UW Gazette, October 29, 1997
    
    Dr. Ken McLaughlin's long-awaited history of the
University of Waterloo was officially launched yesterday -
but it turns out that it's not really a history of UW's 40
years, just a study of the university's founding as the
brashest - and maybe most successful - of the postwar
universities.
    The title tells the story: Waterloo, The Unconventional
Founding of an Unconventional University.  The 240-page book
is for sale now in the UW bookstore (price $40).
    Dr. Gerald Hagey, president of little Waterloo College,
led the creation of Waterloo College Associate Faculties,
which began offering engineering classes in the summer of
1957. By 1960, the Associate Faculties were "the University
of Waterloo"; the existing St. Jerome's College, previously
based in Kitchener, had become federated with UW; and Wa
terloo College was left behind to be "Waterloo Lutheran
University" and later Wilfrid Laurier. But there were many
twists along the way, says McLaughlin as he describes the
influences exerted by, or on, the Ontario government, the
Lutheran and Roman Catholic authorities, the University of
Western Ontario, civic leaders and national corporations.
    He tells a story of community boosterism, industrial
support, church politics, academic suspicion, personal
conflict, naive confidence, provincial lobbying, typewritten
minutes, temporary buildings, and faculty members with
attitude.
    Says McLaughlin (who is UW's official historian, and
former dean of St. Jerome's College) in a Postscript to the
book: "This book has been about the often complex founding
of this very unconventional university. From the earliest
days in 1956, Gerald Hagey and the board of governors of the
then Waterloo College Associate Faculties were committed to
creating a university that would be relevant for the lives
of Canadians in a rapidly-changing world. Their credo was a
curriculum that combined the best in science, technology and
the humanities, setting a course that looked to the future
rather than one based on past university precedents."
    The book has dozens of photos - some of them familiar
from earlier tellings of UW's history, others newly found in
archives. One shows a dozen Knights of Columbus in comic-
opera regalia, complete with swords, at the ceremonial
opening of St. Jerome's College. A number of photos,
including a convocation shot of an impossibly young Dr. Doug
Wright with a toothy grin, are presented as colour
snapshots.
    McLaughlin also reproduces a number of documents in
facsimile, such as the 1959 affiliation agreement among UW,
St. Jerome's and the Lutheran seminary, and some of UW's
early brochures and published advertisements.
    The book includes a detailed chronology, an affectionate
introduction by university secretary Lois Claxton, and a
number of contemporary colour photos by Chris Hughes of the
central photographic service.
    Attendance at yesterday's launch reception, in the lobby
of the Dana Porter Library, was by invitation. A number of
book signings across campus are to be scheduled soon.