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| Motto: Concordia cum veritate (Latin: In harmony with truth) | |
| Chancellor | Mike Lazaridis |
| President | David L. Johnston |
| School type | Public |
| Religious affiliation | Main campus: None Conrad Grebel: Mennonite |
| Founded | 1957 |
| Location | Waterloo, Ontario, Canada |
| Enrollment | 21,550 undergraduate 2,485 graduate (2003) |
| Campus surroundings | Urban, suburban |
| Campus size | 4 km² (1000 acres) |
| Sports teams | Warriors |
| Mascot | Warrior |
| Colours | Gold, black, and white |
The University of Waterloo, also known as "UW" or simply "Waterloo", is a medium-sized research-intensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The enrollment for 2003 was 21,550 undergraduate and 2,485 graduate students, with 787 full-time faculty members. The University was founded in 1957.
The University of Waterloo was originally conceived in 1955 as the Waterloo College Associate Faculties (WCAF), a semi-autonomous entity within Waterloo College (now Wilfrid Laurier University). Its first classes began in 1957, and two years later it became the University of Waterloo. From its relatively recent and humble origin, UW has come to the forefront of research in Canada. The University of Waterloo now attracts many bright students from across Canada and is widely recognized as one of Canada's premier universities. It is also known for its longstanding undergraduate distance education programs.
Waterloo is famous for being the groundbreaking proponent of co-operative education in Canada and currently maintains the largest such program in the world. Due to this, Waterloo has established strong ties with many major corporations in North America. In the annual Maclean's Magazine university rankings, Waterloo consistently scores within the top three positions in its category (research-intensive institutions with a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs without medical schools). Since the beginning of Maclean's reputational rankings, Waterloo has placed first overall out of all Canadian universities for 11 years in a row (1992-2002). This remarkable feat ended when Waterloo slipped to second place overall in the 2003 rankings.
The University has faculties of Applied Health Sciences, Arts, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Independent Studies, Mathematics, and Science as well as an on-campus school of Optometry. There are also four federated university colleges with religious affiliations on campus: St. Jerome's University (Roman Catholic), Renison College (Anglican), St. Paul's United College (United Church of Canada), and Conrad Grebel University College (Mennonite).
With strong programs in mathematics, science, computer science, and engineering, the University has at times been touted as the MIT of Canada. It is the home of the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research and the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing. Additionally, the prowess of Waterloo's students in academic competitions such as the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition and the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest has greatly contributed to the University's reputation in the last few decades.
The University of Waterloo School of Architecture is currently in the process of being relocated in downtown Cambridge, Ontario. This move is expected to be completed in September, 2004. This will give the School of Architecture more space to develop, as well as bolster the economy of the Cambridge downtown area.
The University of Waterloo Research and Technology Park is currently under construction on the University's north campus. This park is intended to house many of the high-tech industries in the area, and the maintain the partnership between university and private-sector innovation.
The University and the City of Kitchener are currently investigating the possibility of constructing a health sciences campus, including a School of Pharmacy, in the central Kitchener warehouse district. Kitchener City Council has tentatively approved spending to develop the former industrial site.
The University of Waterloo's prestigous Systems Design Engineering program recently announced its intention to have a new building exclusively for the department and its students by 2007. With space already granted by the University, and enthusiastic support from the program's loyal alumni, fundraising work began in 2004.
With generous donations by alumni and matching contributions from government, the University announced in April 2004 the founding of the Institute for Quantum Computing.
On September 16th, 2004, the University of Waterloo's solar car team broke the Guinness World Record for the longest journey by a solar powered car. The solar car, called the Midnight Sun VII, broke the official record of 7,043.5 km (held by Queen's University) and the unofficial record of 13,054 km (held by a team in Australia) after undertaking a 40-day tour of Canada and the United States, traveling a total of 15,079 km. The tour took the solar car through 7 provinces and 15 states.
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