II--The University

II--The University

The University of Guelph was established in 1964, when its founding colleges -- the Ontario Agricultural College, the Ontario Veterinary College and Macdonald Institute -- joined with a new college of arts and science. Today, the University of Guelph comprises six colleges -- Arts, Biological Science, Physical and Engineering Science, Social and Applied Human Sciences, the Ontario Agricultural College, and the Ontario Veterinary College.

The University of Guelph is renowned in Canada and around the world as a research-intensive and learner-centred institution and for its commitment to open learning, internationalism and collaboration.

Students may pursue more than 80 undergraduate and 45 graduate degree programs spanning the natural and physical sciences, social sciences and humanities. Faculty at the University of Guelph have won more prestigious 3M Fellow teaching awards than any comparably sixed university in Canada. Our students are no less accomplished: 94.4 per cent of first-year students enter with an average of at least 75 per cent.

A total of 13,837 students attend Guelph, including 12,244 full- and part-time undergraduates and 1,593 full- and part-time graduate students. The University of Guelph is a highly residential community, with about 4,600 students living in campus residences.

With an estimated $79 million in research funding, the University of Guelph is one of the country's top research institutions. Among its researchers, Guelph numbers 15 Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada. A 30-acre research park adjacent to the campus is home to a growing number of research-intensive industries.

An enhanced partnership reached in 1997 between the University of Guelph and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) relocated OMAFRA employees to a new, 86,000-square-foot research complex adjacent to campus, and made the University responsible for Ontario's agricultural colleges at Alfred, Kemptville and Ridgetown, and for the Horticultural Research Institute of Ontario and OMAFRA's Laboratory Services. With its enhanced partnership, its research park and the Guelph Food Technology Centre -- an independent laboratory on campus for food processing research and product development -- the University of Guelph is the hub of a rapidly growing cluster of agri-food education, research and laboratory services in Canada.

Guelph's commitment to internationalism is reflected in several ways. Guelph attracts 500 international students from 75 countries and maintains 58 exchange programs with 20 countries. The University offers more than 60 distance degree credit courses to more than 6,500 open learning course registrants. In addition, there are about 350 University of Guelph students in study-abroad programs. The University of Guelph has 65 public- and private-sector partners in 30 countries, and participates in Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) projects worth a total of $11 million around the world. Guelph's alumni number about 72,000 people in 115 countries.