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Innovation Timeline

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1881

Foundation

The Toronto Baptist College – later to become McMaster University – is founded with an endowment from Senator William McMaster.

1887

McMaster begins

The Toronto Baptist College and Woodstock College merge, forming the newly named McMaster University. The university offers courses in arts and theology that lead to a BA degree.

1894

First graduating class

McMaster confers its first undergraduate degrees.

Move to Hamilton

1927

The university administration decides to transfer the university from Toronto to Hamilton, following a campaign by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce.

1930

First classes in Hamilton

Financed by the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec and the citizens of Hamilton, McMaster University holds its first academic session in Hamilton on lands transferred to the university by the Royal Botanical Gardens.

1948

Creation of science programs

Post-war demands for education in the sciences leads to a reorganization of the university, creating two federated colleges: the denominational University College, which offered arts and divinity programs, and the non-denominational Hamilton College, which offered science programs and could receive public funding.

1949

First PhD offered

McMaster offers its first PhD program.

1950

Science buildings created

The university completes three new academic buildings for the sciences.

1957

McMaster becomes non-denominational

To secure further public funding for humanities and social sciences programs, the university reorganizes, dissolving the existing colleges and creating a non-denominational institution.

1957

Creation of faculty of Graduate Studies

PhD programs are consolidated in a new Faculty of Graduate Studies.

1959

Opening of the McMaster Nuclear Reactor

The McMaster Nuclear Reactor, the only university-based research reactor in the Commonwealth at the time, begins operating.

1965

Medical school opens

McMaster establishes a medical school and teaching hospital.

1969

Development of the McMaster Model

McMaster University Medical School pioneers the McMaster Model or problem-based learning, a student-centred, problem-based interdisciplinary approach to learning.

1974

Faculties established

The Faculties of Business, Engineering, Health Sciences, Humanities, Science and Social Sciences, each under the leadership of a dean, become the established divisional structure of the university.

1991

Personal progress index introduced

McMaster’s medical school pioneers progress testing, developing a personal progress index based on innovations from the University of Missouri-Kansas and the Maastricht University. This model is now used across Canada, the US, Europe and Australia.

1994

Bertram Brockhouse wins Nobel Prize

Professor Bertram Brockhouse, who worked at McMaster from 1962 until his retirement in 1984, is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics with Clifford Shull of MIT.

1997

Myron Scholes wins Nobel Prize

Alumnus Myron Scholes is awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, which he shares with Robert C. Merton.

2009

3M Fellows

Two of the 10 annual 3M National Teaching Fellows are from McMaster University. Two instructors are named 3M teaching fellows again in 2012. Overall, 15 McMaster teachers have been named 3M Fellows since 1986.

2016

Research intensity

McMaster is named the most research-intensive university in the country by Research Infosource.

2017

Engineering programs recognized internationally

McMaster’s civil engineering program is ranked 29th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and ranks second in Canada for metallurgical engineering.

2018

World rankings increase

McMaster is ranked 78th in the world and fourth in Canada by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine is ranked 23rd in the world and second in Canada. McMaster’s nursing program ranks 27th in the world and physiology 36th by the QS World University Rankings.

2018

McMaster awarded Global Teaching Excellence Award

McMaster wins the second-ever Global Teaching Excellence Award from the UK-based Higher Education Academy, in partnership with Times Higher Education.