| Motto: Veritas et Utilitas | |
| Chancellor | Ellen Clitheroe |
| President | Paul Davenport |
| School type | Public |
| Religious affiliation | Main campus: None Brescia: Catholic Huron: Anglican King's: Catholic |
| Founded | 1878 |
| Location | London, Ontario, Canada |
| Enrollment | 25 000 undergraduate 5000 graduate |
| Campus surroundings | Urban |
| Campus size | 155 hectares |
| Mascot | Mustang |
| Table of contents |
|
2 Organization 3 Students 4 Faculty 5 Sports, Clubs, and Traditions 6 History 7 Famous Alumni 8 Famous Faculty 9 Prominent Groups 10 External Links |
The university covers 155 hectares of land on the North Branch of the Thames River.
The university's Chancellor is Ellen Clitheroe, and its President is Dr. Paul Davenport. The university over 60 faculties and programs. Faculties and programs at the university are:
There are approximately 25 000 undergraduate and 5000 graduate students at UWO. King's College has about 1500 students, Huron University College about 1000, and Brescia University College about 500. The major student residences are Medway Hall, Sydenham Hall, Alumni House, Essex Hall, Elgin Hall, Delaware Hall, and Saugeen-Maitland Hall. The affiliated colleges have their own residences.
There are about 1200 faculty members at the university and affiliated colleges. The Faculty of Social Science employs the highest number of faculty.
In 1929 J.W. Little Stadium was built. This stadium served as the site of convocation until 1960, and continued to be used as a sports stadium until 2001 when it was torn down and replaced with TD-Waterhouse Stadium. The new stadium was the primary site of the 2001 Summer Canada Games, which were held in London.
Western has over 20 sports teams, which are called the Mustangs. From 1939 to 1948 the football team was undefeated, and they have won 6 Vanier Cups. For 30 years the football team was coached by John P. Metras, for whom the Canadian Interuniversity Sport's best defensive linesman award is named. The men's basketball team has also won many championships.
There are over 100 clubs, for academic, religious, cultural, and other pursuits, which are governed by the University Students' Council. The Student Council also publishes The Gazette, the student newspaper, which was founded in 1904 and given its present name in 1937.
UWO has a traditional rivalry with the University of Waterloo, located only one hour to the east. There is also a rivalry with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Many students at other universities think of UWO as a "party school," or a school for rich students (leading to the nickname "University of Wealthy Ontarians"), so UWO tends to have a rivalry with almost every other school in Ontario. However, this reputation is no longer as strong as it was in the past.
The Engineering students often pull many pranks during the year, usually against the new students each September.
The university was founded in 1878 by Bishop Isaac Hellmuth of the Anglican Diocese of Huron as "The Western University of London Ontario." It incorporated Huron College, which had been founded in 1863. The first four faculties were Arts, Divinity, Law and Medicine, and there were originally only 15 students when classes began in 1881. The first of these students graduated in 1883. In 1916 the current site of the university was purchased from the Kingsmill family, and in 1923 the name of the university was changed to its present form. The first two buildings constructed at the new site were the Arts Building (now University College) and the Natural Science Building (now the Physics and Astronomy Building). These were built in a neo-Gothic or "Collegiate Gothic" style. The University College tower, one of the most distinctive features of the university, was named the Middlesex Memorial Tower in honour of the men from Middlesex County who had fought in World War I (all 40 male students at the university in 1914 had enlisted). Classes on the present site began in 1924.
Although enrolment was low for many years, after World War II the university began to increase greatly in size, and by the 1970s 10% of university students in Ontario were enrolled at UWO. After World War II, the university saw the addition of new faculties such as the Faculty of Graduate Studies (1947), the School of Business Administration (now the Richard Ivey School of Business) (1949), the Faculty of Engineering Science (1957), the Faculty of Law (1959), and Althouse College for Education students (1963).
Other notable buildings on campus include Thames Hall (built in 1950), the Stevenson-Lawson Building (built in 1959), Middlesex College (with its clock tower, another distinctive feature of the university, built in 1960), Talbot College {built in 1966), Alumni Hall (built in 1967), the University Campus of the London Health Sciences Centre, the John P. Robarts Research Institute, the Lawson Health Research Institute, the D.B. Weldon Library, the John Labatt Visual Arts Centre, the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory, the University Community Centre, the Social Science Centre, and T.D. Waterhouse Stadium (built in 2001). There is also the Hume Cronyn Memorial Observatory, built in 1940 as the first observatory at a Canadian university, and named after the grandfather of actor Hume Cronyn. The McIntosh Memorial Art Gallery was built in 1942, and is now the oldest university art gallery in Canada.
The school colours are purple and white, and the school's motto is Veritas et utilitas, meaning Truth and usefulness.
Campus
Organization
The university also has three affiliated colleges:Students
Faculty
Sports, Clubs, and Traditions
History
Famous Alumni
There is also a fictional alumnus - Michael Patterson from the comic strip For Better or For Worse.Famous Faculty
Prominent Groups
External Links
See also: List of Ontario Universities