History

Saint Dunstan’s University (SDU) is a former university which was located on the northern outskirts of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. SDU merged with Prince of Wales College (PWC) in 1969 to form the University of Prince Edward Island.

St. Dunstan’s College was founded by the Roman Catholic diocese of Charlottetown on January 15, 1855 as a seminary which trained young men for the Catholic clergy. The St. Andrew’s College, founded in 1831, was its predecessor.

By the mid-20th century, the college had expanded into a small liberal arts university. A post-Second World War enrolment boom mandated an expansion which saw new residences and teaching buildings constructed on the campus located along Charlottetown’s Elm Avenue (the Malpeque Road). SDU received a provincial degree-granting charter in 1917 but didn’t actually award its first bachelor’s degrees until the spring 1941 convocation. SDU had formerly been affiliated with Université Laval, awarding joint degrees from the 1890s onward. Following the decision to start granting its own degrees, SDU severed the relationship with Laval by 1956.

Similarly to PWC, SDU also operated a high school, offering senior matriculation to those students wishing to continue into academic or professional studies.

Saint Dunstan’s sports teams were known as the Saints.

By the 1960s, the provincial government in Prince Edward Island began a critical study of its post-secondary education institutions (PWC and SDU), concluding that a merger to form a provincial university was the desired funding and service model for future students. The merger was not without controversy as emotions ran high among supporters of both institutions; however, in May 1969 the last classes graduated from PWC and SDU, and the institutions were merged into the University of Prince Edward Island, which opened for the first time in September 1969 on what had been the SDU campus. At the same time as UPEI was formed, Elm Avenue was renamed by the City of Charlottetown to University Avenue, a name by which it is still referred to. The PWC campus on Grafton Street was taken over by the provincial government and formed the basis for a community college known as Holland College.

1831: Saint Dunstan’s was born

Saint Dunstan’s University (SDU) was born in response to the needs of the Roman Catholics of Prince Edward Island. Seeking a way to educate both prospective clergy and lay leaders of the newly created Diocese of Charlottetown, missionary Bishop Angus MacEachern opened Saint Andrew’s College in 1831 in his own home in the heart of the Island’s Highland Catholic community. Although humble and unpretentious, it was the first institution of higher learning in the colony.

1855: Relocated and Renamed

As population and conditions changed, so did the college. In January 1855, MacEachern’s successor, Bishop B. D. MacDonald, re-located the college to a hilltop site just outside the Island capital of Charlottetown and re-named it Saint Dunstan’s College (SDC), after the ancient Anglo-Saxon saint and bishop. For the next 114 years, despite a perpetual want of human and financial resources, Saint Dunstan’s proudly served the Diocese that had fostered it. Over time it built up an enviable record in inspiring young men to follow religious vocations, and within its traditional classical curriculum it adhered to a larger mission to nourish the physical, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of all of its students.

1892-1941: From Laval Degrees to Our Own

In 1892, Saint Dunstan’s negotiated an affiliation agreement with the prestigious Laval University of Quebec, which allowed the Island school to award Laval degrees to graduating students who had completed the Laval program. This made Saint Dunstan’s for many years the only degree-granting institution in the province. In 1917, SDC received its own university charter from the Island government, and after two decades devoted to building up its programs and facilities, it began granting degrees in its own name in 1941. The first person to receive an SDU degree was also the first woman graduate, Sr. Bernice Cullen, CSSM. The following year, Saint Dunstan’s became fully co-educational, graduating its first lay-woman graduate, Gertrude Butler, in 1944.

1945-1968: Post-World War II and Expansion

The post-World War II era saw a continuous expansion in the facilities, programs, and enrollment at Saint Dunstan’s, as Prince Edward Island rapidly modernized and the University adapted to the changing needs of its diocesan constituency. By the early 1960’s, the school operated much like other small, liberal arts universities in Canada, but the spiraling costs of higher education had made it increasingly reliant on government funding in order to continue. Even as the Island government embarked on a massive comprehensive development planning exercise for the province, Saint Dunstan’s reluctantly made the decision to close its doors.

1969: Largest and Last Convocation

In 1969, SDU held its largest– and last– convocation. The campus was sold to the provincial government to house the newly created University of Prince Edward Island, and many SDU faculty and staff carried their school’s educational legacy into the new institution. While it no longer operates a campus, the Board of Directors of SDU continues its traditional mandate to foster and promote Catholic education for the people of the Diocese of Charlottetown. — Dr. Edward MacDonald

Today: Promoting Catholic Higher Education on PEI

For more information on Saint Dunstan’s in the post-war era, visit the online Golden Age of Saint Dunstan’s exhibit from UPEI.

Bishop Angus MacEachern: 1759-1835