University of King's College

The University of King's College was founded in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1789. Construction of the main building was completed in 1791. King George III granted a Royal Charter to King's in 1802. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, King's offered instruction in arts and science, divinity, medicine, law and engineering at various times.

The University and King's Collegiate School operated under joint administration until fire destroyed the College's main building on 5 Feb 1920. In financial difficulty after the fire, King's, with assistance from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, entered into an association with Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Articles of Association between the Governors of King's College and the Governors of Dalhousie College (1923) provided that King's would hold in abeyance its power of granting degrees except in Divinity (s.11). In 1928, King's commenced building its new campus in its present location and opened its new buildings, designed by Andrew Cobb, in 1930. King's merged its Faculty of A1is and Science with Dalhousie's, but continued to grant divinity degrees until King's School of Divinity became part of the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax that was incorporated in 1974.

King's now offers undergraduate liberal arts and science programs in interdisciplinary humanities, including four-year degrees given jointly with Dalhousie in Early Modem Studies, Contemporary Studies, and History of Science and Technology. King's also offers Journalism degrees: a four-year undergraduate honours degree (B.J.H.), a one-year post-baccalaureate B.J.; and a master's degree (M.J.) that commenced in 2011. A minor in Journalism Studies is available as a complement to other fields of study.

King's, with a student population of 1,100, has established itself as one of Canada's leading institutions of higher learning. Its mission is to remain a small undergraduate college working in the humanities, social sciences, science and journalism, while maintaining the special character of the University, due in part to the concentration of scholarly interest in the western intellectual and cultural tradition, in part to the interdisciplinary approach involving team teaching, and in part to the counter-balancing presence in the University of the School of Journalism and its intensely practical mission of preparing students to work in contemporary print and broadcast media.