When a group of church and business leaders took up the invitation to establish a Mennonite liberal arts college on the campus of the fledgling University of Waterloo almost 50 years ago, even these visionaries could hardly have imagined its potential.

The original building, opened in 1964 for 106 students, has since been expanded to accommodate 174 residents, including the apartments built in 2003. Each year, staff in Student Services relate to more than twice that number of residence and associate students, including those living off-campus, each year.

The College offered two courses in the first year of teaching in 1963-64, with a total enrolment of 38. Last year over 4,100 undergraduates were enrolled in 139 Grebel courses, more than three quarters of them in Music and Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS). About 450 students joined one of four musical ensembles offered each term and the Certificate Program in Conflict Mediation registered more than 550 participants.

At the graduate level, 22 students were enrolled in Theological Studies, almost half of them full time. Grebel administers the Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre at the Toronto School of Theology. A Masters in PACS is projected to begin in Fall 2012.

Community education resources and opportunities in various disciplines abound at Grebel. The College operates the Mennonite Archives of Ontario and our Mennonite Studies program is poised to grow. You’ll read much more about these and other programs and activities in the pages that follow.

All of this is but a prelude to the next exciting chapter in the College’s story. That’s why the fundraising campaign for a major expansion of our academic spaces is called “The Next Chapter” campaign. It includes plans for enlarging the Library, building a new Archive, expanding Music, PACS, and graduate studies facilities, enhancing other academic spaces, and creating a new main entry. These capital improvements are critical for the future as we look beyond the College’s 50th anniversary in 2013. In the words of the familiar hymn, “From the past will come the future.”

But we do well to be mindful of the caution offered by James Duderstadt in A University for the 21st Century. “We must take care not to simply extrapolate from the past,” he writes, “but rather to examine the full range of possibilities for the future.”

Notwithstanding all that has been accomplished, there are tremendous new opportunities awaiting the College even as it moves through a time of significant leadership and faculty transition, undertakes a major capital expansion, and envisions the future of both the academic and residence programs for its sixth decade and beyond. Now is the time to move forward and build on the successes of the past.

Conrad Grebel University College stands at an exciting threshold. The founders would be pleased to know what has come of their vision and that bold initiative half a century ago!

Henry Paetkau
President

Download the complete 2010-11 Annual Report