The Chronicle: A New College Challenges Canada’s Public Model
The first private, secular, liberal-arts institution in the country promises a different approach to teaching
Squamish, British Columbia
David J. Helfand, chairman of the astronomy department at Columbia University, dashes around the classroom as students fire questions at him from all sides.
In this freshman physics-and-astronomy course, he has asked his small group to tackle a big project: design a solar system.
“You’ve got the science,” he tells them. “Now here’s the fiction part.”
The students seem eager for the challenge. Not surprising, perhaps, for an Ivy League undergraduate course. But Mr. Helfand isn’t at Columbia. He’s about 3,000 miles northwest, in the midst of snow-topped Canadian mountains, at a brand-new liberal-arts university. It is, in fact, the first private, nonprofit, secular college in the country.
That a scholar in the prime of his career would be teaching at such an institution illustrates the enthusiasm that pervades Quest University, which opened its doors last August. It has attracted professors with stellar credentials. And its student body isn’t too shabby, either. Of its 79 freshmen, most are graduates of the rigorous International Baccalaureate high-school program, and half come from outside Canada.
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