History
The 152-hectare (380-acre) land along the valley of the Highland Creek in Scarborough, Ontario was purchased in 1911 by Toronto-based businessman Miller Lash, who developed the site into his summer estate with a mansion, today known as the Miller Lash House. The mansion included 17 rooms, a barn, a coach house, and three houses for his staff to dwell. Over the following years, over 100 acres of the estate was also used as farmland. Following the death of Miller Lash in 1941, the estate was acquired by E. L. McLean, an insurance broker, in 1944 for $59,000. He made new additions to the estate, including a swimming pool and change room, and a retaining wall made in stone.
About 82 hectares (200 acres) of property was later purchased from McLean, just before his death, by the University of Toronto for about $650,000 in 1963, as part of the university's regional expansion. The groundskeeper of the land would continue to reside in the Highland Creek valley for the next 29 years. McLean's additions to the Miller Lash House, which would eventually become the residence of the campus's principal, were modernized and 70 acres of surrounding land north of the estate were also acquired. The University of Toronto established the Scarborough College as part of the institution's collegiate university system and declared the campus as a branch of the Faculty of Arts and Science. D. C. Williams was appointed as the principal of Scarborough College and the planned Erindale College, as well as vice-president of the university. The college's faculty, consisting of 16 members, was also established and headquartered at the main campus in Downtown. Designed by John Andrews, the first building of the campus began construction the following year. Due to delays in construction after a strike among workers, the Scarborough College opened in temporary classes at the main campus to 191 full-time students in 1965. The first building of the college was completed in time for the following academic year.
The college included a 6,000-square-foot (560 m2) television production studio. This was for a unique video lecturing system the college was initially planned to have, that relies on the use of closed circuit television for teaching purposes. The system grabbed international media attention, and was complimented in the 1967 edition of Time. However, the video lecturing system was abandoned after it was condemned for the lack of communicability of students with instructors. In 1972, the campus was reorganized as a separately governed division of the university's Faculty of Arts and Science, developing its own curriculum. In 1973, it became the first post-secondary institution to adopt a course credit system in Ontario and the first cooperative education program was established. The campus adopted its present name after being renamed University of Toronto Scarborough Campus in 1983 and University of Toronto at Scarborough in 1996.
Read more about this topic: University Of Toronto Scarborough
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