Creating Carleton: The Shaping of a University

Alexander D. Gregor is director of the Centre for Higher Education
Research and Development at the University of Manitoba and coeditor of
Postsecondary Education in Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

Creating Carleton is a useful and engaging addition to the Canadian
literature of university histories. Coauthored by an established
Carleton historian and a former secretary of the institution’s board
of governors, the book benefits from the direct and varied experience of
the two contributors, without losing any objectivity.

The authors present the story of Carleton college (founded as a
nondenominational private institution in 1942) and trace the first two
decades of Carleton University, established in 1957. The 1960s and 1970s
were arguably the most significant period of change and development for
Canadian postsecondary education. It was during this era that a number
of new universities came into being—a response, in part, to the
burgeoning student population. Neatby and McEown provide insights into
how new institutions in the provincial and national academic communities
engaged in a quest for “respectability,” and how the same internal
and external forces led to an increased homogenization among all
institutions.

In addition, they present overviews of faculty and student life from
the 1940s through the 1970s, with the latter decade serving as a kind of
epilogue. We are treated to vignettes of some of the major academic
leaders of the period (including founding college president Henry
Marshall Tory and founding university president Davidson Dunton), and
quickly discover that powerful individuals were much more of a shaping
influence than their counterparts in the corporate university of today.

Creating Carlton is recommended for historians, scholars of higher
education, and interested general readers.