Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
- King's College
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The University of King’s College, founded in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1789, was the first university to be established in English Canada. The college was the first in Canada to receive a charter in 1802 and is the oldest English-speaking Commonwealth university outside the United Kingdom.
King’s remained in Windsor until 1920 when a fire ravaged the campus, burning its main building to the ground and raising the question of how or if the college was to survive. The college accepted the terms of a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to rebuild in Halifax, entering into association with Dalhousie University. Under this agreement, King’s agreed to pay the salaries of a number of Dalhousie professors, who in turn would help in the management and academic life of King’s College. Students at King’s would also study at Dalhousie and have access to all of the amenities of the larger school, and the academic programs at King’s (except for Divinity) would fold into the College of Arts and Sciences at Dalhousie. Today, students continue to take courses offered at both King’s and Dalhousie and can graduate with a joint degree that carries the stamp of each university.
During the 1970s the King’s Faculty of Divinity became part of the Atlantic School of Theology (AST), the college introduced its Foundation Year Program and established the only degree-granting school of journalism in Atlantic Canada. This was the beginning of a long period of academic innovation and a shift of the college toward a national profile.