Our amazing story

Humber College takes its name from the Humber River, the watercourse with great significance to the history and development of Toronto. Flowing through Adobigok (now Etobicoke), which means Place of the Alders in the Ojibwe Algonquian dialect, the river has long been significant to the Aboriginal Peoples of this area.

Humber’s name is appropriate, as the college is an ever-flowing stream of knowledge and ideas, which nourish Ontario’s economy and the lives of our citizens.

The province introduced the Ontario College System in 1967, and Humber was formed the same year. The goal was to provide a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce to fuel Ontario’s burgeoning economy. That goal has been met and surpassed. Humber College has grown and evolved into an innovative and collaborative educational institution, at the forefront of business, industry, and society.

Humber 50th Anniversary
Timeline

Did you know ... interesting facts about Humber College

  • Centre for Entrepreneurship
  • As of April, 2016, Humber has the most successful collegiate sports program in Ontario, based on all-time medal count.
  • During the early years of the North Campus, located at Finch and Highway 27, Toronto’s public transit system didn’t extend that far north. The college used the “Humbus” to get students from the last stop on the transit line to the campus. The Humbuses ran from the late 1960s to the 1980s.
  • Licensed by the CRTC in 2004, Radio Humber (96.9 CKHC-FM) was the first radio station in Canada to adopt a 100 per cent Canadian content playlist.
  • HUMBER RECEIVES MORE THAN
    71,000
    APPLICATIONS ANNUALLY
    (the most of any college in Ontario)
  • CORPORATE TRAINING BUSINESS UNIT
  • In 2013, Humber became the first college in Ontario to achieve a silver rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education
  • 2016 Canada's Greenest EmployersIn 2016, Humber was one of three colleges named Canada's Greenest Employer

  • ONLINE    PROGRAMS
  • 4,100 STUDENTS
    FROM 100 COUNTRIES
    STUDY AT HUMBER
  • Until 1995, Humber had a highly regarded Equine Studies program, which consisted of stables, an outdoor track and an equine hospital, as well as a resident population of horses. Twenty horses managed to escape one day in the mid-1980s, leading Humber staffers to jump in their cars to help round them up. All the horses were found at a neighbourhood park.
  • GRADUATING CLASS
    1969 = 240      2015 = 8,000
  • First in Ontario to offer an integrated Nursing Diploma program partnership with the
    UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK