is expected to expand through a shared health science campus with the with the University of Waterloo in Kitchener, Ontario. Additional expansion is in the Niagara region of the Golden Horseshoe.
McMaster has purchased a large industrial park three kilometres east of its main Hamilton campus in 2005 with the intention of redeveloping the site to contain an array of research facilities for the development of advanced manufacturing and materials, biotechnology, automotive and nanotechnology. In July 2005 the federal government announced it was announced that it would be relocated CANMET, a federal government materials research laboratory, from its Ottawa centre to Hamilton, helping spear-head the development of the McMaster Innovation Park.
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