Today is the kickoff to Waterloo’s 50th anniversary celebration, and the university is holding a big bash today, and is continuing as I speak at the Physical Activities Complex.

It was crazy packed with students, faculty and staff. There was food, there was games, and there were celebrity impersonations— 50 of them! One I recognize was Lucille Ball. Too bad I didn’t have more time to stick around.

The university’s anniversary tagline is “The Spirit of ‘Why Not?’” I’m not sure what exactly that means, and it sounds a bit strange.

According to Wikipedia, in 1957, the university’s first president, Gerry Hagey, gathered teachers of engineering and basic sciences, and also obtained an initial grant of $625,000 from the government to establish the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

What was interesting is that in early 1959, the Ontario government established three universities: Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier University— notice the same acronym), University of St. Jerome’s College, and the University of Waterloo.

Initially, St. Jerome’s and Waterloo Lutheran were both expected to federate with the new UW, but in the end Waterloo Lutheran chose to remain independent. From there arts programs were established at UW. Then the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences and the Faculty of Environmental Studies was created soon after.

Waterloo apparently created the first Faculty of Mathematics in North America, and the first co-op programs outside of engineering.

While browsing on the 50th anniversary webpage, I found that the UW Library has photo archives of the campus. Unfortunately, the site requires your UWdir information.

I guess we’re in for an exciting year. I might also be cool to be convocating in this milestone year. Yay.

University of Waterloo - [wikipedia.org]
50th Anniversary - [uwaterloo.ca]
UW Campus Photo Archives - [uwaterloo.ca]

Photo courtesy UW Library Archives