page_title: Bishop's University
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bishop's University / History
caption_attribution_description: Bishop's University in the Sherbrooke borough of Lennoxville.
context_page_description: Bishop's University is a small liberal arts university in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. It is one of three universities in the province of Quebec that teach primarily in English. It began its foundation by absorbing the Lennoxville Classical School as Bishop's College School in the 1840s. The university shares a campus with its neighbour, Champlain College Lennoxville, an English-language public college. It remains one of Canada's few primarily undergraduate universities, and is linked with three others in the Maple League. Established in 1843 as Bishop's College and affiliated with the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in 1853, the school remained under the Anglican church's direction from its founding until 1947. Since that time, the university has been a non-denominational institution. Bishop's University has graduated fifteen Rhodes Scholars. It is ranked number one in Canada for student satisfaction by Maclean's magazine.
context_section_description: Bishop’s University can trace its roots back to 1836 when Bishop's College School, a  “Grammar School in connection with the College,” was founded as the Lennoxville Classical School, an independent institute by Rev. Lucius Doolittle and Edward Chapman. The University section, Bishop's College was based on the grammar school and established by Bishop George Jehoshaphat Mountain (who also served as the first principal of McGill College) on December 9, 1843, in Lennoxville, Quebec, for the education of members of the Church of England and erected into a university in 1853. The school was founded by Bishop Mountain, the third Anglican bishop of Quebec, as a liberal arts college. In 1845, instruction began, and in 1854, the first degrees were granted.
  In 1845, the Reverend Jasper Hume Nicolls, a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford was appointed first principal of Bishop's College.  In 1853, he and Bishop Mountain obtained the Royal Charter through which the college became a university. He led Bishop's for 32 years, through several financial crises. 
  A faculty of medicine, known as Bishop's Medical Faculty, Montreal, was established in Montreal in 1871, and closed in 1905 when it amalgamated with McGill University. 
  A short-lived Faculty of Law was established in Sherbrooke in 1880, to close in 1888.  It granted only fifteen degrees. 
  In 1922,  Bishop's College School moved to its new campus on Moulton Hill from the Little Forks at BU as a severe fire happened in 1891. Yet, many connections are remained.
  The Church of England controlled the university until 1947. Since 1947, a corporation and appointed trustees have been responsible for its business affairs, and a senate has dealt with academic matters. This bicameral model of governance was based on the 1906 provincial University of Toronto Act, which established a system dividing university government into a senate (faculty) to set academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) to oversee financial policy and other matters.
  The president, appointed by the board, was to perform institutional leadership and provide a link between the senate and the board of governors. In the early part of the twentieth century, professional education expanded beyond the traditional fields of theology, law, and medicine, while graduate training based on the German-inspired American model of specialized course work and the completion of a research thesis was introduced.  The policy of university education initiated in the 1960s responded to population pressure and the belief that higher education was a key to social justice and economic productivity for individuals and for society.
  On December 9, 1993, a Sesquicentennial Convocation was held in Centennial Theatre. Governor General of Canada Ray Hnatyshyn presented the Coat of Arms and Flag and signed and presented the Letters Patent of Bishop's University.
  In 2007, enrollment had shrunk by 14 percent and was "falling like a stone," Principal Michael Goldbloom told The Montreal Gazette after he was hired in 2008. Furthermore, campus morale was low after a 41-day strike by staff and a lock-out of faculty. The university had a $1.4 million operating deficit and was relying on a $9 million line of credit to remain solvent, prompting rumours that the university would close. By 2010, however, Bishop's rebounded as enrollment shot up by 20 percent after new leadership was hired and aggressive student recruitment efforts were instituted. The university's finances also improved significantly.
caption: Bishop's University McGreer Hall
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