McGill University
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\n© McGill University\n |
\n| Motto: Grandescunt Aucta Labore (Latin: "By work, all things grow") |
\n| Founded | \n1821 |
\n| School type | \nPublic |
\n| Chancellor | \nRichard Pound |
\n| Principal (President) | \nHeather Munroe-Blum |
\n| Location | \nMontreal, Quebec |
\n| Enrollment | \n21,399 undergrad, 6,079 grad |
\n| Campus surroundings | \nUrban, park |
\n| Campus size | \n33 hectares (80 acres) |
\n| Sports teams | \nMartlets (women), Redmen (men) |
\n| Mascot | \nMartlet |
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\nMcGill's Arts Building, the oldest building on campus\n |
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McGill University, established in
1821, is in the city of
Montreal,
Quebec,
Canada. One of the oldest universities in Canada, it has long been considered to be one of the most prestigious universities in the country and among the finest in
North America.
Known to some as "The
Harvard of the North", McGill is well-known for its pioneering research in the
medical sciences,
chemistry,
physics and
biology. The university is also famous for its high standard of undergraduate education and has an established history in the humanities, social sciences, law and physical education. In the past, McGill has often been compared with the best U.S. schools (The Gourman Report).
Noted for being a research-intensive university, it frequently garners the most research dollars nationwide (per faculty) from federal and provincial sources of funding (including CFI, NSERC and other organizations). The university also has the distinction of having the highest publication intensity in the country for many years, and this was one of the factors leading to it being named Research University of the Year in 2003.
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For a long time, McGill was considered Canada's best university. In recent years however, the
University of British Columbia and the
University of Toronto have outpaced McGill in many respects. This change is linked to the decline of Montreal's economic importance relative to
Toronto and
Vancouver and the greater ease of raising money in the latter two cities. McGill's decline is also due in part to severe underfunding by the Quebec government in the 1990s.
However, since 2001, McGill's financial standing has been steadily improving, due to private donations and matching funds from the provincial government.
Campus
The main campus is situated in downtown Montreal at the foot of Mount Royal. Most of the buildings are situated north of rue Sherbrooke between rue Peel and rue Aylmer, and north of avenue Docteur-Penfield west of rue Peel (near Peel and McGill metro stations). A secondary campus is located in the district of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue named Macdonald College, some 32 kilometres from downtown Montreal in the western tip of the Island of Montreal.
Category:Canadian universities
Students
The student population is in excess of 28,000. McGill has a higher percentage of American students than any other Canadian university, and it has students from over 150 countries. Admission at McGill is done in thirds: Two-thirds of available first-year seats are allocated for Quebec residents, two-thirds of the remaining seats are allocated for the rest of Canada, and the rest are left for international students. Although the university is one of two English-language universities in Montreal, 22% of students at McGill speak French as their first language.
The Quebec government has long encouraged international students from selected countries (such as some members of La Francophonie) to attend their universities over students from other Canadian provinces. Since 1996 it has been more expensive for an out-of-province student to attend McGill than it is for many foreigners from countries that have special agreements with Quebec. This, in addition to McGill's international reputation, partially accounts for why McGill has a high percentage of foreign students. Nevertheless, owing to Quebec government subsidies, some students paying out-of-province tuition find it less expensive to attend McGill than universities in their home province.
History
In 1813, James McGill bequeathed his 46 acre (190 m²) estate and 10,000 pounds to "the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning." This institution established McGill University in 1821. Later, in 1905, Sir William Macdonald helped develop Macdonald College, which currently houses research and classes in botany, agricultural science, environmental science and the like.
Facts
- McGill was the first non-denominational university in the British Empire. \n* It is one of only two Canadian universities holding a membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization comprising top-tier North American research universities. (The other Canadian university member is the University of Toronto)\n* McGill boasts six Nobel laureates and two Canadian prime ministers.\n* McGill has produced 122 Rhodes Scholars, the most of any Canadian university.\n* McGill's class of 1952 includes William Shatner, who portrayed Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek. Students have (unofficially) named McGill's Student Union building after him.\n* The McGill Daily, founded in 1911, is the longest-running student newspaper in the British Commonwealth.\n* McGill's MBA program has been consistently been ranked among the top 40 in the world by the Economist and Financial Times.\n* McGill has consistently ranked among the top four medical/doctoral universities nationwide, in the Maclean's rankings, an annual ranking of Canadian universities.\n* McGill's Redpath Museum, commissioned in 1880 and opened in 1882, is the oldest building built specifically as a museum in North America. Its natural history collections boast material collected by the same individuals who founded the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum and the Smithsonian.\n* The Sunday Times in 1998 listed McGill as one of the 10 Centres of Excellence in the world. McGill appeared in tenth spot, behind Cambridge, Oxford, Sorbonne and Heidelberg.\n* As of November 2003, McGill has the fastest supercomputer (Beowulf cluster) in Canada.
Noted alumni and professors
Academics and scholars
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| \n* Gerald Bull - former professor of mechanical engineering, expert on projectiles\n* Mario Bunge - philosopher\n* S. I. Hayakawa - linguist, politician, former president of San Francisco State University\n* David Levy - astronomer, co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. \n* Donald Olding Hebb (psychology) - father of cognitive psychobiology. Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence: developed what has become known as Hebbian learning, a fundamental idea in AI.\n* Ronald Melzack (medicine) - developed the McGill Pain Questionnaire\n* Henry Mintzberg - internationally renowned business guru\n* Percy Erskine Nobbs - former professor of architecture and designer of many McGill buildings\n* William Osler (medicine) - a medical pioneer, developed the modern form of a doctor's bedside manner, one of the four founders of the Johns Hopkins Medical School at Johns Hopkins University.\n* Wilder Penfield (neurosurgery) - neurosurgery pioneer, first director of the world renowned Montreal Neurological Institute which is affiliated with McGill University\n* Steven Pinker (cognitive psychology) - author of "The Blank Slate", "How the Mind Works". \n* Harold Shapiro (education) - former president of Princeton University and of the University of Michigan\n* Charles Taylor (philosophy) - renowned writer, versatile philosopher, and political theorist\n* Eric Berne (psychiatry) - originator of the psychoanalytic theory of Transactional analysis \n |
Current Presidents of other Canadian universities
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Business and media
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Politics and government
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Art, music, and film
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Inventors
\n| \n* William Chalmers - inventor of Plexiglas\n* Bernard Belleau - inventor of AIDS medication 3TC \n* Thomas Chang - creator of first artificial cell \n* James Naismith - inventor of basketball\n* James George Alwyn Creighton - inventor of North American ice hockey rules\n* Alan Emtage - inventor of Archie, the grandfather of search engines\n* Paul Moller - invetor of the Moller Skycar, a VTOL aircraft. Founder and president of California-based Moller International Inc.\n |
Others
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Nobel Prize winners
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It is a little known fact is that the inventions of hockey, basketball and North American football are all related to McGill in some way. The first game of North American football was played between McGill and
Harvard Universities in 1874. During World War II, the
International Labour Organization was headquartered at McGill.
In terms of contributions to computing,
MUSIC/SP, a piece of software for mainframes, once popular among universities and colleges around the world at its time, was developed at McGill. A team also contributed to the development of
Archie, one of the pre-WWW search engines. A 3270 terminal emulator developed at McGill was commercialized and later sold to Hummingbird Software.
Hospitals
McGill University is affiliated with seven teaching hospitals in Montreal, four of which compose the McGill University Health Centre:
Symbols
The university's symbol is the martlet; its motto is Grandescunt Aucta Labore (by work, all things grow). Inscribed in its arms is In Domino Confido (I trust in the Lord), James McGill's personal motto. Its sports teams are named Martlets (women) and Redmen (men), and its school colours are red and white. The school song is entitled "Hail Alma Mater".
Other universities in Montreal
See also List of Quebec Universities
External Link
