University of St. Michael's College
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:Brennan Hall.JPG The University of St. Michael's College is a Catholic university within the University of Toronto.
Commonly referred to as St. Mike's, it is one of two Roman Catholic colleges within the University of Toronto (the other being Regis College) and the only undergraduate one.
Contents |
History
Image:St. Mike's campus 1.JPG St. Michael’s College was established in 1852 by the Basilian Fathers.
On December 8, 1910, it was declared a federated college in the Faculty of Arts and Science of the University of Toronto. Today, with an enrollment of around 4,700 students, St. Mike’s is one of seven colleges that constitute University of Toronto’s St. George campus in downtown Toronto.
The college has a long and notable history and has long been a major part of Toronto culture. Most famous, for many years, was the college's sports program, which was one of the best in Canada. The St. Michael's students were known as the Fighting Irish of Bay Street, a reference to the Catholic sports powerhouse of the University of Notre Dame in the United States. Toronto's current Ontario Hockey League franchise, the St. Michael's Majors, is a descendant of the college's once elite ice hockey team. The team is now operated by St. Michael's College School - the high school which was until 1950 directly linked with the College.
St. Michael's has increased its endowment significantly and the College has excellent facilities including a new residence building and the largest college library at the Uuniversity of Toronto.
Recent Concerns
The College has tried to cope with rising maintenance costs and declining government support. While it used to enjoy a "living endowment," where the salaries of religious who were staff and faculty were donated back to the college, the rise in secular staff means that the old source of revenue is almost non-existent, compelling the college to seek new sources of revenue. This has led to more aggressive fundraising and the potential sale of the college parking lot to raise needed funds. Student opinion on the sale has varied over the years, with some supporting the move as necessary and others objecting that the money raised will not solve the college's financial problems. Proponents of the sale argue that the money will be invested wisely to secure the college's finances in perpetuity.
Within the largely secular environment of the University of Toronto, the Catholic traditions of St. Michael's are still evident in some of its academic offerings and student activities. The college has begun offering coed residences which varies from other college's co-ed in that males and females reside on different floors and the males have no access to the female floors without invitation. Women students may still choose to live at the single-sex Loretto residence, and rules regarding inter-sexual visitation are very restrictive (i.e. no women are permitted to sleep under any circumstances in men's residence and vice versa). Loretto is run by a religious order but all the dons there, and all the dons at the other residences at St. Michael's, are lay graduate, senior undergraduate and professional faculty students. The new coed residence building is popular; some favour the character of the older Victorian-era residence houses; others are attracted to the ensuite bathrooms at Loretto. The college dining hall (The Canada Room), one of the most impressive at the University of Toronto, has had its hours increased and menu improved and the serving area has recently been expanded and renovated.
The move toward coed residences has not caused controversy, but there is ongoing debate among some alumni on maintaining the Catholic traditions of the college and on academic program changes over the years. Students have full access to the entire range of courses at the University of Tornoto but are also free to choose new interdisciplinary programs developed by the college such as Christianity and Culture.
In recent years, St. Michael's opened a storm of controversy when it accepted a large donation from Imperial Tobacco for a business ethics course. Anti-tobacco activists saw this donation as questionable and pushed the College to reject it. Students, however, were largely indifferent towards the controversy and glad that the College was getting badly needed donations. The controversy was generated primarily by a government-funded anti-tobacco protest group and failed to gain any significant support from the student body; it subsequently died away.
Academics
- Celtic Studies, Book and Media Studies, Medieval Studies (at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies), Christianity and Culture, Philosophy, Theology
- The Kelly Library is one of the largest at the University of Toronto.
Notable faculty, former and present
- Joseph Boyle, philosopher, well-known for his works in the theory of Natural law
- Thomas Pangle, political theorist
- Marshall McLuhan, professor of english literature and reknowed media critic
Notable alumni
- Robert Birgeneau Chancellor of University of California, Berkeley
- Mark Kingwell, philosopher and professor at The University of Toronto
- Paul Martin, Former Prime Minister of Canada
- Paul Weiler, Professor of law at Harvard University