be."H It was an appropriately nervous welcome. llie two schools had 
     
     been merged; and everything possible had been done to bring order 
     
     out ot‘chaos, to start up a new university in little more than a year; 
     
     but it was still to be seen whether students, faculty, parents, and the 
     
     community would come together and make UPEI a success. 
     
     Freshmen clad in potato sacks trooped through the campuses 
     
     in early September, for an orientation week complete with tours, a 
     
     dance, and, to launch a tradition, the Shinerama in support of the 
     
     Cystic Fibrosis Association?j Registration ran smoothly — despite 
     
     the horrified discovery in the registrar’s ofiice that the new univer— 
     
     sity application forms had a line for “Religion.” The forms had been 
     
     printed in the thousands, so there was little choice but to use them, 
     
     even if they made both Protestant and Catholic (let alone others) 
     
     suspicious. By the end of registration week, 1,566 students had en— 
     
     rolled, of whom 82 per cent were Islanders.” The numbers were a 
     
     disappointment: the university had been anticipating 1,800,?— and 
     
     the drop was most marked among freshmen, whose numbers were 
     
     smaller than the sum of PWC and SDU’s a year earlier.“ (Some 
     
     other new universities had waded into existence much more ginger- 
     
     ly: for example, Trent University had only 100 students its first year.) 
     
     Still, this was the largest number of university students PEI had 
     
     yet seen, and, notably, for the first time there were almost as many 
     
     incoming young women as men.“ To teach this class, the university 
     
     had 160 professors and sessional lecturers. A full 120 of these had 
     
     taught at either Prince of Wales or St. Dunstan’s the previous year, 
     
    
   
   
    
     and some ot‘the remainder had been hired by the old schools before 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     a4 llpl'il Calendar, moo, p, 3, l’l‘ll Collection, 
     
    

    
     Wye (hum/fun, September 11, who, 
     
    

    
     See Ul’lfl l’n‘rir/t‘u/lx Ru/wrl, mot), |)l“,l Collection, 
     
    

    
     Ul’l‘il Calendar, moo, p. m, l’l‘il Collection. 
     
    

    
     51X] had 288 freshmen in Ioofivoo, l)\VC 294. tor a total (#382, llPlCl in 1909—70 
     
     had, including tirsteycar lingineers, 508, See lhid, and Michael llennessey to Baker, 
     
    
   
   
    
     'J! ‘JI 'JI .11 
     
     \1 L‘ ‘J‘ 
     
    
   
   
    
     Cf. 
     
    
   
   
    
     September 8. 1<)<m,“lll’lil Origins fl Baker papers v Registrarn vertical tile, item 
     
     io, l’l‘il Collection. 
     
     so Among freshmen, there were 2w men and 333 women (though the numbers for iirste 
     
    
   
   
    
     year Engineers were 34 to 2,). lhid, 
     
    
   
   
    
     34 ‘— UTOPIAN U