Upper Canada College
Upper Canada College (UCC) is an all-male elementary and secondary school in Toronto, Ontario. It is widely considered to be the leading private school in Canada, having educated many of the country's sons of the elite and wealthy.
It is the oldest private school in Canada, having been founded in 1829 by then-Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne (later Lord Seaton). Teaching at the College began in 1830. It moved to its current site, at Avenue Road and Lonsdale Road in Forest Hill, in 1891. (Its exact address is 200 Lonsdale Road.)
All of UCC's 1,000 day students and 110 boarders complete the International Baccalaureate diploma programme during grades 11 and 12. The International Baccalaureate is widely considered to be the world's premier high school diploma.
The school is Canada's wealthiest independent school, having a Canadian endowment of $38 million, which it has devoted to physical expansion, financial aid, scholarships, and advanced computer and laboratory equipment. The school has five gyms, a hockey rink, swimming pool, an advanced Learning Centre (to study the way boys learn and to help students with their studies), 10 tennis courts, 12 sports fields, an extensive library collection (100,000+ editions), a new sports activity bubble, as well as numerous support groups for the boys who attend. The school also maintains their own archives which are widely considered to be one of the most extensive educational archives in Canada.
The school provides in excess of $1.9 million dollars in annual financial aid to students from all over Canada and the world. In the words of current UCC Principal Dr. James P. Power, "[the school hopes] that one day the cab driver's son may work side-by-side with the brain surgeon's son...my goal is to ensure that finances are not a consideration for a boy wishing to attend Upper Canada College." As such, UCC has announced it is committed to doubling their scholarship endowment from $12.5 million dollars to $25 million in the coming decade.
UCC maintains seperate Foundations in the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Hong Kong. Each of which maintains seperate endowments.
UCC has a rich collection of art work, war medals and real estate. The school houses an extremely large collection of original paintings from the Group of Seven. Moreover, UCC is the owner of the world's first Victoria Cross awarded in 1854 to Old Boy, Alexander Roberts Dunn. Among the real estate holdings of the College is Canada's oldest "outdoor" school located in the town of Norval, 50 kilometres north of Toronto. The Norval Campus, as it is known, stretches more than 181 hectares along the Credit River. UCC has not released the value of the land, however with the booming development occurring in the area, many speculate the value to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Additionally, UCC's real estate portfolio includes various other locations around Toronto, including 25% of the Tony, Toronto Cricket Club.
UCC has begun plans to launch a $90+ million building and renovation campaign to be completed within the next decade. All the new buildings and the renovations to the existing ones will be based on ensuring that they are environmentally stable, as to minimize the ecological footprint of the College.
Alumni
Many notable Canadian men are graduates of the school. UCC's alumni are usually known simply as "Old Boys." They include:
Literature
Business
Politics and current affairs
Film and theater
- Geraint Wynn Davies - actor
- Brendan Fraser - actor
- Raymond Hart Massey - actor
Current events
UCC's sister school, the Bishop Strachan School, is located three blocks away from UCC. Lower Canada College, a coeducational private school in Montreal, Quebec, is not affiliated with UCC.
UCC is currently embroiled in a class action lawsuit brought by eighteen students who are suing the school over alleged sexual abuse by
