A university college is a federated or affiliated academic university institution of a larger public university (often referred to as the "parent" campus). Federated and affiliated colleges have existed in Ontario, Canada, for over a century. [1] The establishment of these institutions came from Christian religious groups. There are a total of 30 such university colleges in Ontario, with 16 primarily offering secular programs and 14 primarily offering theological programs. [2]
University colleges share a number of characteristics:
"Affiliated" and "federated" are often used interchangeably when describing a university college, but they have somewhat different legal relationship with the parent campus. For example, affiliated university colleges typically suspend their degree-granting powers so their students are able to officially earn their degree from the “parent” institution. [3] A federated university college differs in that, although it is a type of affiliation, it is where "two or more institutions come together to create a new university that is recognized by civic authorities and is eligible for government funding" (MacDonald, 2016). [4]
Public university | Affiliated or federated institution | Year of affiliation or federation | Religious heritage |
---|---|---|---|
Brock University | Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary | 1976 | Lutheran |
McMaster University | McMaster Divinity College | 1957 | Baptist |
Queen’s University | Queen's Theological College (now Queen’s School of Religion) | 1912 | United |
University of Toronto | Emmanuel College | 1925 | United |
Knox College | 1890 | Presbyterian | |
Regis College | 1978 | Catholic | |
St. Augustine’s Seminary | 1978 | Catholic | |
Toronto School of Theology | 1979 | Multiple | |
Wycliffe College | 1885 | Anglican | |
University of Windsor | Assumption University | 1919 (Western), 1963 (Windsor) | Catholic |
Canterbury College | 1957 (Assumption), 1963 (Windsor) | Anglican | |
Iona College | 1963 | United | |
Western University | St. Peter’s Seminary | 1912 | Catholic |
Wilfrid Laurier University | Martin Luther University College | 1914 | Lutheran |
Note: Some theological institutions are affiliated with another affiliated institution, which in turn is affiliated with a publicly supported university. [6] |
A college may be a tertiary educational institution, part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary school.
Cape Breton University (CBU) is a public university located in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is the only post-secondary degree-granting institution within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality and on Cape Breton Island. The university is enabled by the Cape Breton University Act passed by the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. Prior to this, CBU was enabled by the University College of Cape Breton Act (amended). The University College of Cape Breton's Coat of Arms were registered with the Canadian Heraldic Authority on May 27, 1995.
Victoria University is a federated college of the University of Toronto. The school was founded in 1836 by the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada as a nonsectarian literary institution. From 1841 to 1890, Victoria operated as an independent degree-granting university, before federating with the University of Toronto in 1890, relocating from Cobourg to Toronto.
Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning World War II veterans. Carleton was chartered as a university by the provincial government in 1952 through The Carleton University Act, which was then amended in 1957, giving the institution its current name. The university is named after the now-dissolved Carleton County, which included the city of Ottawa at the time the university was founded.
In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies from country to country.
Laurentian University, officially Laurentian University of Sudbury, is a mid-sized bilingual public university in Greater Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, incorporated on March 28, 1960. Laurentian offers a variety of undergraduate, graduate-level, and doctorate degrees. Laurentian is the largest bilingual provider of distance education in Canada. The college was formerly federated with Thornloe University, Huntington University, and the University of Sudbury. Laurentian severed the federation during 2021 insolvency proceedings, ending 60-year relationships, and triggering lawsuits.
The University of Windsor is a public research university in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost university. It has approximately 17,500 students. The university was incorporated by the provincial government in 1962 and has more than 150,000 alumni.
The University of Regina is a public university located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Founded in 1911 as a private denominational high school of the Methodist Church of Canada, it began an association with the University of Saskatchewan as a junior college in 1925, and was disaffiliated by the Church and fully ceded to the university in 1934; in 1961 it attained degree-granting status as the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan. It became an autonomous university in 1974. The University of Regina has an enrolment of over 15,000 full and part-time students. The university's student newspaper, The Carillon, is a member of CUP.
Renison University College is an affiliated university college of the University of Waterloo and located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Renison's campus is situated on the western border of Waterloo's main campus. The university college offers academic programs that count as credit toward a University of Waterloo degree. Most academic courses are offered within Waterloo's Faculty of Arts, focusing on social sciences, language, and culture.
Glendon College is a public liberal arts college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Formally the federated bilingual campus of York University, it is one of the school's nine colleges and 11 faculties with 100 full-time faculty members and a student population of about 2,100. Founded as the first permanent establishment of York University, the school began academic operation under the mentorship of the University of Toronto in September 1960. Under the York University Act 1959 legislation, York was once an affiliated institution of the University of Toronto, where the first cohort of faculty and students originally utilized the Falconer Hall building as a temporary home before relocating north of the St. George campus to Glendon Hall — an estate that was willed by Edward Rogers Wood for post-secondary purposes.
A residential college is a division of a university that places academic activity in a community setting of students and faculty, usually at a residence and with shared meals, the college having a degree of autonomy and a federated relationship with the overall university. The term residential college is also used to describe a variety of other patterns, ranging from a dormitory with some academic programming, to continuing education programs for adults lasting a few days. In some parts of the world it simply refers to any organized on-campus housing, an example being University of Malaya.
The Dominican University College was a bilingual university located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. From 2012 to 2024, Dominican University College was an affiliated college of Carleton University.
An affiliated school is an educational institution that operates independently, but also has a formal collaborative agreement with another, usually larger institution that may have some level of control or influence over its academic policies, standards or programs.
Albert College is a co-educational independent boarding and day school located in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. It is the oldest co-ed boarding independent school in Canada, and the only private boarding school in Belleville. Albert College currently has an enrolment of approximately 300 students from over 20 countries. The school comprises an Early Primary Learning Centre (Pre-Kindergarten), a Junior School, a Middle School, and a Senior School.
The University of Guelph is a comprehensive public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College (1874), the MacDonald Institute (1903), and the Ontario Veterinary College (1922), and has since grown to an institution of almost 30,000 students and employs 830 full-time faculty as of fall 2019. It offers 94 undergraduate degrees, 48 graduate programs, and 6 associate degrees in many different disciplines.
A satellite campus, branch campus or regional campus is a campus of a university or college that is physically at a distance from the original university or college area. This branch campus may be located in a different city, state, or country, and is often smaller than the main campus of an institution. The separate campuses may or may not be under the same accreditation and share resources or they share administrations but maintain separate budgets, resources, and other governing bodies.
Transfer credit, credit transfer, and advanced standing are the terms used by colleges and universities for the procedure of granting credit to a student for educational experiences or courses undertaken at another institution. This is a subset of recognition of prior learning.
Higher education in Canada includes provincial, territorial, Indigenous and military higher education systems. The ideal objective of Canadian higher education is to offer every Canadian the opportunity to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to realize their utmost potential. It aspires to cultivate a world-class workforce, enhance the employment rate of Canadians, and safeguard Canada's enduring prosperity. Higher education programs are intricately designed with the perspective of the learner in focus, striving to mitigate risks and assure definite outcomes.