Registration is now open for the 100th anniversary of Homecoming, Oct. 16–18! This month, our “Countdown to 100” series looks at that familiar Homecoming experience of returning to campus and seeing all that’s changed for students. Often, it’s alumni themselves who have helped make many of these changes possible.
Last year at Homecoming, Marcos Otazo, Sc’93, stood outside Clark Hall Pub and looked up the street at Mitchell Hall, a building that hadn’t existed when he was a Queen’s undergrad.
“I really like what they’re doing with the new facilities,” he said with a big smile. “It’s too bad to see Jock Harty Arena gone, but at the same time, it’s really great what’s replaced it.”
It’s a familiar Homecoming experience: alumni returning to campus to revisit the places they knew and see what’s changed for today’s students.
Apparently, it always has been. During the first Homecoming in 1926, the Queen’s Journal noted that “many an old grad fairly gasps with surprise when he or she sees how much really has been accomplished in the intervening years.”
Back then, alumni were taking in a new Douglas Library and tennis courts, along with a campus that had recently added Ban Righ Hall, Richardson Stadium, and a rebuilt Jock Harty Arena. All were shaped, at least partly, by alumni funds.
A century later, that pattern continues. Across campus, alumni generosity has helped renew old landmarks and create new ones for students to learn and connect. Here are three that returning grads and Queen’s friends will come across this Homecoming.
JDUC: A centre of student life, rebuilt once again
The Students’ Memorial Union after the 1947 fire, left, and the revitalized JDUC at University and Union today. (Photos: Queen’s Archives; Jana Chytilova)
The northeast corner of University and Union has been at the heart of student life at Queen’s for almost a century. And generosity has long been part of its story, including in the JDUC’s recent revitalization.
Queen’s bought the limestone building that once stood there in 1927 and created the Students’ Memorial Union. After fire tore through much of its interior in 1947, a $350,000 gift from Col. R.S. McLaughlin helped rebuild and expand it.
The Union grew again in the 1970s and was renamed the John Deutsch University Centre to honour the former principal.
Commenting on the changing campus in 1947, the Queen’s Journal put the relationship simply: “Queen’s functions through the generosity of its alumni and lives in the lives of its students.”
Almost 80 years later, that idea still fits.
At the JDUC’s grand opening at Homecoming last year, alumni toured the building’s renovated historic section and bright new wing. More than 100 student clubs now share the building with study, social, and wellness spaces – all of it funded by student levies, Queen’s, and alumni and friends.
At the JDUC’s new heart is the light-filled Agora, where students can climb The Seven Grandfather Teaching Stairs featuring words in Anishinaabemowin and English: “gwekwaadziwin” (honesty), “nbwaakaawin” (wisdom), and “debwewin” (truth).
Mitchell Hall: From the PEC to a broader student hub
Jock Harty Arena in the 1970s, left, and Mitchell Hall today, photographed from approximately the same location. (Photos: Wallace R. Berry; Smith Engineering)
If the JDUC has long been at the heart of student life, Mitchell Hall next door is now home to another busy cross-section of it.
For generations of alumni, this was the location of the Physical and Health Education Centre (PEC), which included both the Gymnasium Building and Jock Harty Arena.
Harty’s name carried its own legacy of giving. After the Queen’s hockey star and doctor died of the Spanish Flu in 1919, his father put up $25,000 for the first arena. Friends and classmates supplied the rest.
That legacy continued with Mitchell Hall, which opened in 2018 and was named for lead donor Bruce Mitchell, Sc’68. More than $50 million in philanthropic support helped make the new hub of innovation and student wellness possible.
Behind the PEC’s preserved limestone façade, Mitchell Hall’s restored windows and new expanses of glass bring light deep into a building designed to support student ideas and well-being. Among its many spaces, students can prototype with 3D printers and laser cutters in SparQ Studios, train in the High Performance Varsity Training Centre, and access care at the Côté Sharp Student Wellness Centre.
At the 2019 grand opening, Mitchell challenges students “to use this facility to stretch your minds, discover, innovate, explore, take risks. Use it to make the very most of your experience at Queen’s and to launch yourself toward becoming the leaders of tomorrow.”
Agnes: The next transformation takes shape
Agnes Etherington’s home in the 1930s-40s before it became an art gallery, left, and a rendering of Agnes Reimagined, showing the new curving addition alongside the preserved Etherington House. (Photos: Queen’s Archives; Studio Sang, courtesy of KPMB Architects)
It will be tough for returning alumni to miss another dramatic campus change that will reshape the student experience. Across from Grant Hall, Agnes Etherington Art Centre is being reimagined on a scale that echoes the generosity woven throughout its history.
Agnes itself began with a gift. After her death in 1954, Agnes Etherington gave her red-brick house on University Avenue to Queen’s “for the furtherance of art.”
Seventy years later, that spirit continues through a community-engaged design process and a US $75-million gift from Bader Philanthropies. That gift builds on a remarkable tradition of support for Queen’s and Agnes begun by the late alumnus Alfred Bader, BSc’45, BA’46, MSc’47, LLD’86, and his family.
When complete next year, Agnes will be the largest university museum in Canada. It will give students across disciplines more direct access to collections, advanced art-conservation equipment, research, and experiential learning. It will also create new opportunities for artists, researchers, Indigenous communities, and people across Kingston to gather and participate.
“The new Agnes will give us the ability to share more and give more back,” says Michael Charlebois, Agnes’s communications and marketing coordinator. “More access to collections, more opportunities for students to come in and learn directly from them, and more opportunities for artists.”
The spaces that shape student life at Queen’s keep evolving with support from alumni and friends. Learn more about how you can help create opportunities and community for today’s students.
