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The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) is a public research university located in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. The university shares its campus with Durham College. The university was founded in 2002 and accepted its first students in 2003, making it one of Canada's newest universities. The enabling legislation is the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Act, 2002. All undergraduate programs require students to lease a laptop PC from the university as a condition of enrollment, making it Ontario's only laptop-based university[citation needed]. Faculty members also encourage students to use their laptops to complete assignments, perform laboratory research and interact with faculty during lectures. UOIT offers a range of undergraduate programs, and graduate programs in Science, Engineering, Health and Information Technology. The UOIT campus is approximately 400 acres (160 ha) in the northern part of Oshawa.
History
UOIT was founded in 2002 by the passage of Bill 109, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology Act, 2002, by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on June 27, 2002. It is a public, career-focused university emphasizing science and technology, and a part of the Ontario government’s initiative to create more spaces in post-secondary institutions for the double cohort. UOIT's new slogan, "Challenge, Innovate, Connect", was unveiled in June 2006.
UOIT offered graduate and post-graduate programs and research opportunities[8] to the first 947 students in September 2003 and total enrolment was over 5,000 in the 2007–2008 school year, making it the fastest-growing university in Ontario. The student population for 2009 was 6285 and 7018 in 2010; by 2012 there are 9203 students. Teaching and research have long been considered the two pillars of the university's endeavour.
Construction on the university's first buildings began in 2002. The facilities include a library shared with Durham College, the Science Building, the Business and IT Building, and a state-of-the-art virtual hospital for nursing students. The Ontario Power Generation Engineering Building opened in September 2006. The residences for UOIT are Simcoe Village and South Village. The Automotive Centre of Excellence (ACE) is connected to the Ontario Power Generation Engineering Building (opened in 2011). ACE is a multi-level testing and research centre that will allow for full climatic, durability and life cycle testing. It has a full range of testing facilities including a five-storey high climatic wind tunnel.
Plans have been announced for the Centre for Cybercrime Research which will be a separate, permanent location on campus and will be dedicated to research and the training of graduate and undergraduate students in various aspects of cybercrime.
An expansion to the athletic facilities, funded largely by students, was completed in September 2007.
The university has established a downtown campus. It purchased and renovated the Regent Theatre to be used as a lecture theatre during the week and as a community stage on the weekends. The university renovated the former Alger Press building which opened in January 2011 as the headquarters of the UOIT downtown campus. UOIT has initiated plans to renovate Victoria St. (between King St. and Bond St. and beside Bordessa Hall) into a pedestrian, social and lounge area. The Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Faculty of Education are located downtown. The university has completed a comprehensive master plan for the downtown campus location entitled "Into the Future: A Framework & Action Plan for Growing UOIT & Downtown Oshawa". It will guide university growth over the next years and decades. The study anticipates the relocation of the Faculty of Business and Information Technology from the north campus location to the downtown campus location in 2015.