A Community in Search of a University: The University of Calgary's Pre-History, 1912-66‪.‬

The struggle for a university in Calgary has been a case of community persistence in the face of adversity, a civic determination to overcome urban competition from the northern capital, a neutral to unsympathetic provincial government, and regional competition within western Canada. At times, even its civic elite had been lukewarm to the prospects of a university in its own city, preferring to send its younger generation elsewhere to complete a post-secondary education--north to the University of Alberta, west to the University of British Columbia, or east to whole host of established colleges and universities in eastern Canada and the United States. And even when faced with a choice of attending some of its homegrown post-secondary colleges as they came on stream in the twentieth century, young Calgarians often chose to leave rather than stay for their education. In the end, civic pride and persistence over several decades overcame apathy and internal resistance, provincialism, and inter-urban competition. While Calgary failed in its ambitions to become the provincial capital in 1905, it had high hopes of securing a new provincial university. (1) When the decision that year to locate it in the home riding of the provincial premier, A.C. Rutherford of Strathcona, considerable political pressure in the form of petitions and protest from Calgary were voiced against the choice. However, they were of no avail; instead, Calgary received the Alberta Normal School for teacher training in 1906.