yawiki.org entry for University of Alberta

History
The University of Alberta was chartered in 1906 and opened in 1908. The Act creating the university had been passed two years earlier in the first session of the new Legislative Assembly, with Premier Alexander C. Rutherford as its sponsor.

As the story goes, the location of the university was to be decided along the same lines as that of Saskatchewan. (The province of Saskatchewan shares the same founding date as Alberta, 1905.) Saskatchewan had to please two competing cities when deciding the location of its capital city and provincial university. Thus, Regina was designated the provincial capital and Saskatoon received the provincial university, the University of Saskatchewan. The same heated wrangling over the location of the provincial capital also took place in Alberta between the cities of Calgary and Edmonton. 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. In the end the city of Edmonton became capital and the city just south of the river, Strathcona was granted the university. In 1912 the two cities of Edmonton and Strathcona were amalgamated under the name of the former; Edmonton thus became the political and academic capital. To this day this event marked the first major step in the rivalry between the two largest communities of Alberta (the richest province of Canada and only one home to two cities ranked in the top five in Canada by population, size and economic power. The others being Toronto ON, Montreal QC and Vancouver BC).(*)

Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics

Academics
The U of A has approximately 35,000 students, 5,800 of them in graduate studies, while about 3,000 are international students from 121 countries. The university has 3,200 academic staff along with about 5,000 support and trust staff. The university's professors have won more 3M Teaching Fellowships (Canada's top award for undergraduate teaching excellence) than any other Canadian university. Its library is the second largest among Canadian universities, (The University of Toronto has the largest library collection in Canada). Moreover, the U of A ranks first in volumes per student with over 6 million items. It offers post-secondary education in about 200 undergraduate and 170 graduate programs. Tuition and fees for both fall and winter semesters are slighty more than $5200 for a typical undergraduate student, although they vary widely by program. The University of Alberta switched from a 9-point grading scale to the more common 4-point grading scale in September 2003.

The university today has nineteen faculties and two affiliated colleges:

Faculty of Arts

Augustana Faculty

University of Alberta School of Business

Faculty of Education

Faculty of Engineering

Faculty of Extension

Faculté Saint-Jean

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research

Faculty of Law

School of Library and Information Studies

Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry

School of Native Studies

Faculty of Nursing

Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation

School of Public Health

Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine

Faculty of Science

St. Joseph's College

St. Stephen's College

Campuses
The university has three distinct campuses: the Riverside (or Main) Campus (which is the original location of the University of Alberta, located on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River), the Campus Saint-Jean (a francophone campus located about 10 km to the east of the Riverside Campus), and the Augustana Campus (located in Camrose, Alberta, a small city in rural Alberta about 100 km southeast of Edmonton). The Faculté Saint-Jean, based on the Campus Saint-Jean, is the only francophone post-secondary instution west of Manitoba. In 2004, the former Augustana University College in Camrose merged with the University of Alberta, thus creating the Augustana Faculty, based on the Augustana Campus. It is the satellite campus of the University of Alberta.

A satellite view of the main campus can be seen on Google maps.

Future
Two future campuses are planned within the city of Edmonton. The South Campus will be located a few km to the south of the current main campus, with a link via Light Rail Transit (this link was under construction, as of Summer 2006). This will be near the current Foote Field and Saville Sports Centre. A Downtown campus will also open on the north side of the North Saskatchewan River in downtown Edmonton. It will be located in the historical building previously occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Construction
As part of the University of Alberta's expansion, many construction projects have recently been completed on campus and many more are either in the process of being completed or are slated to begin in the near future. Expansion of the University of Alberta's hospital is also included in the construction projects. Many of the new buildings recently completed now stand where either older university buildings once stood or on what used to be parking lots (making parking more of a difficult process on campus).

One of the major projects underway include the construction of an all new state-of-the-art facility known as the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS) to be mainly used by the Faculty of Science. This project is expected to be completed by 2010. Perhaps if there is controversy revolving around this project, it is due to the fact that at least 3 old buildings are currently in demolition phase to make way for this building. These three buildings include the V-wing (a large 1 floor building composed of roughly 10 lecture halls), the Avadh Bhatia Physics building ( a 6 storey Physics department building where many labs and classes were held), and the Centre for Subatomic research. Many of the classes and labs that were held in these buildings have now been relocated to other new or recently renovated buildings.

Reputation

The University of Alberta consistently ranks as one of the top five universities in Canada, along with the University of Toronto, McGill University, and the University of British Columbia.

The Times Higher Education Supplement (*) rates the top 5 Canadian universities (world rankings in brackets):

McMaster University

Academic Ranking of World Universities (*) rates the top 5 Canadian universities (world rankings in brackets):

McMaster University

Webometrics Ranking of World Universities (*) rates the top 5 Canadian universities (world rankings in brackets):

University of Calgary

Research Infosource (*) rates the top 5 Canadian universities by research criteria:

Université de Montréal

Newsweek (International Edition) (*) rates the top 5 Canadian universities (world rankings in brackets):

University of Waterloo

Maclean’s (*), a leading Canadian news magazine, rates the top 5 Medical/Doctoral Canadian universities by reputation

McMaster University

It should be noted that the University of Alberta (along with 22 other universities) has declined to particpate in the next Maclean's annual university rankings issue, due to a concern that past rankings have been inaccurate.

The continued economic boom in Alberta, driven mainly by high energy prices, has resulted in multi-billion dollar government fiscal surpluses (*). This has led to the introduction of Bill 1 by the provincial government, which promises to create a $4.5 billion endowment for Alberta's post-secondary institutions (*). Given the rosy economic conditions in Alberta, it has been suggested that as the University of Alberta enters its second century it should aim to be one of the top twenty universities in the world by the year 2020 (*)(*).

Research
Housing over 400 distinct research laboratories, the University of Alberta is one of the leading research universities in Canada. Since 1988, the University of Alberta has received more than $2.6 billion from external sources for research. The university's medical researchers developed the Edmonton Protocol, which is a new treatment for type one diabetes that enables diabetics to break their insulin dependence. Recently, the new $52 million National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT), a joint project between the Government of Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, the Government of Alberta, and the University of Alberta opened on campus. The 21,086 square-meter building is one of the world's most technologically advanced research facilities. Furthermore, the U of A is a member of the G10 universities. The G10 universities are composed of the leading research universities in Canada.

Athletics
The University of Alberta is represented in Canadian Interuniversity Sport by the Alberta Golden Bears (men's) and the Alberta Pandas (women's).

The Pandas are a dominant force in women's university hockey. They have won the Canada West Conference 7 times in the 8 year history of competition. In addition, they have claimed the national championship five times in the last seven years. Their gold medals come in 2006, '04, '03, '02, and '00. They also boast a pair of silver medals ('05, '99) since the inception of the CIS championship in 1997-98. When the Pandas lost the CIS championship game in March 2005, it ended a 110-game undefeated streak (109-0-1).

The Golden Bears hockey team has played in the CIS University Cup finals, winning an unprecedented 12 times. Their most recent victory against the Lakehead University Thunderwolves. Every fall the team plays against the Edmonton Oilers rookies. In 2006 they lost 6-3, ending their five game winning streak against the rookies.