McMaster University Canada

McMaster University


McMaster University (commonly referred as McMaster or Mac) is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton,Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on 121 hectares (300 acres) of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens.] The university operates six academic faculties: Engineering, Health Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, and the DeGroote School of Business. It is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada.
The university bears the name of Honourable William McMaster, a prominent Canadian Senator and banker who bequeathed C$900,000 to the founding of the university. McMaster University was incorporated under the terms of an act of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1887, merging the Toronto Baptist College with Woodstock College. It opened in Toronto in 1890. Inadequate facilities and the gift of land in Hamilton prompted the institution to relocate in 1930. McMaster was controlled by the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec until it became a privately chartered, publicly funded non-denominational institution in 1957.
The university is co-educational, and has nearly 23,000 undergraduate and over 3,500 post-graduate students. Alumni and former students of the university can be found all across Canada and in 129 countries around the world. The McMaster athletic teams are known as theMarauders, and are members of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport.
History
McMaster University resulted from the outgrowth of educational initiatives undertaken by Baptists as early as the 1830s. It was founded in 1881 as Toronto Baptist College. 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. In 1887 the Act to unite Toronto Baptist College and Woodstock College was granted royal assent, and McMaster University was officially incorporated. 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 a BA degree—were taught in 1890, and the first degrees were conferred in 1894.


McMaster University in Toronto circa 1906
As the university grew, McMaster Hall started to become overcrowded. The suggestion to move the university to Hamilton was first brought up by a student and Hamilton native in 1909, although the proposal was not seriously considered by the university until two years later. By the 1920s, after previous proposals between various university staff, the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign to bring McMaster University to Hamilton. As the issue of space at McMaster Hall became more acute, the university administration debated the future of the university. The university nearly became federated with the University of Toronto, as had been the case with Trinity College and Victoria College. Instead, in 1927, the university administration decided to transfer the university to Hamilton. The Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec secured $1.5 million, while the citizens of Hamilton raised an additional $500,000 to help finance the move. The lands for the university and new buildings were secured through gifts from graduates. Lands were transferred from the Royal Botanical Gardens to establish the campus area. The first academic session on the new Hamilton campus began in 1930. McMaster's property in Toronto was sold to the University of Toronto when McMaster moved to Hamilton in 1930. McMaster Hall is now home to the Royal Conservatory of Music.
The University traditionally focused on undergraduate studies, and did not offer a PhD program until 1949.


Hamilton Hall was constructed in 1926 in preparation for the university's move to Hamilton and now houses the Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Through the 1950s increased funding advanced the place of sciences within the institution. In 1950, the university had completed the construction of three academic buildings for the sciences, all designed by local architect William Russell Souter. 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 underThe McMaster University Act, 1957, dissolving the two colleges. Its property was vested to McMaster and the university became a nondenominational institution eligible for public funding. The historic Baptist connection was continued through McMaster Divinity College, a separately chartered affiliated college of the university. Also in 1957, Ph.D. programs were consolidated in a new Faculty of Graduate Studies.[17] Construction of the McMaster Nuclear Reactor also began in 1957, and was the first university-based research reactor in theCommonwealth when it began operating in 1959.