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PAGE 14 â€" WATERLOO CHRONICLE, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1986 4o years at W LU The growth, the prosperity, the traditions, the changing faces and a reputation for excellence have combined to make this 75th anniversary a truly special occasion for Wilfrid Laurier University It has earned a nationâ€"wide repuâ€" tation for its schools of social work, business and music, and has esâ€" tablished the second largest univerâ€" sity publishing house in the county, WLU Press. Wilfrid Laurier University is not the biggest or the flashiest university in Canada, but, said president John Weir, it‘s aiming to be one of the best. According to Weir, WLU is a bit of a rebel in the university world, and that‘s the secret to its success. First, in a society where bigger is usually associated with better, WLU is determined to maintain its small enrolment of only 4,500 fullâ€"time undergraduate and 500 graduate students. The small size, Weir said, means there‘s a closeness between staff and students not found at larger institutions. Classes have fewer stuâ€" dents and professors are more availâ€" able, resulting in a better educaâ€" ‘*You don‘t have to be large to be good," said Weir. ‘"‘We think we can be good, recognized academically, and remain the size we are now. We and remain the size wl?.are now. We want to remain a small university of exceptionally high quality." Then, there‘s the nature of its programming. Instead of moving into the glamorous, highlyâ€"technical areas such as computer science, maths and engineering, or putting the emphasis on specialization, Laurier promotes a general educaâ€" ‘‘What a lot of people don‘t know is almost oneâ€"half of our undergraduâ€" ate students are in the faculties of arts and scienceâ€"relatively speakâ€" ing, it‘s one of the largest arts and science faculties in Canada," he ‘‘The glow is starting to come off the emphasis on computing and high tech; the idea of the university as a place for job training. Really the function of the university is to Maureen Forrester, newlyâ€"apâ€" pointed chancellor of WLU. ‘‘We‘ve been extremely fortunate in the reception we‘ve been getting from students. We‘re not going to take advantage of this situation to grow, we‘re going to become even more selective," said Weir. found that 41 per cent of Laurier students were Ontario Scholars, that is they had achieved 80 per cent in six credits at high school, and the average Grade 13 mark of the university‘s freshmen was 76.5 per Laurier has come a long way from Oct. 30, 1911 when its was founded as (Continued on page 15) Photos courtesy WLU