COLLEGE

and the

SIR GEORGE -;.; I LL I A 6 SCHOOIS

of the Montreal Y. M.C.A.

Qu eb t: Co

REVIBtI OF THE ACt,JEJ·HC YE@. 1951-52 in Sir George Wil liams College & Schools.

It is customary at the beginning of each academic year in Sir George ~illiams College, for the Principal to present to the Board of Governors,a review of the preyious year's activities, in order· that the problems and achievements of the immediate past may be fresh in the minds of the members of the Board as they launch into a new academic year.

This review has never taken the f orm of a full-dress annual report, since most of the necessary financial and administrative matters are included in the annual meeting of the Corporation of the College and of the Metropolitan Board of the Montreal Young Men's Christian Associationo Still less will this be a "report" this year, in view of the exigencies of time and the pressure of other problems on the Board of Governors.

First place in the minds of all membE' rs of the Sir George Williams College community at the present time, from the Corporation and Board to the st udents and alumni, is being given to the fort hcoming capital funds camp~igno

The College was barely out of the depression years of the early thirties when it became apparent t hAt it was embarked upon e period of phenomenally rapid expansion. So pressing was t he need it was attempting to meet, so numerous were the young people whom it was designed to serve~ that such expansion was inevitable, ::>rovided the College could enlarge its physical facilitie s and properly perform its academic tasko

Wha tever the future may bring to Sir George Williams College, it will stand irrevocably to the credit of its Board of Governors and its Corporation (the Metropolitan Board of the YoMoCoAo) that it has striven at all times to meet this growing chalienge and has provided not only financial support but permissive conditions in which the College might develop and give expression to its concept of its purposeo There have been crises in the operation of the Collee;e during t he past t wo decades, crises which could not have been passed success­fully i f it had not been for thi s support and the influence of th~se governing Boards in the communityo

The past fifteen years have seen the College and Schools grow from about 900 students to 6082 in the winter t ermo To house these increasing numbers, it ha s been necessary to accumulate nearby "annexes" » s o that now i t operates not only in the rmin building, but in a remodelled synagogue, one floor of an office building, three former houses, and whDt Time :Magazine calls "the lend=lease use" of Colley Hall of the Salvation Army Citadel. The fact that all this space is made-over and in sma ll units, explains the urgent present need of a new College buildingo

The Past Year.

The past yea r has seen a continuat i on of the registr ation growth in the Cclleee, although hundreds of potential students were turned away because of lack of accornmodationo The fact that an increase in registration was possible at all was due to the growing enrollment in the more advanced classes which are gradua lly building up to CDpacity over the yearso

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For the first time, regi stration i n t he WintAr Term exceeded six thousand students, with a total enrollment at the year's end of 6081 . As will be seen in Table I, the Evening Division of the Col lege and t he Evening High School continue to grow, and account f or a large portion of t he to t al enrollment . The Day Di vision of t he College had a small de crea se in registr at i on, but t his is i n t he trend of university enrollment through­out Canada. The Day enr ollment in the Col lege ( the Faculties of Arts, Science and Commerce) i s sti ll more t han t wice what i t was before 1945 and is only s l i ghtly below its peak post­·wa r figure. (In Table I t he pr evious year's fi gur es are given in parenthesis).

l o

T A B L E I (Wint er Term, 1951-52).

College (Facult ies of Arts, Science & Commerce)

Hi gh School Elementary School Business School Art School

Total (Col l eee and School s )

717

241 ..,...11:.

1030

(740)

(232) ( 72 )

(1044)

T A BLE II (Summer Term 9 1952)

College (Faculties of ~rts Science & Commerce)

High School Business School Total , College & School s

( - ) ( -) (2.?l (78)

Evening

2665 1209

131 855

---121

5051

Evening 1058 432 ~ 1814

(2454) (1041) ( 96) ( 900) ( 186)

(4677)

( 909) ( 319) ( 280) (1508)

3382 1209

l.31 1096 -221 6081

Total 1058 ·

432 ..Jl)1_ 1897

(3194) (1041) ( 96) (1132) (2.Sfil

(5721)

( 909) ( 319) (~ (i5s6Y -

The s ummer term just concl uded was also the largest in the College's history, with 1897 students, compar ed with 1586 t he previous yea r. This summer session was inaugurated i n 1940 as a -warti me accelleration mea sure , but has been found to be serving so important a purpose t hat i t has cont i nued and grown to tax almost the full capacity of the College 's facilities during the fo ur months of what was once the summer vacation.

The Students.

It is not poss ibl e i n a s t at i s tical t abl e, or even i n an i nterpretive report such as t hi s , t o catch t he full flavour of a student bodyo

The College is ver y proud of its vari egated and colourful eveni ng division, with its student s of all ages, from all walks of life , drawn out of the very heart of Nontreal 1 s i ndustr y and connnerce , but it must not fo r get that t he Day Divis i on of its Faculties of Arts , Science and Comme rce i s in itsel f o ve ry i mportant uni t of higher education. With

almost 800 s tudentsj i t i s no loi:1ger a small college, and on it primarily must rest the r esponsibilities imposed by its new ranking as one of Canada's university institutions.

Nevert heless , the College has always insisted that it is a college, in the full sense· of tha t \Jord ~ concerned with undergraduate education for high school graduates who have college=gr ade abilitieso With this in mind it must concentrate on being a first-rate college , rather than a second=rate universitys and t he implications of the concept of its purpose must be kept ever in mind by its FBculty and Administration. '

Almos t all of ~he more than 5000 eveni ng students were employed~ and their occupations ranged f r om offi ce boys, · junior t echnicians and general l abourers, t o the professions

· for which students are already university graduates. For most evening students, however, t heir evening studies ere an avenue to occupational improvement and greater competence.

It is i nteresting each year to note that 1500 or more firms in which the evening students of the College and Schools are employed by day. During the -year just closed, there was a list of 115 firms of whom five or more evening students were employees - a list headed again by t he NortheTn Electric Company with 219 0 Those with 30 or more employees were a~.follows:

Northern Electric Co o 219 Dominion Rubber Co. 44 CoNoRo 163 Canadair 43 Bell Tel ephone Coo 157 Bank of Montreal 36 Protestant School Bo&rd 141 Charles E. Frosst & Company 36 CoP, Ro 96 Royal Bank of Canada 36 Canadian Government 90 Aluminum Compa ny of Canada 32 Sun Life As surance Co o 82 Steel Company of Canada 31 Can EJdian Industries Lt do 73 Dominion Textil es Co. 30 T. Eaton Coo 53 Sherwi n ililliams Paint Co. 30

There has- been an import ant increa se in the number of pract icing teachers enrolled in the Evening Divi sion of t he College , a trend which has beco me very apparent in the last few yearso These t eachers are working toward their Bachelor 9 s degree~ with a view t o up­gr ading their prof essional certification and becoming more competent teachers in the public and private school s of t his cityo With about 175 teachers enrolled in the Evening Division, t he College is becoming an exceedingly import nt link in the in=service training of teAchers in this c ity 9 and is abJ e to r ender a very valuable service to public education.

Slightly more than half the student body was Protestant; about 30 per cent was Roman Cath::>lic ; and about 14 per cent was Jewisho About ten per cent gave their citizenship as other than Canadian; about 20 per cent were born outside of Canada; and about 25 per cent gave their primary language other than English (about half of them French).

Ages :i.n the Evening Division 9 as usual ~ ranged fro m 14 to 60 years, with about five per cent of the evening students over 40 yea r s of age~ and 20 per cent over thirty.

The informal extra-curricular activities of the College and Sc hools r epresent an important aspect of the life of the institut ion 1 and constitute an extensive programme of cultural j educational ~ sociRl r ecreational and athletic pr ojects . They involved

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hundreds of bot h Day ~nd Evening ~t i ~en~ s in more t 1an 37 orgonized clubs and groups l Pst year, and at lertst a doz .n di ffer e nt type s of Athletic activities.

ThP. Cla s s ~ a r.d Teachi ng Ste.ff.

Besides a f 11 progr· ~rr of studies in t he Day Division of t he CollEE.g~, Busine s s School and Art School - a progr amme at least as extensive a s in the Evening Divi sion -t he re i,as , last year, a tot al of 386 classes t , ught ili the Evening Divi s i on, and 50 additiona l in t he Summer Ses sion .

It is of inte r est t o not e t hat no less t han 261 of the e Eve- ing classes were filled and cl os ed t o regis t r r:. tion on the opening ni ght of t he wint e r term, because add it i onal students coul d ot be a c commodated and additiona l classe s could not be housed. The Eve.1in High School suffered most acute ly i n this connection with 105 of its 115 classes filled and turning potential students away.

The Staff during the yea r consis ted of some 300 pers ons, of whom 70 were full-time teacher s, professor sj office staff and adminis tr, tive , and the remaining 230 were pa~t­time tea chers i n t he five evening units.

About :1alf of t he p l ant and annexes i s given ove r to t e Schools (as distinct from the College prope r , the Fa culties of Arts 1 Science and Cor.imerce). These Schools, the E ro i ng High School 9 t lle Da y and Evening Business School, the Day and Even i ng Art School, and the Evening Elementary School, cont inue to i ncrease i n enroll ment, in spite of the phenomenal growth of the more re cent ly i naugurated College and serve an exceedingly impor t ant funct i on f or alIPost 3000 persons of considerabl e cduc Ci ti onal need. For ins t . nee , ~he r ecent trend towa rd a lonfe r school l i fe J s eems to enhance t he value of t he Eve ni ng Hi gh School j and ha s given it a gr owt h in t he las t ten · years Hhi ch is only les s phenomenal t !"lan that of t he College itsel f. I t continue s to be t he onl y graded eveni ng higl school i n th Provincei so fo r as ic, known , r.nd with an enro llment of almost 1500 s t udents it is a l arge sch ol -:.n i ts elf.

In the 16 years sine the grfldua t ion of t he f i rs t cla ss in t he College, the number of a lumni has gr own from wo t o over 16000 The Association 'J f Alumni 1hich t!ey have evolved provides an i mportP. nt upplr,ment to the work of · the College , a nd contributes subs t · ntially to the es teem i n whi ch the College is he l d i n t he community.

Som.-,1, h ri ~. mor e th n t wo=th · :-el s of t he s e Alumni have continued in their jobs or t aken n•v on E>< s in 1 c 1 bus i ness ~nd -L ndustry.1 but about one -third have gone on to higher

r of ~ss i r..; .. ~l cour s es or 5radu t e studies.

Ii r ecent s urve-y of t h . wl--iereab Juts of gradua tes 0f t 11e Colleg~ r ev · als t he fact t h t onl : 1 ~·0 mre at pre s ent outside the Provin ce of C...,u.2:bec and only 70 out i e C,:n,ada itself. As rnc1 L 'i t ed by t he location of i ts gr sdu .tes$ Si r George Williams Colle ,;e b very d finitely serving its community .

"

i1nancing th.~ College

It is not possible, or desirable , in D r eview of this ki nd to offer complete financial stRtements or a complete discussion of f inance 9 since the financial year in the College, (~anuary 1st to December Jlst ) overlaps the academic year under review by severol months.

Nevertheless , it may be suff icient to mention t ha t t he Coll ege and Schools had expenditures last year totalling$ 5J2 ~650oOO, and ordinary receipts of $488,033.44 leaving an operating deficit of$ i.4,617 which was met by the Montreal Y.M.C.A. from its Me tropolitan J"oint Fund o·

The Canad ian Government Grant of $7J.i 526, was not received until after the close of t he l ast f inancial year ~ so its full effects were not felt until t.he closing weeks of the academic year. It will .ontribute greatly to the operation of the College, and although it is only given on behalf of full=t ime day university students, it has enabled the College to augment profess ional salaries~ add needed staff,and in general improve the quality of operation and the financi al stability of t he College.

Th~ facilities of the College are augmented each year by a number of gifts of equipment, books and mu.sic r ecords to the library1 and funds for scholarships which this review will not attempt to list , but for which the College i~ grateful.

Personal

During the year the College , in common with the whole Montreal Y.M.C.A., suffered an irreparable loss in the death of Mr. John W. Beatono As Metropolitan General Secretary, Mro Beat on had supported and encouraged the whole development of Sir George Williams Col l ege over t he past twenty=five years, the expansion of its staff and facilities, the obtaining of its provincial Charter ~ and the solution of the many problems which beset the Board of Governors and staffo Sir George Williams College was very close to his heart 1 and his passing r emoves one of t hos e who have been most whole-hearted in its support a

At the beginning of the academic year, the faculty and students observed the twenty­f ifth anniversary of Dean HaF. Hall 1 s joining the staff of 'the College. In 1926, Mr. Hall became Student Counsellor of the College, the first full - time student counsellor, so far as is known 1 of any educatione.l ins t itut ion in Canada . In succession he became Headmaster of the Evening High School and Dean of t he newl y developed College in 1935. Dean Hall occupi es a warm place in the regard and affections. of students and faculty, who delighted to honour his quarter =century of service to t he young people of Montreal through Sir George Will iams College.

A major administrative appointment was ma de at the beginni ng of the ye ,:, r when Mr. A. Saunder s became Headmaster of the Evening High School. Under his leactership the High School has cont inu _,d to grow,. and the supervision of his staff of almost 50 part-time teechers has been happily effected, although Mr. Saunder s himself is able to give only part-time to the jobo

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A St ory of Growth

'l'hose who have been associated wit h t he College from its beginning as an institution of higher education , could not but be thri l led by its Convocation in May last, when 292 Ba ch.elors degr ees and about 45 other diplozms were presented, and a crowd of 2000 t o 2400 persons thronged t he l ar ge St . James United Church to its utmost capacity. Who of tl'X>se who had been present at t he first Convocation in 1936 could f ail to remember that at that time t wo persons received degrees j in t he pr esence of about fifty people who met quietly i n t he Boa r d Room of the Y. M.C.A. building. The story of growth which is represented by t hese two Convocati ons, only 15 years apart in time but age in event and achievement, is t he story of Sir George Williams College in t~e past three decades.

It is a story of r esponse to need, a story of educational apportunity for these with the stamina and ability to take advant age of it, a -story which is still being written by the cour ageous amb i t ious young people for whom the College exists and by whom it is formed.

That s t ory this yea r enters upon a new chapter, with its long-awaited,lreamed~of new building about t o be realized and its capital - funds campaign a thing of the immediate present . In the new era which lies ahead i t is devout]Jrto be hoped that the spirit which has made "Si r George" ~ the purposes which brought it into being, may remain ever alive and lea rn t o l ive in the more l e&dy atmosphere of easier academic acceptability anc the mar commodeous f aciliti s dremn~d of by generati ons of s t udents who never had the privilege: of i:.h!:i r us e

• T A B L E III

SUMMARY OF ANNUAL REGISTRATIOrr IN COLLEGE AND SCHOOLS R~~ul e: Term s i nce 1921-22.

Tot al Day Eve Eve Eveo Ar t Art College

Coll. Coll. Total Bus . Buso Elem. High Sch. Sch. Total and Year ~ Eve. Collef0: Sch-& ~ Scho, Schµ, ~ Eve 9 Schools Schools

1921-22 500 500 22-23 560 560 23-24 585 585 24-25 undifferenti ated 606 606 25-26 in records 702 T''2 26-27 808 ' "i 27-28 909 r ,9 28-29 52 .332 1020 1020 29-30 3] 30 36 52'7 235 408 1206 1236 30-31 77 77 45 457 172 453 (29) 1156 1233 31-32 166 166 79 284 81 388 (82) 911+ 1080 32-33 76 100 176 85 287 66 302 51 36 827 1003 33-34 79 94 173 84 215 40 246 50 36 776 849 34-35 95 1-:ic

-'·' 234 93 257 38 244 55 26 714 948 35-36 108 196 JOL, P,J 278 43 208 71 44 727 1031 36-37 135 2JS 37J 79 274 47 247 74 121 865 1238 37-38 146 414 560 BL. 476 50 334 57 57 1058 ·1618 38-39 163 474 637 98 /._89 5 337 84 50 1112 1749 39-40 193 551 71+4 331 4sq 45 .334 83 57 1339 2083

X 40-41 . 214 624 838 3/,l 700 44 440 72 t J 1660 2498 X 41-42 193 1001 .1194 375 774 74 594 69 73 1959 3153

42-43 226 947 1173 2,.,1 672 114 727 39 98 1931 3104 43-44 245 941 1186 236 786 135 735 71 1 b 2081 3267 44-45 360 1132 lL,92 197 682 104 740 93 152 1968 3460 45-46 557 1258 1815 ') L c·

, .O u 813 132 118 138 183 2652 4467 ~.G-1+7 837 1432 22G9 246 767 100 1012 100 212 2437 4706 I+ 7-1+,S 719 1699 2L.18 21,. 1 750 103 1040 92 210 2442 4860 4()- / 9 764 1977 2741 2~1 764 103 1009 99 229 24/f5 5186 49-50 81b 2339 3157 259 819 99 1131 &5 227 2620 5777 50-51 740 2454 :n 94 232 900 96 1041 72 186 2527 5721 51=52 717 2665 3.'.382 2,~1 8:5. 5 lJl 1209 72 191 2699 6081 T A B L E IV

SUMMARY OF REGI '.:;TRIITiml ff SL'MHER SESSIONS SINCE 1 ~!:J:.O

~ Da:y: Col. ~. Total CoL DgB9Sa E,.aB 2S 1! EoH.~ I,Qtal 1940 (included in Regular Term Reports, 1940-41 above) 1941 (included in Regul ar Term Reports, 1941-42 above) 1942 176 176 84 270 41+6 1943 241 241 60 177 120 604 1944 251, 254 65 177 130 626 1945 85 338 423 39 146 180 788 1946 552 552 76 1.77 J28 1113 1947 78 572 G50 82 153 260 1145 1948 522 522 73 150 236 981 1949 661 661 22 81 273 1200 1950 760 760 80 269 306 141 5 195) 909 909 ?b 280 ~, 9 1586 19~_2 10'-8 10~8 8.3 " ' . .:..:+ ~32 1897 X Includes Summer Term Regi strationo