A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Waldron Tower
Walkhome Service
Wallace, Robert Charles
Wallace Hall
Walter Light Hall
Wardrope, The Rev Thomas
Wartime at Queen´s
Water Tower
Watson, John
Watson Hall
Watts, Ronald Lampman
West Campus
Whitton, Charlotte
Who´s Where
WIC
Williamson, The Rev James
Women at Queen´s, Admission Of
Women Medical Students, Explusion Of
Women´s Centre, Queen´s
Women´s Medical College
Women´s Studies, Institute of
Writing Centre
Waldron Tower. Built in 1968, this residence building at the corner of King and george streets has beds for about 225 students. An unusual aspect of the building is that it was designed so that every window looks south over Lake Ontario. Originally a residence for nursing students at Kingston General Hospital, it has been owned by Queen's since 1988.
Walkhome Service. Run by the alma mater society and staffed by students, this service allows students who are out after dark, on campus or in the student housing area to call for an escort home. The service has served as a model for similar services at other universities. One way of arranging the service is by using the university's blue and yellow indoor emergency telephones. This service is distinct from the Campus Escort Service, run by Campus Security.
Wallace, Robert Charles (1881-1955). Wallace was Queen's 11th principal (1936-1951), and led the university through one of its most difficult periods this century. He was also the first Principal this century who came close to forging a national profile as an educational leader comparable to that of Queen's great Victorian Principal, george grant. He was born on the Orkney Islands in Scotland, educated in geology at Edinburgh University (MA 1901, BSc 1907, DSc 1912) and the University of Gottingen, Germany (PhD 1909). He came to Canada in 1912 to head the Department of Geology at the University of Manitoba. An avid outdoorsman, he was Commissioner for Northern Manitoba (1918-1921) and Commissioner of Mines and Natural Resources for Manitoba (1926-1928). He was chosen as President of the University of Alberta in 1928 and as Principal of Queen's in 1936, making him the only scientist to lead the university before the arrival of Principal william leggett, a biologist, in 1994. His term coincided with the last years of the Depression and then the Second World War. But he was a natural and respected leader and managed to guide the university on a course of steady progress, despite the times. Among other developments during his term were the establishment of a School of nursing and a summer school of fine art, both of which he had also set up at the University of Alberta; and the founding of the School of physical and health education, an industrial relations program (see industrial relations centre), a Board of graduate studies, a biological research station at lake opinicon, and a summer School of english for students from Quebec. He was a national figure in education and was widely regarded by the public and the press as the voice of Canadian universities. He received honorary degrees from 20 universities and was one of three people selected to represent Canada at the conference in England that established the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Educational Organization (UNESCO). With the onset of the Cold War, he upheld the principle of academic freedom at Queen's in the face of many who clamoured for the dismissal of left-wing professors. He retired from Queen's in 1951 at the age of 70. He was married to Elizabeth (Smith) Wallace and had three daughters and a son. One daughter, Dr Elspeth (Wallace) Baugh, later became Queen's Dean of Women. His papers are held at Queen's Archives.
Wallace Hall. This is one of the grandest rooms at Queen's. Built in the style of a medieval banqueting hall and located at the west end of the john deutsch university centre, it is used as a study hall, and for lectures, concerts, receptions, and banquets. It dates from the construction in 1947 of the Students' Memorial Union (as the JDUC was known before it was renovated in 1976). When the Union was built, it was essentially a men's club, and Wallace Hall has the dubious distinction of being the last room in the building to allow women; they were banned from the room, except during formal dinners, until 1960. It is named after Principal Robert Wallace.
Walter Light Hall. Built in 1989, Walter Light Hall houses the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. It is named after Walter Light, former chair of Northern Telecom and chair of Queen's board of trustees from 1985 to 1990. It was made possible by a grant from the estate of the late joseph s. stauffer. It is located on the north side of union street between Barrie and Division Streets.
Wardrope, The Rev Thomas (1819-1914). A member of Queen's first class of students, Wardrope is notable for leaving one of the few existing accounts of the days leading up to the university's opening in March of 1842. He and two other original students, Lachlan Macpherson and John MacKinnon, drove to the university in a hay wagon all the way from their homes near Guelph. They travelled for five-and-a-half days, sitting and shivering on their trunks the whole way. On their arrival in town they had difficulty finding anyone who had even heard of the new university. Eventually, they found a man with the likely-sounding Scottish name of Donald Christie. He referred them to another local Scot, Alexander Pringle, who turned out to be one of the university's trustees. He not only directed them to Queen's first home on colborne street, but took them all to board in his "snug cottage" to await the beginning of classes on March 7. Wardrope became a Presbyterian minister after leaving Queen's and later served on the board of trustees.
Wartime at Queen's. The First and Second World Wars changed Queen's dramatically. Not only did thousands of students, alumni, staff, and faculty fight abroad, and more than 300 die in action; but the face of life on campus itself was also transformed. The First World War had the largest impact. When war began in 1914 there was a great outburst of patriotism in Canada, and Queen's students, many attracted by romantic ideas of war, enlisted in large numbers. The university itself formed several of its own military units. Of these, the 46th Battery of Field Artillery, which served in France, and the No 5 (Queen's) Stationary Hospital, which served in Egypt and France, were comprised almost exclusively of Queen's students and faculty. French professor P.G.C. Campbell also formed a special Queen's Highland Battalion, the 257th, but most people in the unit were not connected with the university. Queen's people fought in many of the war's most famous battles, including Ypres, the Somme, and Vimy, and many wrote letters to the queen's journal describing their harrowing experiences. All told, 187 students and alumni were killed in action. Back on campus, all male students were required to take part in military training, and grant hall and kingston hall were transformed into a military hospital. Most women were involved in Red Cross work, and the absence of so many men from campus had the effect of increasing their role at Queen's. (Women academic staff were hired, for example, and women students for the first time were elected to the Alma Mater Society executive and edited the Queen's Journal (see charlotte whitton). Mass enlistment also meant a sharp decline in enrolment and income at Queen's, and the university for some time actually hovered on the edge of bankruptcy.
The Second World War had a smaller impact at the university. The war thrust Queen's back into a similar world of military discipline and reduced expectations. But the pace of enlistment was not so brisk, partly because the previous war had done away with many romantic notions of battle; as a result, Queen's did not face a major financial crisis. Students and alumni once again fought in the major battles of the western front, and often with distinction. The campus was galvanized when, at Dieppe, the Rev John Weir Foote (Arts ‘33) won the Victoria Cross, the Commonwealth's top award for bravery. By war's end, 164 students and alumni had been killed in action. On campus, two of the war's main effects were to increase the amount of scientific research at the university and to boost medical education. The School of nursing, for example, was founded in 1941, partly because of wartime needs. The memorial room in the John Deutsch University Centre commemorates all students and alumni who died in the two wars.
Water Tower. There is a local myth that the tall limestone tower next to the john orr tower apartment building on west campus was once used for hangings. In fact, the now-abandoned structure was the water tower for Kingston Penitentiary when the West Campus area was a Corrections Canada farm. It was never used for hangings.
Watson, John (1847-1939). Watson was Canada's foremost early philosopher and one of the most influential academic figures in Queen's history. He was born in Glasgow and educated at Glasgow University, graduating with the university's highest honours in 1872. He sailed to Canada shortly after his graduation to teach logic, metaphysics, and ethics at Queen's. He served as head of Queen's Department of philosophy for the next 52 years, retiring in 1924. He was the first of Queen's professors to make a name for himself in the scholarly world and was the first philosopher in Canada to achieve an international reputation. He wrote eight acclaimed books and more than 200 articles, many on the metaphysics of religion, his area of specialty. He was an unusually progressive thinker: he was an early advocate of the admission of women to university, and in one of his last books, The State in Peace and War (1919), urged world government based on tolerance and multicultural integration. He had an enormous influence on the development of Queen's curriculum; in addition to teaching philosophy, he introduced the disciplines of Economics, Political Studies, and Psychology to the university. He was appointed Vice-Principal in 1901 and served in the post until his retirement. John Watson Hall, which houses Queen's humanities departments, is named in his honour.
Watson Hall. See John Watson Hall.
Watts, Ronald Lampman (1929-). Watts is one of Canada's leading experts on federalism and served as Queen's 15th principal from 1974 until 1984. Born in Japan to Anglican missionary parents, he was educated at the University of Toronto (BA Hons 1952) and attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship (BA 1954, MA 1959, D Phil 1962). He came to Queen's in 1955 as a lecturer in philosophy, but transferred to the Department of Political and Economic Science (see political studies and economics) in 1961. From the start he took a close interest in the administration of Queen's, serving as a residence don and helping to plan the many residences built during the 1960s. He was selected Dean of arts and science in 1969 and Principal in 1974. At 45, he was the youngest man to take over the principalship since george monro grant almost 100 years earlier. His term coincided with a reduction in government funding to universities. His decade at the reins was thus, in his words, a time of "constraint, consolidation, and constructive change." Nevertheless, several buildings were expanded during his term and in 1978 work was finished on botterell hall, a nine-story medical sciences building located next to Kingston General Hospital. Another important development was that, while the number of students levelled out, the number of applications to Queen's continued to soar. This allowed Queen's to develop the highest admission standards in Ontario. Watts's main academic interest is the comparative study of federal political systems. Since retiring as Principal, he has served as director of Queen's Institute of intergovernmental relations, though he has also taken leave to serve as a senior adviser to the federal government on constitutional affairs.
West Campus. Queen's West Campus, purchased by Queen's in 1969, holds the university's Faculty of Education, Richardson Memorial Stadium, and two residence complexes, Jean Royce Hall and John Orr tower. It is located about two kilometres west of the main campus. Before Queen's purchased the 61-acre area it held a prison farm and a quarry worked by inmates from Kingston Penitentiary. See also Water Tower.
Whitton, Charlotte (1896-1975). A graduate of Queen's, Whitton went on to become one of the most colourful figures of her time as an influential social activist and Canada's first woman mayor. She was born in Renfrew and attended Queen's during the First World War. She was one of the university's top students, arriving with scholarships in six subjects and graduating in 1917 with Queen's medals in both history and English. She also led an active extra-curricular career at the university; she was the first woman editor of the Queen's Journal and played on the women's field hockey, ice hockey, and basketball teams. A fiery and energetic woman, she became a crusader for children's rights after her graduation and, during the Depression, was a key advisor on federal unemployment relief policy. Elected controller of Ottawa's municipal council in 1950, she ran for the Ottawa mayoralty the following year. She was re-elected in 1952, 1954, 1960, and 1962. She was a flamboyant mayor and her tenure was notable for her stormy battles with hostile male colleagues – including, in one celebrated case, a battle that ended in Whitton kicking and punching a municipal controller. She was defeated in 1964, but served as an alderman until 1972. Whitton always retained a strong affection for Queen's. She was an active member of the alumnae association, a driving force behind the building of ban righ hall, and a member of the board of trustees from 1928 to 1940. She received an honorary degree from the university in 1941. Her sister, kathleen ryan, another distinguished alumna, is one of Queen's most generous benefactors.
Who's Where/What´s Next. These are student-oriented directories and handbook, published and distributed to students every fall. The heart of the publications is the student directory, which lists the Kingston and home addresses and academic programs of all registered students. But this is only about half of the publication. It also contains a comprehensive guide to the structure and services of Queen's administration and student government, descriptions of most student clubs and associations, a guide to students' academic rights and responsibilities, a "gold pages" guide to Kingston businesses, a list of all professors and their campus addresses, and a section on sexual assault awareness and grievance procedures. The Who's Where started in 1968 as a pocket-sized directory, containing solely the phone numbers of students and faculty. It is published by the Alma Mater Society.
WIC. See athletics.
Williamson, The Rev James (1806-1895). Williamson was one of Queen's best-loved and longest-serving professors in the 19th century. He was born in Edinburgh and educated at Edinburgh University, where he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1831. In 1842, the year Queen's held its first classes, he became the third professor appointed at the university; he taught math, various sciences, and theology at Queen's for the next 53 years. He was a mild and gentle man and a universal favourite among students. He was Queen's first vice-principal, serving from 1882 until his death in 1895, and was a brother-in-law to Sir john a. macdonald, with whom he was a frequent correspondent, keeping him abreast of university developments. Many of his letters to Macdonald are held in queen's archives.
Women at Queen's, admission of. Queen's was the first university in Canada west of the Maritimes to allow women into its classrooms, and was also early in doing so in international terms. Prof Clarke Murray started the new era at Queen's in 1869 when he offered special english classes for women. This was almost a decade before the University of Toronto or Oxford, for example, held classes for women, and was well ahead of most American universities. At first, women at Queen's were still segregated from men and unable to officially register or obtain degrees; that partly changed in 1876, when women were allowed to enrol with men in some courses. In 1878, all arts and science courses were thrown open to women; again, Queen's was well in advance of most other universities. The first woman to register was the local schoolteacher elizabeth de st remy, who signed up in February of 1876. The first two women in Ontario to receive university degrees – Annie Fowler and Eliza Fitzgerald – graduated from Queen's in 1884, Fitzgerald with the gold medal for classics.
But the admission of women did not come without a struggle. A writer at the queen's journal reflected the views of many when he wrote condescendingly in 1876: "We are confident that among people who appreciate the delicate grace and beauty of woman's character too much to expose it to the rude influences, the bitterness and strife of the world, few will be found to advocate her admission to universities." The progressive views of leading professors, notably philosophy professor john watson, ensured that these views did not hold sway in the Faculty of Arts and Science. But the permanent admission of women to other faculties took considerably longer. Women were admitted to medical studies at Queen's as early as 1880, but were forced out by disgruntled male students in 1883, and were not readmitted until 1943 (see women medical students, expulsion of). It was not until 1942 that women were admitted for the first time to the Faculty of Applied Science. The first female students in Theology enrolled in 1940. The Faculties of Law (established 1957) and education (established 1965) were open to women from the start. Other milestones for women at Queen's were the appointment of the first female member of the academic staff in 1909, when wilhelmina gordon became a tutorial assistant in English; the election of charlotte whitton as the first woman editor of the Journal in 1917; the selection of the first woman registrar, Alice King, in 1930; the election of the first female President of the alma mater society, Dorothy Wardle, in 1941; and the appointment of Hilda Laird as the first woman department head (in a discipline other than nursing) in 1950 (see German).
Women medical students, expulsion of. One of the worst instances of hostility to women in Queen's history took place in the 1880s, when women were banned from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Kingston, an early incarnation of Queen's Faculty of medicine (see that entry). The institution admitted women to medical studies in 1880, but there was considerable hostility to the move among some faculty and students. In 1882 physiology professor Kenneth Fenwick started making a habit of reciting insulting "anecdotes" about women to draw attention to the women in his class and elicit laughter from men in the back benches. The women struck back when Fenwick, in a lecture on the larynx, likened the pitch of women's voices to that of apes. They marched out of the class and lodged a complaint about his harassing behaviour. But Fenwick and a group of students claimed that the women were restricting academic freedom and demanded that they be ejected from the school so that lectures would not have to be "garbled" to suit their overrefined sensibilities. Authorities at the Royal College refused their demands at first, partly because the national press had written sympathetically about the women's cause. But they caved in when the male students threatened to leave the school in a body, effectively ending its existence. Women were officially expelled in 1883. They were able to continue in medical studies, however, when a group of sympathetic men and women from Queen's and Kingston founded the women's medical college. That college, unfortunately, collapsed for lack of students in 1893, and it was not until 1943 that women were allowed to return to Queen's Faculty of Medicine.
Women's Centre, Queen's. Founded in 1975, this centre is an information and referral service for anyone interested in women's issues from Queen's or Kingston. The Kingston Women's Movement Archives, located at the centre, contains news clippings, pamphlets, and reports which are available to all researchers. The centre, which operates as a collective, also sponsors films and feminist events throughout the year. It is officially independent of the university administration, but receives funding from the alma mater society and is a member of the Queen's Student and Community Services Group (see grey house). It is located in the Grey House at 51 Queen's Crescent.
Women's Medical College. The Kingston Women's Medical College, affiliated with Queen's, was established in 1883 and ran until 1894. It was founded after disgruntled male students forced women out of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Kingston, an early incarnation of Queen's Faculty of medicine. The college was originally located in the west wing of Kingston City Hall and had a dissecting room just under the old building's dome. It moved to a house at 75 union street in 1890. The college folded for lack of students in 1894, as the small number of women studying medicine in Canada were increasingly attracted to medical schools in Toronto and Montreal. Women were not re-admitted to medical studies at Queen's until 1943. See also women medical students, Elizabeth Smith.
Women's Studies, Institute of. The Faculty of arts and science began offering undergraduates one interdisciplinary Women's Studies course in 1985. The following year, Arts and Science students were able to choose a minor, medial, or special field concentration degree in Women's Studies. (For an explanation of these terms, see entry for Faculty of Arts and Science). The number of core courses in the Women's Studies program grew in the late 1980s and the 1990s and were supplemented by numerous related courses in other faculties and schools. By 1993, Women's Studies students could choose from five core Women's Studies courses and 27 "cross-listed" courses in six faculties and schools and 19 departments. Today, there are over 10 core courses in the department and more than 30 "cross-listed" courses for Women's Studies. Some of these courses predated the Women's Studies program, but most were developed as a result of it. In 1993, Women's Studies was established as an institute in the Faculty of Arts and Science, a status that gave it secure funding from the faculty for the first time, similar to that of an Arts and Science department. The Women's Studies coordinators, however, had deliberately chosen the "institute" model over the more conventional departmental model better to reflect and accommodate the unique interdisciplinary nature of the program. Today, the program is now offered as an Honours degree, also offered as a minor, major, medial and a special field concentration. The institute has a steering committee, made up of Queen's officials, senior scholars in relevant fields (from Queen's and elsewhere), staff and alumnae, responsible among other things for fundraising. The institute hired its first full-time faculty member in 1994, and today the institute has about five full-time faculty, three adjunct professors and one and a half non-academic staff. The general aim of Women's Studies is to make the diversity of women's experiences, ideas and values visible in all areas of human inquiry, and to provide a scholarly critique of the conventional ideas of what it means to be a human and a woman. The Institute is led by a director and is located in Mackintosh-Corry Hall.
Writing Centre. This centre, established in 1986, offers a range of services to help students improve their writing skills. These include one-on-one tutorials with a professional tutor, workshops on the basic principles of effective writing, and a grammar hot line to answer questions about grammar, punctuation, and correct usage. It also offers talks on writing exams and other topics of interest to students. The Writing Centre reports to the Vice-Principal (Academic). It is located at 140 Stuart Street.