McMaster University is a medium-sized research-intensive university with a nuclear research reactor located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. 2004 enrollment was 16,771 full-time and 3,599 part-time students.

McMaster, or Mac, is a well-known institution with respected programs in six diverse faculties: science, health sciences, engineering, humanities, social sciences, and business. The campus is located on 300 acres (1.2 km&sup2) of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale adjacent to the Royal Botanical Gardens lands in Cootes Paradise.

History

Senator William McMaster, the first president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, founded the university bearing his name in 1887. It was sponsored by the Baptist Convetion of Ontario and Quebec as a sectarian undergraduate institution for its clergy and adherents. It began operating three years later and graduated its first students in 1894.

The university was originally located in Toronto and nearly became federated with the University of Toronto like Victoria College and Trinity College did. Local boosters in Hamilton offered large donations of money and land to McMaster to relocate rather than federate, and the move was accomplished in 1930. University Hall, one of the original campus buildings, includes a statue of Senator McMaster and his contribution to the university.

During and immediately after the Second World War, McMaster experienced an explosion of growth in scientific research and student enrollment under H.G. Thode (after whom a science building is named). This strained the finances of what was still a denominational Baptist institution to the breaking point. So, in 1957, the McMaster Divinity College was incorporated to continue the university's religious traditions while the university itself became a secular public institution.

Academics

Since McMaster relocated from Toronto, it has been particularly renowned for its academic strengths. The university has been named Canada's most innovative "medical-doctoral" university eight times in the past 11 years by Maclean's magazine in its annual ranking of Canadian universities.

In the liberal arts, historians Chester New and Togo Salmon (both of whom have buildings named after them) were authorities in their fields. In the social sciences, econonist Kenneth Taylor (also a building) was at the forefront. Its Mills Memorial Library (one of several on campus) houses the papers of Bertrand Russell among others. The McMaster Museum of Art houses six thousand works of art, including those bequeathed by Herman Levy.

McMaster has had an atomic reactor since 1959 for nuclear science and engineering research. Separately, the natural sciences have had a planetarium since 1949 and engineering boasts the Communications Research Laboratory.

The university's health sciences reputation started with the foundation of its medical school -- with non-traditional small-group problem-based learning tutorials since adopted by other programs -- in the 1960s. However, it quickly grew with programs in occupational therapy, physical therapy, midwifery and other allied field.

A recent C$105m donation to its medical program from billionaire Michael G. DeGroote means that it may soon have one of the top two or three medical schools in the nation. He also injected a large amount of cash into the business faculty, whose school and its building also bear his name.

Sports

Most of its sports teams in Canadian Interuniversity Sport, including football, hockey and soccer are named the McMaster Marauders. The university's colours have been maroon and grey since 1912. Various teams are frequent Ontario champions in collegiate sports.

The sole or major exception for collegiate sports are the mischieviously named water polo team, the McMaster Bators. Despite the team's risqué name, years often go by before they experience defeat.

Intramural sports are encouraged and widely participated in at Ivor Wynne Centre. Unorganized sports include ad hoc cricket games in front of the science and engineering buildings and formerly cafeteria tray tobogganing.

Student Life

Full-time undergraduate students belong to the McMaster Students Union, which operates pubs and publishes a broadsheet newspaper called The Silhouette. It also funds scores of other clubs, associations and societies organized by academic department, ethnic origin or extracurricular interest.

Other student groups on campus include the McMaster Association of Part-time Students and teh Graduate Students Association.

See also: List of Ontario Universities

External links

• McMaster University
• McMaster Students Union