Laurier Archives and Special Collections

Laurier Archives and Special Collections Official account for Laurier Archives and Special Collections. This is an official account for the Laurier Archives.

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Meet the panelists! On May 12, 2026, four past editors will reflect on the 100-year history of The Cord and their time w...
05/08/2026

Meet the panelists! On May 12, 2026, four past editors will reflect on the 100-year history of The Cord and their time working at the paper, and will consider the next chapter for this student publication. Registration is required for this free online event. Link in bio.

Moderator: Clara Rose, Lead Reporter and second-year English student at Laurier

Panelists:

Tony Burke is Professor of Early Christianity at York University. His traumatic experiences at The Cord during the tumultuous years of 1989-1991 led him to run screaming from journalism but he still writes—he specializes in apocryphal Christian literature, an interest that grew out of discussions of censorship with his friends and partners at The Cord.

Wilbur McLean worked with The Cord from 2000 to 2004 and served as the newspaper’s editor-in-chief from 2003 to 2004. Wilbur’s post-Laurier career has taken him across Canada. He has lived in Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, working in both journalism and communications roles. Wilbur now works for the federal government’s housing agency, CMHC.

Shelby Blackley is the Manager, Newsroom SEO for The Athletic, co-founder of WTF is SEO?, and proud alum of The Cord (2011-2016). Previously, she’s worked at Mashable, The Globe and Mail, and Indiegraf. Shelby has worked in journalism at major international corporations as both a reporter and audience development editor. She specializes in news SEO, user journeys, reader habits, and newsletters.

Kaitlyn Severin is a marketing professional who specializes in social media content creation, digital design, and video editing. She got her start at The Cord, where she worked from 2013 to 2017 as a reporter and Senior News Editor, earning the Johnny Award for Student Journalist of the Year in 2017. Since then, Kaitlyn has launched her own boutique marketing agency.

For the last day of , we are highlighting our zine collection.Our rare book collection includes almost 100 local and On...
04/30/2026

For the last day of , we are highlighting our zine collection.

Our rare book collection includes almost 100 local and Ontario-based zines. Many of these were created by Laurier students while others were created by local artists or community groups.

U is for unique!This week for we take a look at one of the many unique items in our collection, The Canned Think. Writ...
04/24/2026

U is for unique!

This week for we take a look at one of the many unique items in our collection, The Canned Think. Written by Tyrell Mendis and illustrated by John Matthews ca. 1970, The Canned Think is poetry contained in one of our most unique containers: a can!

Join us for our annual Spring Lecture on May 12, 2026!‘The College Cord’ was founded in 1926 by students at Waterloo Col...
04/15/2026

Join us for our annual Spring Lecture on May 12, 2026!

‘The College Cord’ was founded in 1926 by students at Waterloo College (now Wilfrid Laurier University) as a means to share student news and experiences with residents of the Twin City area (Kitchener-Waterloo) and members of the Lutheran Church in Canada. The first issue, published on September 23, 1926, explains the meaning of the title: drawing interest to the school, drawing students to attend, and drawing students and faculty together with a love of Waterloo College. Over the past 100 years, the student newspaper has served as a common thread of student experiences and has strived to live up to its tagline as ‘a tie that binds’ on campus.

In this panel, past editors will reflect on the 100-year history of The Cord and their time working at the paper, and will consider the next chapter for this student publication.

Panelists: Tony Burke, Wilbur McLean, Shelby Blackley, and Kaitlyn Severin.

Moderator: Clara Rose, Lead Reporter and second-year English student at Laurier.

Registration is required for this free online event: https://wilfrid-laurier.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_68XAM31MQaKgVNyxR4iKJw #/registration

This photo shows members of the first International Business Management cohort at Waterloo Lutheran University in 1965.T...
04/10/2026

This photo shows members of the first International Business Management cohort at Waterloo Lutheran University in 1965.

The International Business Program was established in September 1965 to provide management training to business professionals from the Global South.

Students in this nine-month program lived on-campus and attended classes taught by professors from the School of Business and Economics and guest lecturers drawn from government and industry.

In its first year, the program welcomed 39 students from 24 countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America, Africa and Asia.

Throughout April, we will be joining Archives of Ontario by sharing items from our collections which align with the ca...
04/01/2026

Throughout April, we will be joining Archives of Ontario by sharing items from our collections which align with the campaign, starting with A for Albums!

These pages are from a photo album in the St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church (Cambridge, ON) fonds. They feature black-and-white photos of the Knauff family. Unfortunately, most of the photos have not been identified.

Happy International Women’s Day! The first woman to graduate from Laurier was Louise Twietmeyer, pictured above standing...
03/08/2026

Happy International Women’s Day!

The first woman to graduate from Laurier was Louise Twietmeyer, pictured above standing in front of her family home on Frederick Street (later named Marshall Street) in Waterloo, Ontario.

Louise graduated from Waterloo College (today Wilfrid Laurier University) in 1931. After graduation she became an instructor in English and French at WLU.

Happy Valentine's Day! This photo shows Waterloo College student Boris Plys buying tickets to the 1948 Junior Prom while...
02/14/2026

Happy Valentine's Day! This photo shows Waterloo College student Boris Plys buying tickets to the 1948 Junior Prom while thinking of his date to the dance, Betty Shantz. He is buying the tickets from a booth staffed by fellow student Jean Wettlaufer.

The composite photograph was created for the December 1948 issue of the Waterloo College Cord (vol. 24, no. 3).

We are thrilled to announce that we have recently acquired first editions of two of the later works of Catharine Parr Tr...
02/12/2026

We are thrilled to announce that we have recently acquired first editions of two of the later works of Catharine Parr Traill.

Catharine Parr Traill (1802-1899) wrote about her life as a settler in Upper Canada, with many of her books focusing on natural history and the environment.

Studies Of Plant Life In Canada; Or, Gleanings from Forest, Lake and Plain was published in 1885 and is her most comprehensive botanical work. This edition features gilt edges and several illustrations by Traill's niece, Mrs. (Agnes) Chamberlin.

Pearls And Pebbles; Or, Notes Of An Old Naturalist was published in 1894 and features a biographical sketch by her grand-niece Mary Agnes Fitzgibbon.

Both books will be available for viewing in our reading room soon. Our Rare Book collection also includes a first edition of Traill's earlier work, Narratives of Nature, And History Book for Young Naturalists.

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