| York University | |
|---|---|
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| | |
| Motto: | Tentanda via ("The way must be tried") |
| Established: | 1959 |
| Type: | Public |
| Endowment: | $306 million (CAD) |
| Chancellor: | Roy McMurtry |
| President: | Mamdouh Shoukri |
| Staff: | 7,000 |
| Undergraduates: | 45,890 |
| Postgraduates: | 4,796 |
| Location: | Toronto, ON, Canada |
| Campus: | Urban / suburban, 2.17 km² |
| Sports teams: | York Lions |
| Colours: | Red and white |
| Affiliations: | AUCC, IAU, COU, CIS, OUA, CUSID, Fields Institute, Ontario Network of Women in engineering, CBIE, CUP. |
| Website: | yorku.ca |
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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 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.
On November 6, 2008, the York University Senate suspended classes due to a strike by CUPE Local 3903. The local represents contract professors, teaching assistants, and graduate assistants. Classes resumed on Monday, February 2, 2009 after back to work legislation was passed by the Ontario Legislative Assembly (see: 2008-09 York University Strike)
History
York University, a non-denominational institution in Toronto, Ontario was founded in 1959, by virtue of the York University Act. which received Royal Assent in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on 26 March of that year. Its first class was held on September 1960, in Falconer Hall on the University of Toronto campus with a total of 76 students.
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. The governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the 2 bodies and to perform institutional leadership.
In the fall of 1961, York moved to its first campus, Glendon College, and began to emphasize liberal arts and part-time adult education. It became independent in 1965 after an initial period of affiliation with the University of Toronto under the York University Act, 1965.Its main campus on the northern outskirts of Toronto opened in 1965.
Murray Ross, who continues to be honoured today at the University in several ways, was still vice-president of the University of Toronto (UofT) when approached to become York U's new president. At the time, York U was envisioned as a feeder campus to UofT, until Ross's powerful vision led it to become a completely separate institution.
In 1965, the university opened a second campus on Toronto's northern outskirts. The Glendon campus became a bilingual liberal arts college led by Escott Reid, who envisioned it as a national institution to educate Canada's future leaders, a vision shared by Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who formally opened Glendon College in 1966. Its bilingual mandate and focus on the liberal arts continue to shape Glendon's special status within York U. The new Keele campus was regarded as somewhat isolated, in a generally industrialized part of the city. Petrol storage facilities are still located across the street. Some of the early architecture was unpopular with many, not only for the brutalist designs, but the vast expanse between buildings, which was not viewed as suitable for the climate. In the last two decades, the campus has been intensified with new buildings, including a dedicated student centre and new fine arts, computer science and business administration buildings, as well as a small shopping mall, and hockey arena. The Rexall Centre tennis stadium, built in 2004, is a perennial host of the Canada Masters tennis tournament. As Toronto has spread further out, York has found itself in a relatively central location within the built-up Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and in particular, near the Jane and Finch neighbourhood. Its master plan envisions a denser on-campus environment commensurate with that location.
Academics
York University has produced the current directors and CEOs of almost all the major banks in Canada (Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia, TD Bank, Bank of Montreal), the largest and most prominent media networks in Canada (CTV Television Network, Rogers Communications, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), and numerous judges, diplomats, and senior politicians including the current Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada, the Minister of Finance of Canada, the Attorney General of Ontario, the President of the Privy Council of Canada and the Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations. Astronaut Steve MacLean was educated at York University in the physics department and later taught there before going to work at NASA.
York's approximately 2,450 full-time faculty and academic librarians are represented by the York University Faculty Association. Contract faculty, teaching assistants, and graduate assistants are represented by CUPE Local 3903.
Faculties
York University has eleven faculties. Several of these faculties' programs overlap. The Faculties of Arts (which is merging with the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & professional Studies to form the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies in July 2009), Science & Engineering, Liberal & Professional Studies (Atkinson), and Glendon College, for instance, each house separate mathematics departments, although some of these are being merged; the Schulich School of Business offers undergraduate and graduate International Business Administration programmes, but the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies' School of Administrative Studies acts as a completely separate business school, nevertheless both Atkinson and Schulich share many full time professors any many of Atkinson accounting courses "shadow" those of their Schulich counterpart. Also, Atkinson, Glendon, and Schulich units are offering or are in the processing of preparing to offer degrees in public policy and administration. The University administration has, however, taken steps in some cases to unify departments in separate faculties, in part to support York's efforts to brand itself as a university focused on interdisciplinarity. For example, the Faculty of Health, opened on 1 July 2006, houses the School of Health Policy & Management, School of Kinesiology and Health Science, School of Nursing, and the Department of Psychology.
The Osgoode Hall Law School moved from a downtown location to the York campus in 1969 following the requirement that every law school affiliate with a university. The law school has several flexible degrees available including the Osgoode-NYU JD/LLB degree in conjunction with New York University School of Law. Osgoode Hall Law School of York University has been ranked the top law school in Canada in Canadian Lawyer magazine’s 2008 Law School Survey.
York University offers the first and largest graphic design programme in Ontario (Bachelor of Design Honours degree). It is a four-year university degree delivered jointly by the two educational institutions of design in Canada, York University and Sheridan College.
York University's Faculty of Graduate Studies offers graduate degrees in a variety of disciplines, and there are several joint graduate programmes with the University of Toronto and Ryerson University. It is the second largest graduate school in the Province of Ontario.
The Ph.D. program at York in Social and Political Thought consistently ranks as one of Canada's best PhD programmes as reflected by the number of times York U students in this program have won the award for best PhD thesis in Canada. The School of Women's Studies at York University offers a large array of courses in the field, some of which are offered in French. The Canadian Centre for Germanic and European Studies is co-housed at York University and Université de Montréal. The Centre is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service.
Research centres & institutes
- Canadian Centre for German and European Studies
- Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry
- Centre for Feminist Research
- Centre for International and Security Studies
- Centre for Jewish Studies
- Centre for Practical Ethics
- Centre for Public Law and Public Policy
- Centre for Refugee Studies
- Centre for Research in Earth and Atmospheric Science
- Centre for Research in Mass Spectrometry
- Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean
- Centre for Research on Work and Society
- Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability
- Institute for Research on Learning Technologies
- York Institute for Social Research
- The Jack and Mae Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption
- LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution
- Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies
- York Centre for Asian Research
- York Centre for Vision Research
- York Institute for Health Research
- Las Nubes Centre for Neotropical Conservation and Research in Chirripó National Park is a research facility in Costa Rica donated by Dr. Woody Fisher in 1998
York has an art gallery (Art Gallery of York University.[19] The Faculty of Fine Arts[20] offers programmes such as ethnomusicology, cultural studies, visual arts, music, dance, and theatre. York's Jazz Department was once overseen by Oscar Peterson. York also has a joint Bachelor of Design program with Sheridan College. York's Departments of Film, Theatre and Creative Writing (which is not officially affiliated with the Faculty of Fine Arts) offers programmes in film production/directing, acting, and writing respectively, producing many award-winning graduates. The founders of Toronto's Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival and CineACTION film theory magazine were graduates of York's Faculty of Fine Arts.
York's Dance department was founded by National Ballet of Canada's first choreographer Grant Strate.
York offers a Space & Communication Sciences undergraduate degree. York’s Centre for Vision Research has developed a ‘virtual reality room’ called IVY (Immersive Virtual Environment at York) in order to study spatial orientation and perception of gravity and motion. The Canadian Space Agency and National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) use this room to strengthen astronauts’ sense of ‘up’ and ‘down’ in zero-gravity environments. The room is a six-sided immersive environment made of the glass used in the CN Tower’s observation deck and includes walls, ceiling, and a floor made of computer-generated pixel maps. York's Faculty of Science and Engineering most recently took part in the 2007 NASA Phoenix (spacecraft) Mars Mission.
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