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The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on 404 hectares (998 acres) of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates three satellite campuses and four affiliated university colleges. The university offers academic programs administered by six faculties and thirteen faculty-based schools. Waterloo operates the largest post-secondary co-operative education program in the world, with over 20,000 undergraduate students enrolled in the university's co-op program. Waterloo is a member of the U15, a group of research-intensive universities in Canada.

The institution originates from the Waterloo College Associate Faculties, established on 4 April 1956; a semi-autonomous entity of Waterloo College, which was an affiliate of the University of Western Ontario. This entity formally separated from Waterloo College and was incorporated as a university with the passage of the University of Waterloo Act by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1959. It was established to fill the need to train engineers and technicians for Canada's growing postwar economy. It grew substantially over the next decade, adding a faculty of arts in 1960, and the College of Optometry of Ontario (now the School of Optometry and Vision Science), which moved from Toronto in 1967.

The university is a co-educational institution, with approximately 36,000 undergraduate and 6,200 postgraduate students enrolled in 2020. Alumni of the university include a number of award winners, government officials, and business leaders. Waterloo's varsity teams, known as the Waterloo Warriors, compete in the Ontario University Athletics conference of the U Sports.

History

Twentieth century

The University of Waterloo traces its origins to Waterloo College (present-day Wilfrid Laurier University), the academic outgrowth of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, which was affiliated with the University of Western Ontario since 1925. When Gerald Hagey assumed the presidency of Waterloo College in 1953, he made it his priority to procure the funds necessary to expand the institution. While the main source of income for higher education in Ontario at the time was the provincial government, the Ontario government made it clear it would not contribute to denominational colleges and universities.

Hagey soon became aware of the steps undertaken by McMaster University to make itself eligible for some provincial funding by establishing Hamilton College as a separate, non-denominational college affiliated with the university. Following that method, Waterloo College established the Waterloo College Associate Faculties on 4 April 1956, as a non-denominational board affiliated with the college. The academic structure of the Associated Faculties was originally focused on co-operative education in the applied sciences—largely built around the proposals of Ira Needles. Needles proposed a different approach towards education, including both studies in the classroom and training in industry that would eventually become the basis of the university's co-operative education program. While the plan was initially opposed by the Engineering Institute of Canada and other Canadian universities, notably the University of Western Ontario, the Associated Faculties admitted its first students in July 1957.

On 25 January 1958, the Associated Faculties announced the purchase of over 74 hectares (180 acres) of land west of Waterloo College. By the end of the same year, the Associated Faculties opened its first building on the site, the Chemical Engineering Building.

In 1959, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario passed an act that formally split the Associated Faculties from Waterloo College, and re-established it as the University of Waterloo. The governance was modelled on the University of Toronto Act of 1906, which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate, responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to act as the institution's chief executive officer and act as a liaison between the two groups.

The legislative act was the result of a great deal of negotiation between Waterloo College, Waterloo College Associated Faculties, and St. Jerome's College, another denominational college in the City of Waterloo. While the agreements sought to safeguard the two denominational colleges, they also aimed at federating them with the newly established University of Waterloo. Due to disagreements with Waterloo College, the college was not formally federated with the new university. The dispute centred on a controversially worded section of the University of Waterloo Act, 1959, in which the college interpreted certain sections as a guarantee it would become the Faculty of Art for the new university. This was something the Associated Faculties were not prepared to accept. As a result of the controversy, Waterloo College's entire Department of Mathematics broke from the college to join the newly established University of Waterloo, later joined by professors from the Economic, German, Modern Languages, and Russian departments. Despite this controversy, until 1960 Hagey hoped for a last-minute compromise between Waterloo College and the university. Ultimately, however, the university created its own Faculty of Arts in 1960. It later established the first Faculty of Mathematics in North America on 1 January 1967. In 1967, the world's first department of kinesiology was created. The present legislative act which defines how the university should be governed, the University of Waterloo Act, 1972 was passed on 10 May 1972.

Campus

The university's main campus lies within the city of Waterloo, Ontario. It sits on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishnaabeg, and Haudenosaunee peoples that is part of the Haldimand Tract, land promised to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. It is bordered by Waterloo Park to the south, Wilfrid Laurier University to the southeast, residential neighbourhoods to the northeast, east and west, and the Laurel Creek Conservation Area to the northwest. Three numbered roads also intersect the main campus: University Avenue West, Columbia Street West, and Westmount Road North. While the main campus is 404 hectares (998 acres), the majority of the teaching facilities are centred on a ring road in its southern portion.

The oldest building on campus is the Graduate House, originally a farmhouse dating back to the 19th century. The oldest building which was erected for the university is the Douglas Wright Engineering Building, which was erected in 1958. A large majority of the university's buildings, and its ring road, were constructed during the 1960s. The university's main campus is divided into three major areas: South Campus, North Campus and Northwest Campus. South Campus is the academic core of the university, while North Campus holds the Research and Technology Park. Northwest Campus is the least developed area of the main campus, made up primarily of farm fields and an environmental reserve, which divides it from North Campus.

In addition, the university owns several other properties in Cambridge, Huntsville, Kitchener, and Stratford, Ontario. The ION rapid transit system provides a transit connection between the main campus, and several off-campus facilities, including the university's start-up incubator program in Kitchener.

Libraries and museums

The university has four libraries, housing a total of more than 1.4 million books, as well as electronic resources including e-books, serial titles, and databases. Three libraries are on campus: the Dana Porter Library, housing material relating to arts, humanities and social science; the Davis Centre Library, housing material for engineering, mathematics and science; and the Witer Learning Resource Centre, housing material for the School of Optometry and Vision Science. The fourth library, the Musagetes Architecture Library, is in Cambridge, alongside the university's School of Architecture. The libraries of the university's affiliated colleges are also considered a part of the university's library system. Doris E. Lewis was the first University Librarian. The university's library system is also a member of the Tri-University Group, a partnership between the University of Guelph, the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University that provides students and researchers at all three universities with access to all of the collections and services. The group also operates the TUG Annex, a repository for less-used library resources from the three universities.

Administration

The university operates under a bicameral system of a board of governors and a senate, as legislated by the University of Waterloo Act, 1972. The Board of Governors has responsibility for the university's properties, affairs, and income. The University of Waterloo Act calls for only 36 members, each of whom must hold Canadian citizenship. However, the number of members in the board for the 2013–2014 academic year is 40. The Board has five ex officio members, including the university's chancellor, president and vice-chancellor, and the mayors of Kitchener and Waterloo. The other 32 members of the board are either elected or appointed by the various members of the university community, including alumni, faculty, and student body. The current and eighth president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo, Bill Rosehart, began his five-year term on July 1, 2026. He is the first alumnus of the university to hold the office.

Affiliated institutions

The university also includes three semi-autonomous affiliated colleges and a federated university. Conrad Grebel University College is a Mennonite university college that was chartered in 1961 and is religiously affiliated with the Mennonite Church Eastern Canada. Renison University College is an Anglican university college chartered in 1959; it entered an affiliation with the University of Waterloo in 1960 and is religiously affiliated with the Anglican Church of Canada. St. Jerome's University is a Roman Catholic university, founded in 1865, which entered into a federation with the University of Waterloo shortly after the provincial government granted it university status in 1959. United College is a university college founded by members of the United Church of Canada in 1962. However, United now operates independently from the United Church, without any formal or legal relationship.

Finances

The university completed the 2014–2015 academic year with revenues of $936.240 million and expenses of $906.730 million, yielding a surplus of $29.510 million. Grants and contracts make up the largest source of revenue for the university, totaling $392.357 million, followed by academic fees at $357.889 million. Salaries make up nearly half of the university's expenses, at $439.973 million. As of 30 April 2015, the university's endowment is valued at $335.731 million.

Academics

Waterloo is a publicly funded research university, and a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. It functions on a term-based system, with fall, winter and spring terms. Undergraduate programs comprise the majority of the school's enrolment, made up of 24,377 full-time and part-time undergraduate students. The university conferred 5,741 bachelor's degrees and first professional degrees, 1,605 master's degrees, 332 doctoral degrees, during the 2016–2017 academic school year. The university is organized into six faculties, which operate a combined total of thirteen schools and over fifty academic departments.

Financial aid available to students includes the Ontario Student Assistance Program and Canada Student Loans and Grants through the federal and provincial governments. The financial aid provided may come in the form of loans, grants, bursaries, scholarships, fellowships, debt reduction, interest relief, and work programs.

The university has also partnered with other institutions for the purposes of jointly operating a graduate program. The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) is a graduate school and research centre operated in partnership with the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Wilfrid Laurier University. The Perimeter's Scholar International program is another graduate program operated in partnership with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, in which its graduates receive a Master of Science from the University of Waterloo. The university also offers its students the opportunity to earn credits towards their degree while studying abroad through student exchange and international internship programs. The university has exchange agreements with over 100 institutions outside Canada.

Co-operative education

The university operates the largest post-secondary co-operative education (co-op) program in the world with over 20,000 undergraduate students. For co-op students, each term acts as either a study term or a work term depending on their co-op sequencing, typically for the entire length of their degree. Co-op work terms are mandatory for all undergraduate engineering programs, as well as several arts and mathematics programs. Engineering students are required to complete five out their six scheduled work terms to graduate from their program, while students from other faculties typically need to complete four work terms. Engineering students alternate between school and work terms, completing a total of eight study terms and six work terms in the span of four and two-thirds years. However, some programs have unique co-op streams where consecutive school and work terms are scheduled near the end of the program, giving the students the opportunity to apply for eight-month positions.

Student life

Organizations

The university's two main student unions are the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) for undergraduate students, and the Graduate Student Association (GSA) for graduate students. Founded in 1967 as the Federation of Students, WUSA operates four businesses, twelve student services, oversees over 200 accredited student clubs; in addition to operating other student programs and events. Among the WUSA student groups are the Glow Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity, Canada's oldest, continually running university-based 2SLGBTQ+ group, and the University of Waterloo Undergraduate Furry Club, which has spoken at prominent furry conventions such as Furnal Equinox as part of the national furry student network.

Each of the university's faculties has a student society which represent and provide services for the students in their respective faculties. Services include online exam banks, resume critiques, and technical skills workshops. Some student societies also operate a student deal discount program and one to two shops selling coffee and food at low prices. Each faculty also operates a student-run endowment fund, which fund student design teams, laboratory upgrades, and services for their respective student societies.

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