“Situated on a beautiful campus bordered by the sparkling Rideau River and Canal, Carleton is just minutes from the heart of our nation’s government and enjoys easy access to the many organizations, associations and businesses which thrive in Ottawa. Many of Ontario’s leading high tech companies surround our campus where cutting-edge research joins with highly innovative teaching to solve real-life problems.  Members of a dynamic, research-intensive university, Carleton’s faculty and staff provide a superior learning experience for our fine students who hail from every province and from over 100 countries around the world.”
President and Vice-Chancellor, 2010-1011

Carleton in the Community
Carleton University prides itself on its many associations in the surrounding community, in Canada and around the world. As one of Ottawa’s largest employers, with more than 900 faculty members and 1,000 support staff, Carleton is a vital contributor to the local economy. More than 400 technology-based companies have been founded by Carleton alumni and faculty, two-thirds of which are still active today.Coral CEA is a non-profit organization founded by Carleton University, IBM, Eclipse Foundation, Genband and the Information Technology Association of Canada. It helps Ontario companies compete for a part of the growing global demand for Communications Enabled Applications.Carleton’s

Lead to Win program has been recognized by the Mayor of Ottawa for creating jobs, retaining talent and attracting investment to the area. The program has helped launch 118 technology companies and each active company is working to create at least six high-tech jobs over three years.Carleton is also the birthplace of the code for BigBlueButton, an open source project that enables universities and colleges to deliver high-quality learning experiences to remote students. Today, BigBlueButton is used worldwide, has been translated into 15 languages and has created companies and jobs in our region.Our research – currently more than 850 projects – focus on solving real-world problems and helping to improve the lives of Canadians and people around the world. We have more than 300 government partnership projects with more than 40 federal and provincial departments.

Our Faculty of Public Affairs is internationally recognized for its role in contributing to public policy. And Carleton is starting a new graduate program of political management which will educate the top political aides of tomorrow.Our adjunct professors are affiliated with top organizations like the National Research Council and Royal Ottawa Health Care Group.Carleton’s partnerships take many forms and engage every sector in the Ottawa region and beyond – businesses, non-profit organizations, government agencies at all levels, research bodies and cultural organizations.

They include:

• Out-reach to Aboriginal communities through our Centre for Aboriginal Culture and Education.
• Helping to fight homelessness by engaging in Project Homeless Connect with Ottawa’s other post-secondary institutions.
• Alternative Spring Break offers students the chance to provide community service.
• We have partnered with the National Gallery of Canada to give Carleton’s students free and unlimited admission to the gallery’s national collections.
• Carleton has extensive partnerships in the health care field, which is a priority for the university.
• We are helping to rebuild the eastern Ontario town of Batawa as a model of environmental sustainability.

Carleton University’s roots as a non-denominational college supported in part by charitable donations from the Ottawa community make it unique among Ontario universities. Founded in 1942, Carleton was created in response to the need to help provide the young people in Ottawa, many of whom had taken on jobs to cope with the pressures of the Depression, with an opportunity to continue their formal education.From its humble beginnings on Ottawa’s First Avenue, Carleton has grown into a dynamic research and teaching institution with a tradition of anticipating and leading change. Today, the university sits on more than 100 acres, on a site between the Rideau River and the Rideau Canal, just a short distance from downtown Ottawa. The university provides an excellent education and experience to its more than 24,000 full- and part-time students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Its more than 875 academic staff are recognized internationally for their scholarship and cutting-edge research in more than 50 disciplines.

Carleton’s reputation is built on its strengths in the fields of journalism, public affairs, international affairs, architecture and high technology. Its students benefit from the interdisciplinary, active, hands-on approach to teaching and research practiced by its faculty members and from the numerous partnerships the university has with the federal government, other universities and private sector partners.

Currently, the university has more than 850 research projects underway in all five of its academic faculties. In recent years Carleton’s research funding has grown exponentially, allowing the university to strengthen its research culture and continue to lead the way in fields such as health, digital media, sustainability and the environment, and globalization.

In the 1960s, Carleton became a provincial institution relying on government grants to cover its operating and capital costs. As the university continued to grow, graduate enrolment increased and new graduate and undergraduate programs in economics, science, engineering and computer science expanded the areas of study open to Carleton’s students.

Throughout its history Carleton has always emphasized its connections to the community, both in Ottawa, across Canada and around the world. From projects that focus on outreach to Aboriginal communities and student initiatives – such as Project Homeless Connect – to combat homelessnes, to Carleton’s Alternative Spring Break, which offers students the chance to take part in community service programs, and the Batawa Project – which involves students helping to rebuild the town of Batawa, ON, as a model of environmental sustainability, Carleton’s students, faculty and staff are helping to make a difference.

Carleton’s future promises to be as bright and exciting as its past. As we look ahead to Carleton’s 75th anniversary in 2017, work is ongoing on two new academic buildings that make up the Waterfront Project. The new Canal Building will house new programs in biomedical, energy, environmental and aerospace engineering, as well as nanoscience.

The River Building will be the new home of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, the School of Journalism and Communication, and the School of Public Policy.

It will feature a three-storey atrium with linear skylights, a 400-seat lecture hall, a café overlooking the Rideau River and a two-storey student lobby.

The Waterfront Project will create space for an additional 1,600 students – 1,100 undergraduate and 500 graduate students – thanks to the $52.5 million invested by the federal and provincial governments as part of the Knowledge Infrastructure Program (KIP).

Quick Facts

Note: numbers listed  below are as of November 1st, 2009.