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McGill University
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McGill University is a public university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. McGill was founded in 1821, making it one of the oldest universities in Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university. McGill was chartered during the British colonial era, 46 years before Canadian Confederation, making McGill the first non-denominational university in the British Empire. Classes were first held in 1829. McGill University organizes public lecture series and begins classes for women in 1855. The university has evolved during its history, especially in the area of anglophone–francophone relations.
Total enrollment at McGill is over 30,000 students, 80% of whom are Canadian. McGill has 21 faculties and professional schools, offering degrees and diplomas in over 300 fields of study, including medicine. Its language of instruction is English. McGill's commitment to research is highly regarded; the university has received awards for research activities and is a member of multiple research organizations. McGill and its faculties are very highly ranked in many national, continental, and world-wide rankings. Admissions criteria are very high and admissions are very competitive; less than 50% of applicants are admitted.
McGill's main campus is set upon 32 hectares (80 acres) at the foot of Mount Royal in downtown Montreal. A second campus—Macdonald Campus—is situated on 6.5 square kilometres (1,600 acres) of fields and forested land in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 30 kilometres west of the downtown campus. Residence halls make up only a small portion of McGill's buildings, resulting in all non-freshmen being expected to find private, off-campus housing.
Tuition varies widely based on a student's demographics, ranging from $3,500 to over $15,000 per year. Scholarships and other financial aid are difficult to obtain, mainly due to the overall high level of academic achievement of the entire school population. McGill has a high-quality student life; there are hundreds of student organizations, three newspapers, television and radio stations, and multiple student governments. McGill participates in several collegiate athletic leagues, and has significant history in many sports.
Alumni from McGill have been recognized in fields ranging from the arts and sciences, to business, politics, and sports. Notably, alumni include seven Nobel laureates, three astronauts, two Canadian prime ministers, seven Academy Award winners, and twenty-five Olympic medalists.
History
Legacy of the RIALThe creation of the RIAL in 1801, and its formation of two new Royal Grammar Schools in 1816, acted as turning points for Canada in two particular ways. First, the schools "...were created by legislation, the District Public Schools Act of 1807, and they showed the government's willingness to support the costs of education and even the salary of a schoolmaster. Second, the law involved the state in education, an important first step in the creation of nondenominational schools." The original two schools closed in 1846; by the mid-1800s the RIAL lost control of the other 82 grammar schools it had administered. Its sole remaining purpose was to administer the McGill bequests on behalf of the college. McGill College continued to grow, now having the sole aim of providing post-secondary education. The RIAL continues to exist today; it is the corporate identity that runs the university and its various constituent bodies, including the former Macdonald College (now Macdonald Campus), Royal Victoria College (the former women's college turned residence) and the Montreal Neurological Institute. Since the revised Royal Charter of 1852, The Trustees of the RIAL comprise the Board of Governors of McGill University.
Early years
The university's first classes were held in 1829 at Burnside Place, James McGill's country home. Burnside Place remained the sole educational facility until the 1840s, when the school began construction on its first buildings: the central and east wings of the Arts Building. The rest of the campus was essentially a cow pasture, a situation similar to the few other Canadian universities and early American colleges of the age. Sir John William Dawson, McGill's principal from 1855 to 1893, is often credited with transforming the school into a modern university. He recruited the aid of Montreal's wealthiest citizens, many of whom donated property and funding needed to construct the campus buildings. Their names adorn many of the campus's prominent buildings, including the Redpath Museum (1880), Macdonald Physics Building (1893), the Redpath Library (1893), the Macdonald Chemistry Building (1896), the Macdonald Engineering Building (1907), and the Strathcona Medical Building (1907)—since renamed the Strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry Building. This expansion of the campus continued until 1920. In 1885, the university's Board of Governors formally adopted the use of the name McGill University. The school of architecture at McGill University was founded in 1896.
Women's education at McGill began in 1884, when Donald Smith, also known as Lord Strathcona, began funding separate lectures for women, given by university staff members. The first degrees granted to women at McGill were conferred in 1888. In 1899, the Royal Victoria College (RVC) opened as a residential college for women at McGill. Until the 1970s, all female undergraduate students, known as "Donaldas," were considered to be members of RVC. Today, the College is an all-women's dormitory forming part of the university's residence system.
In 1900, the university established the MacLennan Travelling Library. In 1905, the university acquired a second campus when Sir William C. Macdonald, one of the university's major benefactors, endowed a college in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, 32 kilometres west of Montreal. Macdonald College, now known as the Macdonald Campus, opened to students in 1907, originally offering programs in agriculture, household science, and teaching.
McGill established the first post-secondary institutions in British Columbia, to provide degree programs to the growing cities of Vancouver and Victoria. It created Victoria College in 1903, a two-year college offering first and second-year McGill courses in arts and science, which was the predecessor institution to the modern University of Victoria. The province's first university was incorporated in Vancouver in 1908 as the McGill University College of British Columbia. The private institution granted McGill degrees until it became the independent University of British Columbia in 1915.
McGill français movementThe 1960s represented an era of large nationalist and labour mobilizations in Quebec. At the time, English was seen as the privileged language of commerce. McGill, where francophones comprised only three percent of the student population, was seen by some as a bastion of anglophone privilege in a predominantly French-speaking city. There was only one French-language university in Montreal at the time: the Université de Montréal. McGill was largely out of reach to the 10,000 francophone graduates of the newly-created CEGEP system. There was nowhere else local to continue their studies, and almost no other French-speaking universities in Canada.
The McGill français movement began in 1969, clamouring for a new McGill that would be francophone, pro-nationalist, and pro-worker. The movement was led by Stanley Gray, a political science professor from Ontario. It was argued that, since McGill received the lion's share of government funding, paid by a taxpayer base that was largely francophone, the university should equally be accessible to that segment of the population. Gray led a demonstration of 10,000 trade unionists, leftist activists, CEGEP students, and even some McGill students, at the university's Roddick Gates on March 28, 1969. Protesters shouted "McGill français", "McGill aux Québécois", and "McGill aux travailleurs" (McGill for workers). However, the majority of students and faculty opposed such a position, and many of the protesters were arrested. The McGill français movement is the second-largest protest in the history of Montreal.
Though McGill allowed students to write graduation thesis in French as early as 1835, McGill never became a francophone or officially bilingual university. However, francophones now make up approximately 18 percent of the student body, a goal set by the administration in the wake of the movement. Today, McGill is one of only three English-language universities in Quebec; fluency in French is not a requirement to attend. The Faculty of Law does, however, require all students to be "passively bilingual", meaning that all students must be able to read and understand spoken French—or English if the student is Francophone—since English or French may be used at any time in a course. Since 1964, students in all faculties have been able to write exams and papers in either English or French, provided that the objective of the class is not to learn a particular language.
Academics
Student Profile
McGill's full- and part-time student population includes 23,758 undergraduate and 8,756 graduate students. Of all graduate students, 490 are postdoctoral students and 943 are medical residents or fellows. Of the entire student population, 57.3% are from Quebec, while 23.7% come from the rest of Canada. International students make up 19.0% of the student population, the largest percentage of any Canadian university.
McGill's students represent a diverse geographic and linguistic background. International students hail from about 160 different countries. The plurality of McGill's international students are from the United States, making up 37% of all international students and 49% of all undergraduate international students. A growing number of American students are attending McGill; they represent 9.7% of all undergraduates and 6.9% of all students at the university. Many are attracted to the culture and dynamism of Montreal, the university's reputation, and the relatively low tuition in comparison to many top public and private universities in the United States. As their mother tongue, 52.8% of all McGill students speak English, while 18.1% speak French, and 29.1% speak a language other than English or French.
University Profile
In the 2007-2008 school year, McGill offered over 340 academic programs in eleven faculties. The university also offers over 250 doctoral and master's graduate degree programs. Despite strong increases in university enrolment across North America, McGill has upheld a relatively low and appealing student-faculty ratio of 16:1. There are nearly 1,600 tenured or tenure-track professors and 4,300 adjunct and visiting professors teaching at the university.
Nearly 30% of all students are enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, McGill's largest academic unit. Of the other larger faculties, the Faculty of Science enrolls 14%, the Centre for Continuing Education enrolls 13%, the Faculty of Medicine enrolls 12%, the Faculty of Engineering and the Desautels Faculty of Management enroll 10% each. The remainder of all students are enrolled in McGill's smaller schools, including the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Law, Schulich School of Music, and the Faculty of Religious Studies.
McGill Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Office (GPSO) oversees the admission and registration of graduate students (both master's and PhD). GPSO administers graduate fellowships, postdoctoral affairs, and the graduation process, including the examination of theses. In conjuction with other units it conducts regular program reviews in all disciplines.
Research
Research plays a critical role at McGill. According to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, "Researchers at McGill are affiliated with about 75 major research centres and networks, and are engaged in an extensive array of research partnerships with other universities, government and industry in Quebec and Canada, throughout North America and in dozens of other countries." Annually, around 100 inventions take place at McGill. In recognition of its research quality, McGill is affiliated with seven Nobel Laureates and professors have won major teaching prizes.
Since 1926, McGill has been a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization of research-intensive universities in North America. McGill is also a founding member of Universitas 21, an international association of research-driven universities. McGill is a member of the G13, a group of prominent research universities within Canada.
McGill is perhaps best recognized for its research and discoveries in the health sciences. William Osler, Wilder Penfield, Donald Hebb, Brenda Milner, and others made significant discoveries in medicine, neuroscience and psychology while at McGill. The invention of the world's first artificial cell was made by an undergraduate student at the university. While chair of physics at McGill, nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford performed the experiment that led to the discovery of the alpha particle and its function in radioactive decay, which won him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908.
William Chalmers invented Plexiglas while a graduate student at McGill. In computing, MUSIC/SP, software for mainframes once popular among universities and colleges around the world, was developed at McGill. A team also contributed to the development of Archie, a pre-WWW search engine. A 3270 terminal emulator developed at McGill was commercialized and later sold to Hummingbird Software.
RankingsResearch Infosource named McGill "Research University of the Year" in its 2003 and 2005 rankings of Canada's Top 50 Research Universities.
In 2007, Research Infosource ranked McGill the second-best research university in the country, after the University of Toronto.
They also ranked McGill university third in Canada in research-intensity and fourth in total-research funding, finding that McGill ranks in the top five universities in terms of research dollars per full-time faculty member and number of refereed publications per full-time faculty member. The study showed that research funding represents approximately $259,100 per faculty member, the fourth highest in the country.
In the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) - QS World University Rankings 2007, McGill University was ranked the best public university in North America, 8th overall in North America, and 12th in the world. Within specific fields, McGill ranked 10th in the life sciences and biomedicine, 12th in the humanities, 12th in the social sciences, 26th in the natural sciences, and 27th in technology. This achievement has been regarded as the "highest rank to be reached by a Canadian institution.". In Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007, McGill ranked third in Canada, 44th in the Americas, and 63rd in the world. In its 2006 ranking of global universities, Newsweek ranked McGill third in Canada, 30th in North America, and 42nd worldwide. In the 2008 College Prowler Online rankings for Academics at North American universities, McGill earned an A- for Academics; making it the only Canadian school to achieve a grade above a B-.
McGill is Canada's top-ranked Medical Doctoral university, ranking first in Canada for the third consecutive year in the Maclean's 17th annual University Rankings issue. The university has held first place in student awards for nine consecutive years, and consistently ranks first for reputation, average size, and number of social sciences and humanities grants per full-time faculty.
In its first ever law school ranking, Maclean's ranked McGill's law school second overall.They ranked McGill's law school first in Canada by supreme court clerkships, third by elite firm hiring, third by faculty journal citations, and seventh by national reach.
Admissions
Admissions to McGill's undergraduate and graduate schools are competitive. For the entering class of Fall 2007, McGill admitted 12,208 of 26,390 undergraduate applicants (46%) and 3,188 of 8,377 graduate applicants (38%). The median high school average for the entering undergraduate class was 90% for Canadian students (89% for students in Ontario and 91% for students from other provinces) or a 3.7 GPA for American students. The median SAT scores for verbal, math, and writing were 690, 680, and 690, respectively. The median ACT score was 30. The median Quebec CEGEP R score was 30.13. McGill's entering undergraduate class has the highest average entering grades in Canada. About 90% of students ranked in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. McGill students have won 128 Rhodes Scholarships, more than any other Canadian university.
Admissions to McGill's professional schools are also competitive. For McGill law school students in 2007, the median undergraduate GPA was 83% (3.77) and the median LSAT score was 160 (83rd percentile).
Campus
Downtown campus
McGill's main campus is situated in downtown Montreal at the foot of Mount Royal. Most of its buildings are situated in a park-like campus located north of Sherbrooke Street and south of Pine Ave between Peel and Aylmer streets. North of Docteur-Penfield, it also extends west of Peel for several blocks. As such, the campus is near the Peel and McGill metro stations.
The downtown campus reflects an eclectic mix of old and new buildings, reflecting the various periods in which the buildings were erected and a variety of architectural styles. All of the major university buildings were constructed using local grey limestone, which serves as a unifying element.
Since the 1880s, McGill has been affiliated with three Theological Colleges; the Montreal Diocesan Theological College, The Presbyterian College, Montreal of, and United Theological College. Additionally, the university's Faculty of Religious Studies maintains affiliations with other theological institutions and organizations, such as the Montreal School of Theology.
McGill has been directly partnered with five separate teaching hospitals for decades, and also has a history of collaborating with many hospitals in Montreal. In addition to McGill's own Health Centre, these cooperations allow the university to graduate over 1,000 students in health care each year. McGill's contract-affiliated teaching hospitals include: Montreal Children's Hospital, Montreal General Hospital, Montreal Neurological Hospital, Montreal Chest Institute and Royal Victoria Hospital. Other hospitals that health care students may see include: Sir Mortimer B. Davis - Jewish General Hospital, Douglas Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital Center.
Designed in the late 1980s, the McGill University Phytotron occupies the two top floors of the south block of the Stewart Biological Sciences Building, and brings together a combination of growth chambers and greenhouse compartments to provide a diverse array of environments for the growth of experimental plants and organisms.
Accommodations
Most McGill students do not live in residence (known colloquially as "rez") after their first year of study, even if they are not from the Montreal area. This is due to the fact that McGill's residence system is relatively small for a school of its size, housing approximately 2,400 undergraduate students and a handful of graduate students. With the exception of certain students returning as "floor fellows" or "dons", the majority of McGill residences are for first-year undergraduate students only. Senior students are expected to find off-campus housing.
Residences at McGill come in a variety of forms. Many first-years live in the Bishop Mountain Residences (known to most students as "Upper Rez"), a series of concrete dormitories on the slope of Mount Royal, consisting of McConnell Hall, Molson Hall, Gardner Hall, and Douglas Hall. While the other three dormitories were constructed during the 1960s, Douglas Hall, which opened in 1937, is distinguished by its impressive stone facade and wood interiors. McConnell, Molson, and Gardner Halls share a cafeteria, located at the centre of the three dormitories, known as Bishop Mountain Hall.
Royal Victoria College, the second-largest residence at McGill, is a women's only dormitory. McGill's newest residence, aptly named New Residence Hall (known simply as "New Rez") is a converted four-star hotel located a few blocks east of campus. New Rez is the largest of the university's dormitories. Solin Hall, an apartment-style residence four metro stops from campus is situated in a converted chocolate factory.
The McGill Off-Campus Residence Experience (MORE) residences consist of a series of converted apartment buildings and houses, the largest of which is The Greenbriar, an apartment-style residence located across from the Milton Gates.
The university's athletic facilities, including Molson Stadium, are located on Mount Royal, near the residence halls and the Montreal Neurological Institute. The Gymnasium is named in honour of General Sir Arthur William Currie.
Most second-year students transition to off-campus apartment housing, and apartment hunting is sometimes seen as a "rite of passage" for McGill students. In recent years, finding affordable housing has been challenging because of the city's tight housing market, particularly in neighbourhoods close to the McGill campus. Many students end up living in the "McGill Ghetto," the neighbourhood directly to the east of the downtown campus. The word "ghetto" is not, in this case, used in a derogatory manner - it is used with the true meaning of the word: a socioeconomically homogeneous area. In recent years though, students have begun moving out to other areas because of rising rent prices in the locale.
Recent
In 2006, the Quebec government initiated its $1.6 billion LEED redevelopment project for the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), with plans to expand facilities to two separate campuses and consolidate the various hospitals of the MUHC on the site of an old CP rail yard adjacent to the Vendôme metro station. This site, known as Glen Yards, comprises 170,000 square metres (43 acres) and spans portions of Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood and the city of Westmount. The Glen Yards project has been fraught with controversy due to local opposition to the project, environmental issues, and the cost of the project itself. The project, which has received approval from the provincial government, is expected to be complete by 2010.
Macdonald Campus
A second campus, the Macdonald Campus, in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue houses the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Science, the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, the Institute of Parasitology and the McGill School of Environment. The Morgan Arboretum and the J. S. Marshall Radar Observatory are nearby.
Created in 1945, the Morgan Arboretum is a 2.5 square kilometre (610 acres) forested reserve with the aim of 'teaching, research, and public education'. Its mandated research goals are:
- To continue research related to maintaining the health of the Arboretum plantations and woodlands.
- To develop new programs related to selecting species adapted to developing environmental conditions.
- To develop silvicultural practices that preserve and enhance biological diversity in both natural stands and plantations.
Other facilities
McGill's Bellairs Research Institute, located in Barbados , serves as Canada's only teaching and research facility in the tropics. The institute has been in use for over 50 years, with facilities regularly utilized by the Canadian Space Agency for research.
The laboratories of the Huntsman Marine Science Centre are located in St. Andrews, N.B., on 300,000 square metres (74 acres) of land at the estuary of the 102 kilometre-long (62 miles) St. Croix River. Host to the Atlantic Reference Centre, which is known throughout the Maritimes for its extensive marine biology collections, the HMS is a research facility "committed to the advancement of the marine sciences through basic and applied research" and acts as a field facility for research and teaching by McGill and other member universities.
McGill's Gault Nature Reserve spans over 10 square kilometres (2,471 acres) of forest land, the largest remaining remnant of the primeval forests of the St. Lawrence River Valley. With the first scientific studies at the site dating as far back as 1859,
"Today there are over 400 scientific articles, 100 graduate theses, more than 50 government reports and about 30 book chapters that are based on research at Mont St. Hilaire."
In 2006, the McGill English Education Center was established in Chang’an, Dongguan, China under the VICTOR International Language Institute. Providing linguistic analysis and English-language instruction, the facility's aim is to become the "best English training center" in the entire region.
Student life
McGill's student life is vibrant and exciting, especially with its main location in the heart of downtown Montreal. As Principal Heather Munroe-Blum says, McGill itself is known as an exciting place to be in its own right: "If you want to experience a large urban area with a rich student-centred campus culture and a sense of connection to the world, you won't find a better place." Additionally, students have the benefit of an expansive agricultural campus farther afield, at the western tip of Montreal.
In its May 2006 issue, Playboy Magazine ranked McGill as the tenth best party school in North America. McGill was the only Canadian university to make it onto the list.
Student organizations
There are hundreds of clubs and student organizations at the university. Many of them are centred around McGill's student union building, the University Centre, located downtown and known unofficially as the Shatner Building. In 1992, students held a referendum and named the building after actor and McGill alumnus William Shatner, although the university administration refused to accept the name and did not show up for the opening. Traditionally, the administration names buildings in honour of deceased members of the university community or for major benefactors—and Shatner is neither.
McGill has two English-language student-run newspapers: the McGill Daily, which is a financially independent publication, and the McGill Tribune, which is published through the Students' Society of McGill University. The McGill Daily is one of the oldest, if not the oldest of Canadian university publications, being in continuous operation since 1911 and at one time being "the oldest daily student newspaper in the Commonwealth". The Délit français is the Daily's French-language counterpart and has a circulation of over 5,000. CKUT (90.3 FM) is the campus radio station. TV McGill is the University TV station, broadcasting on closed-circuit television and over the internet.
The campus has an active students' union represented by the undergraduate Students' Society of McGill University (SSMU) and the Post-Graduate Students' Society of McGill University (PGSS). In addition, each faculty has its own student governing body.
While fraternities and sororities are not a huge part of student life at McGill, some, including fraternities A-E-Pi, Delta Upsilon, and Zeta Psi and sorority Alpha Omicron Pi, have been established for many years at the university. Events including Greek week, held annually during the first week of February, have been established to promote Greek life on campus.
With just over 2% of the student body population participating, involvement is well below that of most American universities, but on par with most Canadian schools.
, the university's "social / political / information / support service organization for lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender students, and their friends", has been open to "undergraduates, post-graduates, staff, as well as non-students in the Montreal community" since 1998. From 1972, a smaller club known as Gay McGill existed, with the name being changed to suit the group's growing membership (over 400 students) and diversity.
Student organizations at McGill are internationally recognized in a variety of ways. Many larger organizations and NGOs have a local presence on campus. In addition, the International Relations Students Association of McGill (IRSAM) currently has consultative status with the UN's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
McGill also hosts an annual Model UN Assembly between January and February of each year, involving hundreds of McGill students and thousands of external delegates. The "McGill Model United Nations Assembly (McMUN) has been an annual event since 1990. It has since become one of the premier university-level MUN conference in North America and the world." Additionally, "In recent years, McMUN has been proud to boast delegates who herald from every continent on the globe."
Athletics
McGill is represented in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) by the McGill Redmen (men's) and the McGill Martlets (women's). The school fields between 45 and 53 varsity teams on an annual basis. McGill's unique mascot, Marty the Martlet, "made his debut during the 2005 Homecoming game, where he was presented to the McGill Athletics Department by the Student Organization for Alumni Relations."
The downtown McGill campus is home to a wide range of modern sport and exercise facilities. These include: the McGill Sports Centre (housing the Tomilson Fieldhouse, the Windsor Varsity Clinic and more), Molson Stadium, Memorial Pool, Tomlinson Hall, McConnell Arena, Forbes Field, many outdoor tennis courts and countless other extra-curricular arenas and faculties. The Macdonald Campus features several sport and exercise facilities as well, including an arena, a gymnasium, a pool, tennis courts, fitness centres and hundreds of acres of green space for regular use. The university's largest sporting venue, Molson Stadium, was constructed in 1914 and seats over 20,000 people.
Sports
McGill maintains an academic and athletic rivalry with Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Animosity between rowing athletes at the two schools has inspired an annual boat race between the two universities in the spring of each year since 1997. This academic and athletic rivalry, which was once very intense, waned after Queen's pulled their football team out of the Ontario-Quebec Intercollegiate Football Conference in 2000, but returned in 2002 and transferred to the annual home-and-home varsity hockey games between the two institutions. Nevertheless, the schools share a successful publishing house, the McGill-Queen's University Press.
There has been a McGill alumnus or alumna competing at every Olympic Games since 1908. Gold medallists include swimmer George Hodgson—winner of two gold medals—at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, ice hockey goaltender Kim St-Pierre— also a winner of two gold medals—at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, where recently, Jennifer Heil (a current student) was a gold medallist in the women's freestyle mogul event and goaltender Charline Labonté (also a current student) helped Canada win gold in women's ice hockey.
In 1996, the McGill Sports Hall of Fame was established to honour its best student athletes. Notable members of the Hall of Fame include James Naismith and Sydney Pierce.
Hazing scandalA 2005 hazing scandal forced the cancellation of the final two games in the McGill Redmen football season. An investigation into the incident showed that "the event did involve nudity, degrading positions and behaviours, gagging, touching in inappropriate manners with a broomstick, as well as verbal and physical intimidation of rookies by a large portion of the team." Dubbed 'Hazegate' by the local Montreal Gazette, the scandal made national news. In 2006, McGill's Senate approved a proposed anti-hazing policy to define forbidden initiation practices.
FinancesMcGill has the third largest endowment of all Canadian educational institutions, approaching $1 billion. This endowment rests within the top 10 percent of all North American post-secondary institutions' endowments, of which there are over 850 such schools . The school also maintains the fourth largest endowment on a per-student basis of any Canadian university.
Tuition
Tuition fees vary significantly between in-province, out-of-province and international students, with full-time Quebec students paying around $3,500 per year, other Canadian students from other provinces paying around $7,500 per year, and international students paying over $15,000 per year. However,
residence fees at McGill can sometimes exceed tuition fees.
Since 1996, McGill, in accordance with the Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport (MELS), has had eight categories that qualifies certain international students to be excused from paying international fees. These categories include students from France, a quota of students from select countries which have agreements with MELS, which including Algeria, China, and Morocco, students holding diplomatic status, including their dependents, and students enrolled in certain language programs leading to a degree in French.
Scholarships and financial aidScholarships at McGill are relatively difficult to attain, compared to other Canadian universities. This is predominantly due to the number of high academic achievers at the school. For out-of-province first year undergraduate students, a high school average of 95% is required to receive a guaranteed one-year entrance scholarship. For in-course scholarships and renewal of previously earned scholarships, students generally need to be within the top 10% of their faculty. For in-course scholarships in particular, students must be within the top 5% of their faculty. McGill itself outlines scholarship considerations as follows: "Competition for basic and major scholarships is intense at McGill. An extraordinary number of exceptional applications are received each year and therefore we cannot award scholarships to all good candidates."
Campaign McGill is a five-year comprehensive campaign that began in October of 2007, with the goal of raising over $750 million for the purpose of further "attracting and retaining top talent in Quebec, to increase access to quality education and to further enhance McGill's ability to address critical global problems." The largest goal of any Canadian university fundraising campaign in history, within the first 6 months, McGill had accumulated over $400 million towards its efforts.
Symbols
The university's symbol is the martlet, stemming from the presence of the mythical bird on the official Arms of the university. Notably inscribed on its arms is also In Domino Confido (I trust in the Lord), James McGill's personal motto.
The formal school song is entitled "Hail, Alma Mater". The lyrics to the song are:
The University's patent of arms was granted by England's Garter-King-at-Arms in 1922 and registered in 1956 with Lord Lyon King of Arms in Edinburgh and in 1992 with the Public Register of Arms, Flags and Badges of Canada. In heraldic terms, the arms are described as follows: "Argent three Martlets Gules, on a chief dancette of the second, an open book proper garnished or bearing the legend In Domino Confido in letters Sable between two crowns of the first." A modern analysis is as follows: "The dancetty division line along the bottom of the chief reflects the three hills of Montreal, while the colours are those of Canada. The book in the centre of the chief represents learning (just like the book in every other university's coat of arms); the writing in the book is 'In Domino Confido' (I trust in the Lord) and is the motto of J. McGill. The crowns (bearing fleur-di-lys) represent the location of the university in 'Mount Royal'."
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