From Assumption College to the University of Windsor: The Dean's Story

Alexander D. Gregor is Director, Centre for Higher Education Research
and Development, University of Manitoba, and the co-editor of
Postsecondary Education in Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

A distinguishing characteristic of higher education in Canada has been
the development of “families” of denominational colleges, joined in
affiliation with secular public institutions. In parts of Canada, this
affiliation has been a response to the reluctance of provincial
governments either to confer degree-granting authority on denominational
colleges or to use public funding to support denominational
institutions. In other parts of the country, even denominational
colleges that were allowed to grant degrees were finding the costs of
maintaining a private institution too burdensome. For both groups,
affiliation with a public institution seemed to provide relief from the
burden of offering arts and science programs, along with the opportunity
for the original college to preserve its mandate by offering a special
environment for its constituency.

Father Ruth’s brief memoir provides an engaging case study of this
important Canadian phenomenon. The author draws on his successive
experiences as a student, a faculty member, and an administrator to
trace the development of Assumption College (a Roman Catholic
institution under the aegis of the Basilian fathers) from its original
charter of 1858 to its final manifestation as the secular University of
Windsor. (In 1962, Assumption University, as it was then named, became
an affiliated denominational college.) The odyssey was not an easy one,
but the end result was a model of ecumenical accord.

In addition to surveying the organizational history, Ruth’s story
also provides an interesting picture of student and college life in the
prewar period and a brief introduction to a number of the principal
figures who shaped Catholic higher education in Canada. It will be of
particular interest to that community and to students of Canadian higher
education.