Hugh Johnston is a professor emeritus in history at Simon Fraser University, where he has taught for thirty-six years and experienced first- hand its explosive formative years. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

A social history of the beginnings of Canada’s “instant university” and the daring experiment it unleashed on Canada’s educational establishment.

This engaging history of a university—and an era—traces the turbulent formative years of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, which opened its doors in September 1965, after only two and a half years of planning and building. It was the “instant university,” born in a period when ideas about education were changing rapidly and the western world was just starting to feel the impact of the Civil Rights movement, popular opposition to the Vietnam War, hippie culture and student activism.

The author takes the reader on a tour through the beginning years— years that were exhilarating, confusing, exhausting and profoundly educational. There were challenges around every corner, from the selection of the site and a famous architectural competition to no-tuition demonstrations to a major academic strike. Much of this activity was stimulating and life-changing. It contributed to sfu’s reputation as a radical and dysfunctional place, yet it also laid the groundwork for what has become one of Canada’s finest comprehensive universities.