Twenty-five years ago, Wilfrid Laurier University’s Brantford campus launched with just one program, one building and 39 students. From those humble beginnings, we’ve expanded our offerings to more than 20 undergraduate programs, four master’s programs and an international college, with operations spread across 16 buildings in the heart of the city.
Enrolment nears 3,000 students and the Brantford campus alumni population is expected to number 10,000 by this spring’s convocation. With plans to build on this record of success, the future for Laurier in Brantford is Golden.
The 2024/2025 academic year is an exciting time for Wilfrid Laurier University as we mark the 25th anniversary of the Brantford campus and look to what the future holds for Laurier in the Brantford community.
Reflecting on a quarter century, the individual and collective achievements of the students, alumni, faculty and staff who choose to study and work at the Brantford campus provide us with thousands of reasons to celebrate.
Laurier Brantford has reimagined higher learning with its focus on innovative community-integrated programs and highly engaged faculty, as well as an entrepreneurial spirit that has breathed new life into Brantford's historic downtown.
We are grateful to the many partners, community members, donors and friends of Laurier who have supported the university in our vision to become an anchor institution for the community. Together, we are providing access to postsecondary education and producing graduates who drive innovation, social good and prosperity.
The thousands of alumni who have graduated from Laurier’s Brantford campus have gone into the local community and the broader world to leave their mark and make a difference, living our university’s mission to inspire lives of leadership and purpose.
The months ahead will provide many opportunities to celebrate the thriving Brantford campus community, including our inaugural MarketFest: In Peace and Friendship event, Homecoming 2024 and a community-created mural.
I look forward to connecting with many friends of the university as we mark this significant milestone and plot a course for the future with the same spirit of innovation and enterprise that defined our first 25 years.
Deb MacLatchy, PhD
President and Vice-Chancellor
Laurier Brantford’s 25th anniversary year kicked off with MarketFest: In Peace and Friendship, a two-day celebration of contemporary Indigenous artists, artisans, performers, thinkers and makers.
Free and open to the public, the event on Sept. 27 and 28 transformed the atrium at the university’s One Market building (1 Market St.) into a marketplace of Indigenous vendors, curated by acclaimed Indigenous artist and Laurier alumna Alanah Jewell (BA ’19) of Morningstar Designs. Guests were also invited to attend public lectures on subjects ranging from local history to Indigenization at Laurier and take in live music by contemporary and traditional Indigenous performers.
Always entertaining, the alumni vs. current students basketball game was the centerpiece of 25th anniversary Brantford campus Homecoming celebrations. Held on Nov. 2 at the Laurier Brantford YMCA, students, staff, alumni and members of the broader community filled the stands with purple and gold, cheering for the Golden Hawk team of their choice. Evenly matched throughout the game, the returning veterans clenched a 48-45 win in the end.
At a pre-game reception, Laurier Brantford community partners, donors and local dignitaries marked the 25th anniversary with a celebratory toast, and enjoyed a walk down memory lane aided by newspaper clippings documenting the campus's evolution — and remarkable expansion — since 1999.
Following the game, the action shifted to the Level One Lounge at One Market for a night of Drag Bingo, hosted by the glamorous Troy Boy Parks.
Since its launch in 1999, Laurier’s Brantford campus has made significant academic, social, cultural and economic impacts in the Brantford-Brant community. Launching in early 2025, the Inspired Community, Real Impact report will highlight some of the positive ripples created by Laurier’s students, faculty, staff and hundreds of community partnerships.
An innovative mural installation in the Research and Academic Centre's Stedman Lobby is bound to become a focus for Golden Hawk pride on Laurier’s Brantford campus.
"Forever Golden," an original commission from muralist Stephanie Scott, incorporates feedback from a survey delivered to Brantford campus students, alumni, faculty, staff and community partners. In a twist, Scott's design has been rendered as a giant paint-by-numbers that's being tackled as a team effort, with members of the campus and broader community taking turns to paint each section.
The project celebrates the Brantford campus 25th anniversary with a nod to the tradition of community art projects that have taken place in the past. Watch for the completed mural’s official unveiling in early 2025.
The first official home of Laurier’s Brantford campus, the Carnegie Building (formerly the Brantford Public Library), was restored to its original grandeur to welcome the first class of students in 1999. Since then, the university has continued a proud tradition of adaptive reuse, restoring and repurposing several historic buildings in the city’s downtown core.
Discover the fascinating former lives of some of the campus’s most storied properties.
Laurier prides itself on inspiring lives of leadership and purpose. Over the 2024/2025 academic year we are celebrating 25 Alumni of Impact: graduates of the Brantford campus who are making a difference through their professional careers and community contributions.
With positions in sectors including grassroots non-profits, education, technology and law, Brantford campus alumni are leaving their mark and shaping the future.
In recognition of this milestone, the university is raising funds to create the Laurier Brantford 25th Anniversary Bursary. Please consider making a donation to this fund to ensure current and future Laurier Brantford students have the supports needed to make it to graduation.
