- REN RUC 1
- Corporate body
- 1957-
In 1953, Waterloo College (now Wilfred Laurier University) appointed Gerald Hagey as the first lay (non Lutheran Pastor) president. He spent much of his tenure trying to fix the college's financial challenges. As a denominational college, Waterloo College was not eligible to receive public funding that the Province of Ontario was investing in post secondary education. At the same time, there was a increase in the demand for university graduates with education in the sciences and technology. Again at the same time, universities in Ontario were trying to meet an increased demand for post secondary education which was anticipated as the first cohort of the post World War II "baby boomers" became old enough to enroll in post secondary education. In step with these occurences, and following the lead of other denominational colleges at the time, notably McMaster University and Assumption College (a founding college of the University of Windsor) Waterloo College envisioned the Waterloo College Associate Faculties, a non-denominational science faculty affiliated with Waterloo College. From the beginning Renison College planned to be affiliated with the new institution, along with St. Jerome's College (now St. Jerome's University), and antipated United Church (St. Paul's College) and Mennonite (Conrad Greble College) Colleges. Anticipating growth,the Affiliated Faculties purchased a 183 acre plot of land on what is now University Avenue. At the last minute, The Evangelical Lutheran Synod backed out of Waterloo College's planned affiliation with the Affiliated Faculties, leading to a flurry of activity which lead to the creation of the University of Waterloo as the degree granting institution and Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfred Laurier University as a completely separate denominational university in it's original site. In 1967 the Optometry College of Ontario joined the University of Waterloo and became the School of Optometry and Vision Science. Also in 1967 the university founded the world's first kinesiology department and created the Faculty of Mathematics out of the then Department of Mathematics. The university now comprises of 450 hectares of land and 36,000 undergraduate and 5,300 graduate students.