National Federation Of Canadian University Students

The National Federation of Canadian University Students (NFCUS) was a national university student organization founded in 1926. It is the oldest and first national student organization in Canada. It was the primary student organization in Canada during the 1920s, 1930s (except for the Canadian Student Assembly created in 1937), 1940s (NFCUS ceased operations from 1940 to 1946) the 1950s, and the early 1960s.

NFCUS changed its name to the Canadian Union of Students (CUS) in 1963 and continued operations under that name until CUS ceased to exist in 1969. Several ad hoc committees operated on a national level for a few years until the National Union of Students in Canada was organized in 1972.

Formation

The Federation was formed in Montreal in December 1926 with representatives from ten student associations. Its formation was encouraged by a former president of National Union of Students in England, Ralph Nunn May, who was touring Canada as a member of the Imperial Debating Team. NFCUS was initially established to facilitate student engagement in debating events, and to organize student exchanges, sports events, and discounts on train tickets. Although NFCUS was organized amongst other more politically involved student organizations, NFCUS remained largely apolitical in its early existence.

Early years: 1926-1940

In the 1920s and 1930s, university in Canada was the purview of the wealthy and upper middle class. University students were predominantly white males and were a minority amongst their cohort. In 1930, approximately 33,000 students attended Canadian universities full-time, which comprised 3% of college aged youth. Aside from regular university antics, university administrators during this time had traditionally succeeded in managing and socializing students.

Paul Axelrod, professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at York University, asserts NFCUS had been created amongst a common desire for peace and international harmony after the carnage and collective trauma experienced as a result of the First World War. Initially NFCUS resolved to “promote national unity” through campus cooperation and to facilitate the exchange of information on student concerns. Axelrod asserts that NFCUS became an apolitical service organization for students, even during a time in the 1930s when other student groups advocated peace and social change, “NFCUS avoided taking controversial positions on issues of the day.” This is consistent with Nigel Moses and Robert Fredrick Clift's assessment of NFCUS in its early days. Canadian university administrators were warm to NFCUS and saw it as part of student learning and development on campus. Surveillance reports of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police mention NFCUS as a “reliable and approved institution.” Other groups, many inspired by the Social Gospel movement, were more active on social justice initiatives, such as the Student Christian Movement, the Canadian Youth Congress, and the Canadian Student Assembly (created in 1937). There were students involved in activism resembling a type of student movement at the time, but as Axelrod wrote, the campus culture of conformity and repressive nature of university administrators made it difficult for students to express independent political views. It wasn't uncommon for editors of newspapers and student councilors to lose their positions after criticizing the university, government, or the dominant order.

Middle years: 1940-1963

In 1940, NFCUS shut down operations so that university students could concentrate on Canada's prosecution of the Second World War. NFCUS restarted in 1946 (with a false start in 1944 and 1945). In Nigel Moses’ Ph.D. Dissertation, he suggests that the influx of veterans with working class origins is related to the re-emergence of NFCUS in 1946-1947]. In a subsequent article, Moses states that

The NFCUS of the late 1940s and early 1950s was not just a straightforward
continuation of the rather conservative NFCUS of the 1930s ... In the late 1930s, it
was the Canadian Student Assembly (CSA), founded in 1938, not the
NFCUS that pursued a campaign to pressure the federal government to
provide a thousand student bursaries worth $500 each. So the post-war
NFCUS was really an heir to the CSA and NFCUS of the 1930s. p. 87

After the Second World War, service men and women received the Veterans Affairs University Training Allowance and the subsequent increase in presence of veterans is thought to have changed the social composition and customs of university life. Their presence in post secondary institutions was significant; during the 1945/1946 academic year some 30,000 (roughly half the Canadian university student population) veterans attended university, 23,000 in 1948–1949, and 14,500 in 1949–1950. The numbers of ex-service men and women tapers off by 1955–1956.Moses (1995) Most of the veterans were older, many were working class, and they were reported to have commanded respect from peers and professors. According to research by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (Professor of History at Smith College), these veterans, after fighting a world war against fascism, challenged the elitist norms and customs of the university and had an ever-lasting effect on the university system in Canada.

NFCUS reemerged after the war in 1944 and 1945, however there was disagreement over continuity from 1940). However, by 1946 a conference was organized and held at the University of Toronto where Maurice Sauvé was elected president. By the mid-1950s, with university enrollment down which resulted in low funds, student councils pulled out of NFCUS, putting its existence in danger. By 1953, tensions with Quebec were becoming apparent as delegates disagreed over questions of federal aid versus Quebec students’ prerogative to lobby their provincial government. In March 1956, McGill University, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, Université de Montréal and University of Manitoba

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases