Queen's University

For other educational establishments called Queen's, see Queen's College and Queen's University (disambiguation)

Queen's University, generally referred to simply as Queen's, is a coeducational, non-sectarian, research-intensive university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's University was founded on October 16, 1841, 26 years before Canadian Confederation.

Queen's was the first Canadian university west of the maritime provinces to grant degrees, admit women, and to form a student government. It also hosted the country's first session of Parliament.http://www.otago.ac.nz/study/student_exchange/partners/queens.html

Considered one of Canada's most prestigious universities, Queen's has made great efforts to become a more international institution; there are currently 94 countries represented in the student body. Beyond the Kingston campus, the university also has an International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle, East Sussex, England, formerly the home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Institution

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Queen's currently boasts approximately 13,500 full-time undergraduate students and 2,900 graduate students. Queen's consistently places close to the top of college and university rankings and as a result, attracts top-tier students and faculty. The average entrance grade for 2004 was 89%, second only to academic rival McGill University with 89.3%. Queen's has 148 Canada Millennium Scholarship holders, more than any other Canadian university.

The first degree-granting institution in the united Province of Canada, Queen's has helped shape Canadian values and policies, educating many of the country's most notable political and cultural figures.

Queen's today has 17 faculties and schools, listed below:

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences which, in addition to offering a wide variety of social sciences, humanities, natural and physical sciences, languages, and fine arts, also hosts the following schools:
The Faculty of Applied Science
The Faculty of Health Sciences which is divided into:
The Faculty of Law
The Faculty of Education

Queen's also features three schools that are, in effect, full faculties through their relative autonomy:

Queen's School of Business
Queen's School of Graduate Studies and Research, (includes the School of Policy Studies and the School of Urban and Regional Planning)
Queen's Theological College (affiliate)

A defining characteristic of Queen's is the school's focus on the "broader learning environment"See Government of Canada website: Minister of Industry mentions "broader learning environment" 28th June 2006. Queen's recognizes its responsibility to educate students both in and out of the classroom, and given its residential character (85% of students live within a 15-minute walk to campus; 90% of first-year students live in residenceSee Queen's at a Glace (pg. 12) 28th June 2006), Queen’s students spend much of their non-class hours on campus. "When the academic day ends, students don’t go their separate ways, but stay in each other’s company, in libraries, residences, gyms, pubs and other venues. The integrated life intensifies a student’s relationship with other students and with the University." Report (1979). This provides the perfect environment for the countless extracurricular opportunities that students have access to, allowing them to gain leadership, teamwork, and high-level work experience during their time at Queen's.

Prominent student organizations at Queen's include the Alma Mater Society, the oldest student government in Canada which hires over 500 Queen's students; the Queen's Bands, the largest and oldest student marching band in Canada; the Queen's Journal, one of the oldest student newspapers in Canada and the oldest current publication at Queen's; the Golden Words, a weekly humour newspaper; Queen's First Aid; and the Queen's Players, a unique improvisational sketch comedy troupe. There are over 300 more student clubs, organizations, and societies at Queen's.

Queen's has been criticized as elitist and conservative, compared with other prominent Canadian universities. Recently, the Toronto Star's front page described a "culture of whiteness" that exists on campusBrown, L. (2006). Queen's U. confronts `culture of whiteness'. The Toronto Star, April 22 2006.. The article talked about a lack of ethnic, as well as socio-economic, diversity at the school, and the failure of the school to welcome visible minority students and professors. Queen's was not the only university criticized however. "Diversity has become a concern on many campuses — Queen's is not alone," said Ryerson professor Michael Doucet, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations. Despite the criticisms, many reject these claims, pointing to the plethora of different groups and associations on campus run by minorities and students of different religious or ethnic affiliations (such as the African-Caribbean Students Association), and questioning the relevance and motives in comparing Kingston with multicultural Toronto.

Admissions

One of the most selective schools in the country, there are annually more than 25,000 applications received for the 3,400 first-year undergraduate positions. In 2003, the number of undergraduate applicants totalled an astonishing 39,135; in that year less than 10% of applicants received acceptance to the university.

This was a result of the Ontario High School Double Cohort. Coupled with the standard 3,400 positions Queen's only allocated an additional 250 spots that year, as it was argued by the school administration that any more spaces would "degrade the quality of the programs and inhibit the teaching capabilities of the professors and faculty members".

In 2006, Maclean’s Magazine reported Queen’s to have 100% of its students entering with an average of 75% or higher, the only university in Canada to do so. Maclean’s also reported that 89% of first year students had an entering average of 85% or higher, and 11.6% of first year students had an entering average of 95% or higher, which is the highest in Canada.

In addition to grades, Queen’s University requires all of its applicants to complete a PSE, or Personal Statement of Experience. The PSE requires applicants to write several essays and describe their extra-curricular activities, demonstrating both leadership and teamwork skills. Some faculties, such as Commerce, base their admissions on PSE completely after the applicant has met the competitive grade requirements.

History

Queen's University was founded on October 16, 1841, under its first principal, Thomas Liddell, who arrived in Kingston from Scotland carrying the Royal Charter of Queen Victoria, establishing Queen's College as an educational institution. Originally affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland (see the Presbyterian Church in Canada as it was called after 1875), it was established to instruct youth in various branches of sciences and literature.

The university became a secular institution in 1912 and, in that year, Principal Daniel Miner Gordon oversaw the drafting of a new university constitution. Queen's Theological College remained in the control of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, until 1925, when it joined the United Church of Canada, where it remains today.

The first student government in Canada was established at Queen's in 1858 in the form of the Dialectic Society, which is known today as the Alma Mater Society.

Queen's celebrated its sesquicentennial anniversary in 1991 and received a visit from Charles, Prince of Wales and his then-wife Diana to mark the occasion.

It should also be noted that Queen's has a sister university, that being the University of Edinburgh in Edinburgh, Scotland, and much of the Queen's campus architecture was based on that of the latter's.

Campus

Although the campus is relatively small and the buildings densely packed, there are many open green spaces and deciduous trees that create a park-like atmosphere. The campus is currently undergoing extensive upgrades and beautification along University Avenue, the main throughfare, to increase safety and aesthetic appeal.

The campus is on the shore of Lake Ontario and has easy access to the lake front park, a favourite spot for students to relax and unwind when the weather permits. The campus is also located approximately 10 minutes from the city's downtown core where many shops, restaurants, and bars are found.

International Study Centre

The International Study Centre (ISC) is housed in Herstmonceux Castle, which was donated to Queen's in 1995 by alumni Alfred Bader. Herstmonceux Castle is in southern England and provides a base for field studies by its students throughout Sussex, in London and Northern England, and on the Continent. The courses available range from English Literature to Geography to Mathematics, with many of the courses specially designed to take advantage of the location of the ISC. Instructors and students are not exclusively from Queen's, but attend from across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Europe, Japan, China, Scandinavia and elsewhere.

Queen's Centre

In October 2004, Queen's University announced a $230-million plan to create a sports and recreation complex called the "Queen's Centre" over two city blocks. It is expected to take more than ten years from design to completion.

The plans include the building of a six-lane track, an Olympic-sized arena, 25-metre pool, eight basketball courts, substantially more gathering and meeting space than is currently available, fitness, aerobic, locker and food space, and a new home for the School of Physical and Health Education.

The university has also unveiled a slogan for the centre, which is "Where mind, body and spirit come together".

There continues to be controversy over the method to go about attaining funds for the Queen's Centre. A student contribution was required for the project to go ahead, which has since been ratified. However, the student government sent the motion to the Annual General Meeting of the Alma Mater Society in March 2006 rather than through a student referendum. Some see the AGM as less democratic than the referendum. Furthermore, a memorandum of understanding which was supposed to have been signed before the passing of the student contribution (levied via student fees) turned out not to exist $25.5 M contribution still up for debate. The Queen's Journal, July 26 2005.

http://www.queensjournal.ca/articlephp/point-vol133/issue3/news/story2. The memorandum was signed in Fall 2006.

Academics

Rankings

It is usual to find Queen's ranked among Canada's top universities. In the Globe and Mail University Report Card, Queen's University received the most amount of A+s out of all the universities in Canada.

It currently ranks fifth in Canada by Maclean's Magazine in their annual ranking of universities in the Medical Doctoral category.^*. Queen's finished second in the Canadian university rankings in 2006 to McGill in the Highest Overall Quality category and was tied for third in the Highest Entering Average with Western at 87.6%; this was a fall from the second place finish Queen's enjoyed in the same category in 2005 -- again behind McGill by just 0.3% with an 89.0% average for new undergraduate students. Queen's has the highest retention rate of first-year students out of any university in Canada at 95.6% and, once again with McGill, counts itself as the only school with 0% of its student body being accepted with an average under 75%.

In Maclean's University Rankings Queen's was ranked first in the Highest Quality category for Canadian universities in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2004.

Other

Cornell University Partnership

Queen's has partnered with Cornell University to offer a joint Executive MBA. The only program of its kind in the world, graduates of the program earn both a Cornell MBA and a Queen’s MBA. This program is made possible through innovative videoconferencing, and so students in Canada and the United States share an interactive virtual classroom.

Solar physics

The Queen's physics department has one of the largest groups involved in the international Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute. Other institutions in the collaboration include the universities of Oxford and Pennsylvania. The Institute manages the world-famous SNO experiment, which demonstrated that the solution to the solar neutrino problem was that neutrinos change flavour (type) as they propagate through the Sun. While the actual experiment is located 2 km below the Earth's surface in an active INCO mine in Northern Ontario, the Queen's collaborators do much of their work in Queen's Stirling Hall (a lab noted for its circular design and the large Foucault pendulum in its main atrium). Queen's physicist and SNO director Art McDonald has won both the Herzberg Prize, Canada's top science honour, and the American Physical Society's Tom W. Bonner Prize for nuclear physics.

Enrichment studies

Each year, Queen's University offers younger students a chance to visit and participate in classes with other students from across Canada and the United States. There are 3 different programs, for different age levels. (Main article: Queen's University Enrichment Studies)

Traditions

Athletics

Queen's athletics program is among the largest of its kind in Canada. Henk Pardoel. Queen's Athletics Website 18th December 2005 The university is represented in Canadian Interuniversity Sport by the Queen's Golden Gaels.

Queen's University has a rich ice hockey tradition. One popular theory for the creation of hockey concerns a game between Queen's and the Royal Military College on the Kingston Harbour in 1886. Queen's also competed for the Stanley Cup in 1899 and 1906, and won the Allan Cup in 1909. According to Total Hockey, the rivalry between Queen's and RMC is the longest standing in hockey history, followed by the Queen's-McGill rivalry.

The Gaels are supported by the mascot, Boo Hoo the Bear, now a student in costume from the Queen's Bands, but originally a real bear on a leash that was present at football games.

The Golden Gaels won the Grey Cup in Canadian football in 1922, 1923, and 1924. They also won the 1968, 1978 and 1992 Vanier Cup, Canada's university football championship.

The Baseball team won the CIBA (Canadian Intercollegiate Baseball Association) national championship in 2004.

Military service

Queen's students served in both World War I and World War II. Approximately 1,500 students participated in the First World War and 189 died. Months before Canada joined the second world war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to Queen's to accept an honorary degree and, in a broadcast heard around the world, voiced the American policy of mutual alliance and friendship with Canada. Roosevelt stated, "The Dominion of Canada is part of the sisterhood of the British Empire. I give to you assurance that the people of the United States will not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil is threatened by any other Empire." Canada, during the Second World War, had the participation of 2,917 Queen's graduates and the sacrifice of 157. The Victoria Cross was awarded to Major John Weir Foote, Arts '33, Canadian Chaplain Service.

Today, numerous Queen's students serve in Kingston's naval reserve division, HMCS Cataraqui (which administers the University Naval Training Divisions program for reserve officers), and Kingston's local milita regiment, The Princess of Wales' Own.

Radio

CFRC, the Queen's University radio station, is the second longest running radio station in the world, surpassed only by the Marconi companies. The first public broadcast of the station was on October 27th, 1923 when the football game between Queen's and McGill was called play-by-play. CFRC operates to the present day and broadcasts at 101.9 MHz.

Rivalry

Queen's students maintain a cordial rivalry with McGill University in Montreal. Animosity between rowing athletes at the two schools has inspired an annual boat race between the two universities in the spring of each year since 1997. McGill has dominated in the men's and overall categories, while the Queen's women's boat has been defeated only once. Queen's students call games between the schools' hockey teams "Kill McGill" games. This academic and athletic rivalry, which was once very intense, has waned in recent years.

The two share a successful publishing house, McGill-Queen's University Press.

Queen's students also maintain rivalries in both academics and athletics with students attending the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario.

Queen's Jackets

Aside from the Engineering faculty, other faculties at Queen's sport their own distinctive jackets, in different colours and leather styles based on the program type. Students often sew distinctive bars or patches onto their Queen's jackets to make them more unique and individual. Patches include the faculty and graduating year mottos, as well as the official school crest with university motto -- Sapientia Et Doctrina Stabilitas -- and other assorted symbols.

It is relevant to note that Queen's jackets cannot be worn by first-year students until they have completed all of their first semester examinations, while the Queen's crest (also known as the 'pass crest' in terms of the jacket) may not be added to the right sleeve until the wearer has passed all first year exams). Usually a jacket wearer will not add discipline bars (the subjects of concentration) until they can add the 'pass crest' since they may change their academic direction.

Queen's jackets are recognized across Canada and world-wide as being one of the distinct signs of a Queen's student and remain one of the school's most cherished traditions. Although other universities in Canada have school jackets, none have approached the popularity or nearly become as intricately connected to their institution as the ones worn by students at Queen's.

Frosh week

Once first year students at Queen's have moved into residence and become acquainted with some of the new people they meet, frosh week begins. First year students travel with a team of upper year students (called Gaels if in Arts and Science, FRECs if in Applied Science, Bosses if in Commerce, Capes in Nursing, Techs in Computing Science, Teaches in Con-Ed, and Coaches if in Physical Education) who take their "frosh groups" on excursions throughout the Queen's campus and into the Kingston community. This experience helps students feel comfortable in their new home away from home and includes activities such as mud games, shaving cream wars, house parties, scavenger hunts, and more. Queen's and the Alma Mater Society try to create a welcoming and inclusive environment, and ensure that frosh know that all frosh week activities are optional.