The Ontario College system was founded as “a new level and type of education to serve those parts of the population whose needs were not met by the existing education system. Focused mainly on career-oriented education, colleges would create a system which would be a coherent whole”. (Ontario Dept. of Education, Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Basic Documents, 1967)

In 1957, the Eastern Ontario Institute of Technology in Ottawa was established with roughly 120 students and a staff of seven. Proudly known as “EOIT”, its first home was in the old Slater Street Public School.

1960’s

Growth in student enrolment soon necessitated an expansion in facilities, so in 1960, the Laurier Avenue Public School was acquired. In 1964, a new facility known as the Rideau Campus was acquired and welcomed more than 700 students that September.

The Ontario Vocational Centre (OVC) opened in 1965 on what is now the College’s Woodroffe Campus and it was in 1967 when the OVC and EOIT merged to create the new Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology in 1967.

Growth continued in the late 1960s, with “satellite” campuses in Pembroke, Hawkesbury, Perth and Renfrew.