University of Ottawa

You shouldn’t confuse our University of Ottawa with Ottawa University in Kansas. The University of Ottawa, one of the city’s main post-secondary attractions, is as old as the city itself and is home to the only fully bilingual university press in Canada. Founded in 1848 by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, within a year it was known as the College of Bytown. By 1861 it was the University of Ottawa, and over the following decades, it became a secular institute offering parallel courses in both official languages. Still, while Carleton University may have the art gallery, the University of Ottawa is the one with the Fine Arts program. (Does that make sense to anyone?) Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas (the town was founded in the middle of Ottawa Indian territory in 1864), is almost as old as ours, and was founded by Baptist missionaries working with the Native American population as an ecumenical college in 1865. So be careful where you send in your application for admission.