Region : Ontario
City : London
Web site : www.uwo.ca
The University of Western Ontario (UWO), corporately branded as Western University, is a public research university in London, Ontario, Canada.
The university was founded on 7 March 1878 by Bishop Isaac Hellmuth of the Anglican Diocese of Huron as "The Western University of London Ontario." It incorporated Huron University College, which had been founded in 1863. The first four faculties were Arts, Divinity, Law and Medicine. The Western University of London became non-denominational in 1908.
According to the 2015 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) rankings, the university ranked 201–300 in the world and 7-16 in Canada. The 2011 QS World University Rankings ranked the university 157th in the world, making it seventh in Canada. Several of Western's programs were also ranked in individual rankings. Social sciences at Western was ranked 96th in the world in the 2010 QS World University Rankings, and Western's Ivey Business School was ranked 1st in the World in the Global MBA Category of Bloomberg Businessweek.
Western's co-educational student body of over 24,000 represents 107 countries and Western scholars have established research and education collaborations and partnerships on every continent. There are more than 306,000 alumni who are active internationally, living and working around the globe. Notable alumni include government officials, academics, business leaders, Nobel Laureates, Rhodes Scholars, and distinguished fellows.
Western's varsity teams, known as the Western Mustangs, compete in the Ontario University Athletics conference of U Sports.
Western is a publicly funded research university, and a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.The full-time undergraduate programs comprise the majority of the school's enrollment, made up of 30,665 full-time, part-time undergraduate students and concurrent education students. The graduate student population is 5,297, including full-time students, part-time students and post-graduate medical residents. The university conferred 4,504 bachelor's degrees, 207 doctoral degrees, 1,427 master's degrees, and 1,180 second entry professional degrees in 2008–2009. For admission in the fall of 2013, there were 45,000 applications for 4,900 spaces. Students may apply for financial aid such as the Ontario Student Assistance Program and Canada Student Loans and Grants through the federal and provincial governments. The financial aid may come in loans, grants, bursaries, scholarships, fellowships, debt reduction, interest relief, and work programs.
Admission requirements at Western differ depending upon the education system in which the applicant has originated from, due to the lack of uniformity in marking schemes. The secondary school average for full-time first-year students at Western was 89.3 percent, first in the province and 2nd in the country.
The University of Western Ontario is consistently ranked as one of Canada's top universities. According to the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) rankings, the university ranked 201–300 in the world and 8–17 in Canada. The 2011 QS World University Rankings ranked the university 157th in the world, making it seventh in Canada In terms of national rankings, Maclean's ranked Western 11th in their 2013 Medical Doctoral university rankings. Western was ranked in spite of having opted out, along with several other universities in Canada, of participating in Maclean's graduate survey since 2006.
Several of Western's programs were also ranked in individual rankings. Social sciences at Western was ranked 96th in the world in the 2010 QS World University Rankings. In 2012, the ARWU similarly ranked social science at Western 76–100 in the world. Western Law School was also ranked ninth nationally in Maclean's 2012 rankings for common law schools in Canada. Western's Richard Ivey School of Business has also ranked well internationally. In 2014, Bloomberg Businessweek had ranked the Ivey as the best business school outside of the United States and the top school in Canada. In 2011, the Financial Times had also ranked Ivey 46th in its 2011 global MBA ranking, placing second nationally.
Western is also renowned for educating many of Canada's top achievers. In 2010, Western ranked first amongst Canadian universities for earning the most Top 40 Under 40 Awards, in both the undergraduate and MBA categories. As of 2014, more than 40 per cent of all Ivey alumni hold the title of Chair, President, C-Suite, Vice-President, Managing Director or Partner and there are 19 Ivey alumni running Profit 100 Fastest-Growing Companies.
Western has four primary fields of research: life sciences and the human condition, culture analysis and values, the human and physical environments, and social trends, public policy, and economic activity. In Research Infosource's 2011 ranking of Canada's 50 top research universities, Western was ranked 10th, with a sponsored research income of $221.236 million, averaging $155,600 per faculty member. The federal government is the largest source of funding providing 46 percent of Western's research budget, primarily through grants. Private corporations contribute 10% of Western's research budget. The Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT), an organization which also evaluates universities based on their scientific paper's performances, ranked Western 184th in the world and ninth nationally in its 2011 rankings.Western was also ranked 87th in the world within the field of social sciences in HEEACT's 2011 rankings.
Research regarding the human brain has also become a major focus at the university. The Brain and Mind Institute focuses on research in cognitive neuroscience at Western. and the Institute recently discovered that the blind may echolocate by using the visual cortex of the brain. Another recent study at Western has suggested people deaf from birth may be able to reassign the area of their brain used for hearing to boost their sight.
In 2014, the University unveiled plans for a 4,200 square foot, state-of-the-art facility which will firmly place its researchers on the cutting-edge of medicine, science and technology in the study of HIV and other complex human pathogens. Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry's Department of Microbiology and Immunology is globally recognized, in large part due to the groundbreaking discoveries of Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, a Western researcher clinically testing a preventative HIV/AIDS vaccine.SAV001-H is the first and only preventative HIV vaccine based on a genetically modified killed whole HIV-1 virus. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Phase I clinical trial completed in August 2013 and reported no serious adverse effects while boosting antibodies in the volunteers. The vaccine SAV001-H holds tremendous promise, having already proven to stimulate strong immune responses in preliminary toxicology tests. It is the only HIV vaccine under development in Canada, and one of only a few in the world.
The University is divided into 12 faculties and schools, including Althouse College of Education, Don Wright Faculty of Music, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Richard Ivey School of Business, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Western Law School, and the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. The university's undergraduate faculties include the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Health Sciences, the Faculty of Information & Media Studies (University of Western Ontario), the Don Wright Faculty of Music, the Faculty of Science, and the Faculty of Social Science. The university is also affiliated with three University Colleges, Brescia University College, Huron University College and King's University College.
The Faculty of Social Science is Western's largest faculty and is one of Canada's largest social science faculties. It consists of 6400 undergraduates, 550 graduates and 239 faculty members. It has been ranked as one of the top 100 social science faculties in the world over the last four years by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council, the QS Corporation, and the Academic Rankings of World Universities. It is home to several programs including the DAN Management and Organizational Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, History, Geography, Political Science, and Economics.
The Faculty of Information and Media Studies' Library and Information Science program includes an American Library Association (ALA) accredited Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree, making it one of eight ALA-accredited universities in Canada.
Sources : Wikipedia, www.uwo.ca
