University of King's College

University of King's College

University of King's College, Halifax, is Canada's oldest chartered university. It was founded in Windsor, NS, in 1789. King's was the first university in English Canada, and the first English-speaking university in the Commonwealth outside the United Kingdom. There had already been one King's College in the Americas, founded in New York in 1756 by King George II. However, after the American Revolution the old "King's" was reorganized as Columbia University.

King's College in Windsor was founded by Anglican Loyalists who relocated to Nova Scotia after the Revolution. The University of King's College received its Royal Charter in 1802 from King George III; it remained in Windsor until 1920, when a fire destroyed the College's main building. With financial support from the Carnegie Foundation, King's relocated to Halifax, and since 1923 it has maintained a joint faculty of arts and science with Dalhousie University.

The 1970s marked many changes for King's. In 1971, the King's Faculty of Divinity (Anglican) amalgamated with Holy Heart Theological Seminary (Roman Catholic) and Pine Hill Divinity Hall (United Church) to form the ecumenical Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. In 1972 King's introduced its Foundation Year Programme, in which first-year students examine the history of western thought, including key works of literature, political thought, philosophy, and the history of music and art. In 1978 King's established a school of journalism, the only degree-granting school of its kind in Atlantic Canada.

In 1993 the Contemporary Studies Programme was introduced, followed by the Early Modern Studies Programme in 1999, and the History of Science and Technology Programme in 2000. A master of journalism programme was introduced in 2011. King's has about 1200 students and was ranked first in Canada in the National Survey of Student Engagement for its first-year programming in 2008 and 2009.