Type | Public |
---|---|
Established | 1889 |
Endowment | C$34 million |
Chancellor | Michael Decter |
President | Gervan Fearon |
Undergraduates | 2731 (2015) |
Location | Brandon, Manitoba, Canada |
Campus | Urban |
Colours | Blue and Gold |
Sports | Brandon Bobcats |
Mascot | Bailey the Bobcat |
Affiliations | AUCC, IAU, ACU, U Sports, CUSID, Campus Manitoba, CUP. |
Website | brandonu |
Brandon University is a university located in the city of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, with an enrollment of 3073 (2015) full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students. The current location was founded on July 13, 1899, as Brandon College as a Baptist institution. It was chartered as a university by then President Dr. John E. Robbins on June 5, 1967. The enabling legislation is the Brandon University Act. Brandon University is one of a very few predominantly undergraduate liberal arts and sciences institutions in Canada.
The university is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate (CUSID) and a member of U Sports. Brandon University has a student to faculty ratio of 11 to 1 and sixty percent of all classes have fewer than 20 students. In the 2015 Macleans rankings of primarily undergraduate universities in Canada, Brandon University was ranked 16th out of 19 overall and #1 in the student to faculty ratio category The school of music is rated one of the best in Canada. The university press, The Quill, is a member of CUP.
The Baptists first sent missionaries to southwestern Manitoba in 1869 and settlers began to arrive in the area after 1871. Both settlers and missionaries soon saw a need for a denominational college for Manitoba youth and several attempts to found a college were made. In 1880, Dr. John Crawford and Rev. G. B. Davis opened Prairie College in Rapid City, 20 miles (32 km) north of Brandon. The College failed and Rev. Davis founded a small academy in Rapid City that was subsequently taken over by his brother-in-law, Prof. S. J. McKee. McKee’s Academy was moved to Brandon in 1890 following the projection of the CPR mainline through the Assiniboine Valley that resulted in the marked growth of the city of Brandon
As early as 1885 the Baptist Convention of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories responded to this need. Brandon College was established in Brandon, Man, in 1889 by the Baptist Union of Western Canada, and was affiliated with McMaster University. In 1898 a Toronto industrialist, Mr. William Davies, and his sister-in-law, Mrs. Emily Davies, pledged $25,000 to be used to establish a Baptist College in Brandon. Plans moved ahead rapidly.