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Lakehead University is a public research university with campuses in Thunder Bay and Orillia, Ontario, Canada. Lakehead University, shortened to 'Lakehead U', or 'LU', is non-denominational and provincially supported. It has undergraduate programs, graduate programs, the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, and is home to the western campus of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.
The school has more than 45,000 alumni. The main campus in Thunder Bay has more than 7,900 students. As of September 2006, a new permanent extension campus in Orillia, located about 150 km north of Toronto, has more than 1,100 students.
History
Lakehead Technical Institute was established in 1946 in response to a brief, outlining the need for an institution of higher education in northwestern Ontario. Lakehead University evolved from Lakehead Technical Institute (founded 1946) and Lakehead College of Arts, Science, and Technology (founded 1957).
Lakehead Technical Institute was established on June 4, 1946, by an Order-in-Council of the Province of Ontario. Classes commenced in January 1948, in temporary rented quarters in downtown Port Arthur. In September of that same year, the first university courses were added to the curriculum.
Lakehead College of Arts, Science and Technology was established by an Act of the Ontario Legislature proclaimed on August 1, 1957. Years later, the original Lakehead College of Arts, Science and Technology Act was amended to grant the college authority to establish new faculties, and confer degrees in arts and sciences. The Lakehead University Act, 1965, was given royal assent on June 22, 1965, and came into force on July 1, 1965. The Lakehead College of Arts, Science and Technology, thereafter known as "Lakehead University," was continued under this new charter. The first degrees were conferred on May 5, 1965. The first university chancellor was Senator Norman McLeod Paterson.