University of Calgary

University of Calgary, public, coeducational institution located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The institution was established in 1906 as the Calgary Normal School, a teacher-training college. In 1945 the school became a branch of the University of Alberta. This affiliation ended in 1966 when the institution became a degree-granting institution known as the University of Calgary.

The University of Calgary confers bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in the liberal arts and the sciences. It also offers degrees in a broad range of professional fields, including law and medicine. The university is a major research center, housing more than 20 research institutes. These include the Arctic Institute of North America, established in 1945 by the Canadian government; the Canadian/Communications Research Group; and the Knowledge Science Institute. Alumni of the university include Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk and James Gosling, one of the creators of the computer software program Java.

The campus of the University of Calgary contains one of the few remaining prairie grasslands in the region. In 1988 many of the campus’s sports facilities were used for the Winter Olympic Games held in Calgary. These facilities include the only covered speed skating rink in North America. The university also owns a noted collection of Inuit art. The school’s collection of ancient coins, housed at the Nickle Art Museum, is one of the largest in the world.