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The story
Origins
The University of Regina is a non-denominational university, which grew out of Regina College, founded in 1911. In direct response to the award of the University of Saskatchewan to Saskatoon rather than Regina, the Methodist Church of Canada established Regina College in 1911 on College Avenue in Regina, Saskatchewan, starting with an enrolment of 27 students; it was adjacent to the now long-defunct St Chad's College (a theological seminary for the training of Anglican clergy) and Qu'Appelle Diocesan School, also on College Avenue. James Henry Puntin (architect) designed several buildings on campus including: Regina Methodist College (1910); East & West Towers (1914); Ladies Residence (1914); Gymnasium (1925); Power Plant (1927); Music & Arts Building (1928). "In 1928, Darke Hall was built on College Avenue, [d]escribed...as "an admirable theatre, one which few cities can rival."
In 1934 Regina College became part of the University of Saskatchewan. The University of Saskatchewan a single, public provincial university created in 1907 was modeled on the American state university, with an emphasis on extension work and applied research. The governance was modeled on the University of Toronto Act, 1906 which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the 2 bodies and to perform institutional leadership. In the early part of this century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law and medicine. Graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis was introduced.
Regina College commenced a formal association with the University of Saskatchewan as a junior college offering accredited university courses in 1925 though continuing as a denominational college of the now-United Church of Canada, the successor to the Methodist Church. Regina College continued as a Junior College until 1959, when it received full degree-granting status as a second campus of the University of Saskatchewan.
However, in 1934, the United Church was financially hard pressed by the Great Depression and in any case its history from the great Egerton Ryerson of urgent advocacy of universal free public education made its involvement in private schools anomalous. It accordingly fully surrendered Regina College to the University of Saskatchewan. Regina College and its successor Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan and University of Regina have retained the Methodist motto "as one who serves" (Luke 22.27).
The policy of university education initiated in the 1960s responded to population pressure and the belief that higher education was a key to social justice and economic productivity for individuals and for society. In 1961 the college was renamed the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus. In 1974 it became the independent University of Regina.
The original United Church affiliation is, however, symbolically commemorated in the convocation furniture, resumed by the university for ceremonial use from one of the last downtown United Churches, which closed in the 1990s.
University of Saskatchewan affiliation
With the transfer of control to the University of Saskatchewan the range of courses offered was somewhat broadened. During this period Campion and Luther Colleges, which maintained private high schools in Regina under the auspices respectively of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, also retained junior college status in affiliation with the University of Saskatchewan; the Anglican Church (then known as the Church of England in Canada), whose St Chad's College had operated a theological training facility in Regina but had never established substantial numbers in Canada west of Ontario compared with larger denominations, meanwhile merged with Emmanuel College in Saskatoon and withdrew from tertiary education in Regina.
The upgrading process accelerated in 1961 when the college was granted full-degree-granting status as the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan and students completing degrees at Regina Campus were granted degrees of the University of Saskatchewan.
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Regina Campus
The arts and sciences programs evolved with the growth of Regina Campus, which held its first convocation in 1965. The new campus was begun in 1966 on Wascana Lake, to the southeast of the old campus whose buildings, however, remain in use: the old Girls' Residence is now used by the Regina Conservatory of Music; the Normal School, having at various times housed not only the teacher-training facility that is now the university's Department of Education but the Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History, war-training facilities during World War II when it was temporarily resumed by the federal crown and latterly the university's Fine Arts Department, is now the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage.
The original design of Regina Campus (as of Wascana Centre itself) and its initial buildings, in a stark concrete modernist style, were by Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the original World Trade Center in New York.
Yamasaki's original vision
[was that...the buildings] would be located close enough together that passage between them in the winter could be provided through connecting corridors in the "podium" or first [ground] floor of all buildings in the central instructional complex. Each podium would be larger than the remaining floors of the buildings rising above it, thereby creating the impression of separate buildings rising from a common base. The buildings would be constructed around sunken, landscaped courts which would be accessible visually and physically by generous windows and doors from the corridors located along these enclosing walls...
The Dr. John Archer Library, the main library of the university, was opened in 1967, one of the original three buildings of the new campus (the others being the classroom and laboratory buildings), and named after Dr. John Archer in 1999. Further building has been substantially in accord with Yamasaki's vision, notwithstanding some controversy over the years as to the suitability of its austere style for the featureless Regina plain; by 1972 with the demolition of Yamasaki's 1955 Pruitt–Igoe housing project in St. Louis, Missouri—such demolition being considered by some to be the beginning of postmodern architecture—Yamasaki's modernist aesthetic was already somewhat passé in the view of many architects.
Campion College and later Luther College, which like Regina College had also been denominational junior colleges affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan, established "federated college" status on the model of Victoria, Trinity, St Michael's and University Colleges at the University of Toronto (and ultimately the collegiate system of Oxford and Cambridge) and built facilities at the new campus. (St Chad's, a fourth denominational college in Regina, operated by the Anglican Church of Canada on the former Anglican diocesan property on College Avenue immediately to the east of Regina College, merged with Emmanuel College on the Saskatoon campus in 1964 and, after a period of continuing to operate its private girls' high school closed its Regina facilities in 1970.)
In September 2000, the 600 City of Regina Wing of the Royal Canadian Air Force Association, erected a bronze war memorial plaque dedicated to the former personnel of No. 2 Initial Training School, who trained in the Conservatory of Music building during the Second World War.
An independent University of Regina
Because there was no follow-through regarding plans by the University of Saskatchewan to establish additional faculties at Regina (rather than the Saskatoon campus), the Faculty Council was formed to study the feasibility of creating an autonomous institution. A Royal Commission under a Supreme Court of Canada justice, Emmett Hall, found there to be "two campus groups warring within the bosom of a single university."
The University of Regina was established as an independent institution on 1 July 1974 and the first University of Regina degrees were conferred at the spring convocation in 1975.
In the summer of 2005 the University of Regina hosted the 2005 Canada Games. Many events took place in the newly completed state-of-the-art Centre for Kinesiology, Health and Sport. The administration of the games proceeded from the University of Regina Students Union offices and various other locations.
In 2015, The University of Regina opened La Cité universitaire francophone (La Cité) which is the first French University in Saskatchewan.
International enrolment at Saskatchewan post-secondary institutions more than doubled between 2014-15 and 2022-23. International students have spoken out saying Saskatchewan lacks the infrastructure to support the influx. The increase to 25% international of U of Regina's student body has come with increased incidences of racism directed at U of Regina students. International student tuition and fees for a bachelor of science at U of Regina total $24,882/year, domestic students pay $8,877/year.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of Regina, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5