The University of Windsor (UWindsor, U of W, or UWin) is a public research university in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost university. It has approximately 17,500 students. The university was incorporated by the provincial government in 1962 and has more than 150,000 alumni.
The University of Windsor has nine faculties, including the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Engineering, Odette School of Business, the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the Faculty of Human Kinetics, the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Nursing, and the Faculty of Science. Through its faculties and independent schools, the university has demonstrated its primary research focuses of automotive, environmental, social justice, and international trade research. In recent years, it has increasingly begun focusing on health, natural science, and entrepreneurship research.
History Founding era
The university dates to the founding of the Roman Catholic Assumption College in Windsor, Ontario, in 1857. Assumption College, a primarily theological institution, was founded by the Society of Jesuits in 1857. The Basilian Fathers assumed control of the college in 1870. The college grew steadily, expanding its curriculum and affiliating with several other colleges over the years.
In 1919, Assumption College affiliated with the University of Western Ontario. This affiliation expanded the curriculum at Assumption, including new general and honours programs for Bachelor of Arts degrees, graduate courses in philosophy, and pre-professional programs in engineering, medicine, and law.
The school became co-educational in 1934 when it formed and admitted women to attend Holy Names College. In 1937, the first class of women graduated from Assumption College, receiving Bachelor of Arts degrees.
Escalating costs forced Assumption College, a Roman Catholic university, to become a public institution to qualify for public support. In 1953, through an Act of the Ontario Legislature, Assumption College received its own university powers, and ended its affiliation with the University of Western Ontario.
In 1956, the institution's name was changed to Assumption University of Windsor, by an Act of the Ontario Legislature, with Reverend Eugene Carlisle LeBel, C.S.B. named as its first President. The recently created Essex College, an independent non-denominational college led by Frank A. DeMarco, became an affiliate, with responsibility for the Faculty of Applied Science; the Schools of Business Administration and Nursing; and the departments of Biology, Chemistry, Geology and Geography, and Mathematics and Physics.
Mid-twentieth century In the early 1960s, the city of Windsor's growth and demands for higher education led to further restructuring. A petition was made to the province of Ontario for the creation of a non-denominational University of Windsor by the board of governors and regents of Assumption University and the board of directors of Essex College. The University of Windsor was established as an institution by the University of Windsor Act on December 19, 1962. The transition from an historic Roman Catholic university to a non-denominational provincial university was an unprecedented development.
On July 1, 1963, the entire campus with all of its facilities and faculty became known as the University of Windsor. As a 'federated member', Assumption University remained as an integrated institution, granting degrees only in its Faculty of Theology. Father Eugene Carlisle LeBel from Assumption became the inaugural president of the University of Windsor, and Frank A. DeMarco, who had been holding both positions of Principal, as well as Dean of Applied Science at Essex College, became the inaugural Vice President. The university's coats of arms were designed by heraldic expert Alan Beddoe.
Six months later, Assumption University of Windsor made affiliation agreements with Holy Redeemer College (now Académie Sainte-Cécile), Canterbury College and the new Iona College (affiliated with the United Church of Canada). Canterbury College became the first Anglican college in the world to affiliate with a Roman Catholic University.
In 1964, when President LeBel retired, John Francis Leddy was appointed president of the University of Windsor, and presided over a period of significant growth.
President Leddy, "concerned that the University of Windsor should emerge as soon as possible from the status and reputation of a College to that of a University", set out to review the existing departments. Based on the strengths in the social sciences, economics, political science and psychology, Leddy proposed to the university's board of governors that a law school be established. In September 1968, the Faculty of Law opened with its first class of students.
From 1967 to 1977, Windsor grew from approximately 1,500 to 8,000 full-time students.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, this growth continued. Among the new buildings erected were the Odette Business Building and the CAW Student Centre.
The university partnered with Chrysler in 1996 to establish the Automotive Research and Development Centre, a research lab that focuses on automotive research and education.
Twenty-first century Enrolment reached record heights in 2003 with 16,000 students registered, a 15% increase from the year previous. The increase was driven primarily by first-year students due to the elimination of Grade 13 in Ontario that year. The university developed a number of partnerships with businesses and industry, such as a partnership in 2013 with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, that introduced internships for students and research opportunities.
In 2008, a satellite campus of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry opened at the University of Windsor. The partnership between the University of Windsor and the University of Western Ontario followed several years of community and political organizing, and built upon an existing partnership that started in 2002 that sent Western medical students to Windsor for clinical training. The satellite school initially trained undergraduate medical students in the Doctor of Medicine program and has since expanded to offer post-graduate residency programs in family medicine and psychiatry. As of 2023, the program has added almost 100 physicians to the region.
Campus
Located in Canada's traditional "automotive capital" across the border from Detroit, the campus is near the United States and its busy port of entry to and from the United States. It is framed by the Ambassador Bridge to the west and the Detroit River to the north.
The campus covers (contiguous) and is surrounded by a residential neighborhood. The campus features a small arboretum, which represents most of the species from the Carolinian forest. Campus is approximately a 10-minute drive from downtown Windsor. The university has moved some academic programs to the downtown core, including Social Work, the Executive and Professional Education program, Music and Fine Arts. Due to its historical roots in multiple religious institutions, the university's campus has many examples of Christian architecture in addition to its modern flagship buildings like the $10-million dollar Joyce Entrepreneurship Centre.
The War Memorial Hall (more generally known as Memorial Hall) is a landmark building used as classrooms, labs, and offices. Memorial Hall honours alumni who had enlisted and died in the First World War, and in the Second World War. A bronze tablet remembers the alumni of Assumption College who died in the Second World War.
The Joyce Entrepreneurship Centre (formerly the “Innovation Centre”) is located on the main campus, on the south side of Wyandotte street. This building houses the EPICentre, and WEtech Alliance. The EPICentre (Entrepreneurship, Practice, and Innovation Centre) is a University of Windsor organization focused on providing students and alumni with the expertise and resources necessary to pursue entrepreneurial goals. The EPICentre is part of the Ontario Centres of Excellence and provides education, mentorship, office space and varying levels of funding to help support startup business. WEtech Alliance is a similar organization, also being an Ontario Centre of Excellence, whose main focus is to support technology startup companies. They provide services to technology startups in the Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent regions, not exclusively to students and alumni from the University of Windsor.
The CAW Student Centre is the main, comprehensive centre servicing all student needs. It houses a large food court and the main campus bookstore. Also within the CAW Centre: Student Health Services, a dental office, counselling services, a photographer, a pharmacy, the University of Windsor Students' Alliance (UWSA), a Multi-Faith Space, the campus community radio station CJAM-FM, and an information desk. A large public area beside the food court is available for clubs and informational booths to be set up on certain days. For example, during October there is a period where many Canadian law schools set up booths with representatives who answer questions and provide information to undergraduate students.
The St. Denis Centre, at the south end of campus on College Avenue, is the major athletic and recreational facility for students. It has a weight room, exercise facilities, and a swimming pool. The South Campus Stadium built for the 2005 Pan American Junior Games is beside the St. Denis Centre - which also has dressing rooms for Lancer teams - and borders Huron Church Road, the major avenue to and from the border crossing. The athletics department has become well known for Track & Field, and Men and Women's Basketball.
In February 2018, the university announced plans to build a new athletic centre, titled the Lancer Sport and Recreation Centre. The new facility will cost $73 million and be 130,000-square-feet. Unlike the current St. Denis Centre, there will be many separate sections of the facility to host different athletic resources; such as a new gymnasium, pool, fitness gym and many multi-purpose rooms, as opposed to a single general-purpose space. Construction for the facility began in October, 2018.
In June 2019, a new research facility opened up on the campus. The new facility, called the Essex Centre of Research (or CORe) is built on to the south side of the existing Essex Hall science facility. It is an open concept 46,000-square-feet facility, featuring state-of-the-art labs and will primarily be used as a research facility.
Student residences
The university houses students in four residence halls on campus.
Alumni Hall is home to beyond first-year students. Alumni Hall has all-gender floors and it is a suite-style residence where suites have two bedrooms that share a kitchenette and a three-piece bathroom.
Cartier Hall is home to first-year students. Cartier Hall has all-gender floors, two students share one room and four students share one bathroom.
Laurier Hall is home to beyond first-year students with single rooms on all gender floors. Common/shared all-gender bathrooms.
Rodzik Hall is home to first-year students and limited rooms for beyond first-year students. Rodzik Hall has all-gender floors, single rooms and two students share one washroom.
Organization and administration Governance The university is governed as a public, non-profit, and non-denominational institution by the University of Windsor Act, 1962, which sets out the basic legal obligations and purposes of the institution. Similar to most Canadian universities, the Act establishes the university as a bicameral institution, governed by a Board of Governors and Senate, and led by a chancellor and president.