In Partnership for Excellence, senior medical historian and award-winning author Edward Shorter details the Faculty of Medicine's history from its inception as a small provincial school to its present day status as an international powerhouse.

Anyone who attended the University or who is interested in the growth of Canada's intellectual heritage will enjoy this compelling and magisterial history.

As intellectual engines of the university, professors hold considerable authority and play an important role in society. By nature of their occupation, they are agents of intellectual culture in Canada. Historical Identities is a new collection of essays examining the history of the professoriate in Canada. Framing the volume with the question, 'What was it like to be a professor?' editors Paul Stortz and E. Lisa Panayotidis, along with an esteemed group of Canadian historians, strive to uncover and analyze variables and contexts – such as background, education, economics, politics, gender, and ethnicity – in the lives of academics throughout Canada's history. The contributors take an in-depth approach to topics such as academic freedom, professors and the state, faculty development, discipline construction and academic cultures, religion, biography, gender and faculty wives, images of professors, and background and childhood experiences. Including the best and most recent critical research in the field of the social history of higher education and professors, Historical Identities examines fundamental and challenging topics, issues, and arguments on the role and nature of intellectualism in Canada.

Born in 1905, George Bernard Flahiff was the son of an innkeeper in a small Ontario town. A versatile athlete and exceptional student, he studied at the University of Toronto, where his history professor, Lester Pearson, suggested a career in diplomacy. Instead, Flahiff entered the Basilian order, studied in Paris, taught at the Pontifical Institute, and became superior general of the Basilians. Named archbishop of Winnipeg, he fell in love with the west. His appointment as archbishop coincided with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Inspired by the Vatican sessions he attended, he strove for the spiritual renewal of the people of his diocese, becoming a clear and constant voice of the Church in Canada and beyond. Open to new things but respectful of the old, he spoke up for the rights of women and the importance of the laity in the Church. His ecumenical leadership in Manitoba was outstanding. Ultimately a cardinal and elector of two popes, George Flahiff stands out among bishops because he defied stereotypes, preferring buses to limousines, "George" to "Eminence," and friendship to privilege. Never seeking greatness in any way but ever obedient to his calling, he rose to the highest ranks in the Church, accepting each new position with faith and humility. P. Wallace Platt, CSB, is a Basilian missionary in Columbia.

Two histories of the University of Toronto have been published, one in 1906 and one in 1927. Since the latter volume appeared, no comprehensive history of the University has been published. Given the size of the University and the complexity of the task, this is not entirely surprising. But, after sixty-six years, this gap in the intellectual history of Canada has been filled, and we are delighted to announce publication, in March of 2002, of Martin Friedland’s new history of one of Canada’s most important educational and cultural institutions. The author of several books on legal history, Professor Friedland brings to this task an accomplished eye and ear and a status as a long time member of the University community. Professor Friedland’s text is accompanied by over 200 maps, drawings and photographs. Published to coincide with the University’s 175th anniversary, The University of Toronto: A History tells the story of the university in the context of the history of the nation of which it is a part, weaving the stories of the people who have been a part of this institution – people who make up a who’s who in the history of Canada. Anyone who attended the University or who is interested in the growth of Canada’s intellectual heritage will enjoy this compelling and magisterial history.

Drawing on the diary Margaret Addison kept while travelling in Europe, Jean O'Grady makes available the experiences of the woman who would become the first dean of Annesley Hall at Victoria College. Addison spent most of 1900 travelling through Europe and Britain. Her reactions to various exhibitions and museums in London and Paris are vividly recorded, as are her experiences with British and European society. She describes her encounters with "old world" culture and history and reflects on its meaning for Canada. Her trip ended with visits to the local women's colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, visits that were important to her understanding of how the British experience could be adapted to benefit the women who would live in Annesley Hall, for which Victoria College was then raising funds. This never-before published diary, edited and annotated by Jean O'Grady, offers a remarkable insight into the cultural milieu of the women who shaped higher education in Canada. It will be invaluable for anyone interested in Canadian culture and the history of education, and offers an ideal of "womanliness" that is of interest to feminist theorists.