William Wasbrough (Billy) Foster (1875-1954) was born in Bristol, England in 1876 and immigrated to Canada in 1894. In a 1913 by-election, Foster was elected Conservative member for The Islands in the British Columbia legislature. In November 1914, he joined the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles. After distinguishing himself at the Somme and Vimy Ridge, he was promoted to command the 52nd Battalion in August 1917. Aside from a temporary post to command the 9th Infantry Brigade in September 1918, Foster remained with the 52nd until the end of the war. He received two DSO Bars, was twice wounded and was five times mentioned in dispatches. Foster was appointed Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police Department on 3 January 1935. Foster remained active in veteran affairs during peacetime and was the president of the Royal Canadian Legion from 1938 to 1940. His career as chief constable was cut short when he was called off to war in 1939 and was promoted to major general. Foster died in 1954 in Vancouver.

The Law/Commerce complex was completed in 1967 by Poole Construction for $2,627,250. It was designed by Holliday-Scott Desmond Paine, and provided 89,154 gross square feet of finished space for the two Colleges.

The building was adjoined to the north end of the existing Arts Building in order to economize building costs, as well as to provide a covered pedestrian passage between Arts, Commerce and Law. The decision to house both the College of Law and the College of Commerce under one roof was made principally in order to conserve land use while still providing both Colleges with almost complete independence in accommodation.

A sculpture by Bill Epp was commissioned in 1968 for the Law-Commerce Complex for $5000. The finished work stands approximately seven feet high by ten feet long and depicts a man and a woman reclining on a bench. The sculpture is composed of steel encased in bronze set on a steel frame. The sculpture rests at the north entrance of the Law Building.

Jean Storey Thompson was born 21 April 1924 and spent the majority of her life in Saskatoon. A graduate of Nutana Collegiate in Saskatoon, enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan (BA 1946) in 1943. She was a member of the Huskiettes basketball team for four years, serving as captain in 1945-1946 and was noted for her playmaking ability. Thompson was also an accomplished tennis player and won the 1946 intervarsity doubles title. Thompson served on the Women's Athletic Board for four years and was vice president of the Students' Representative Council. Following graduation Thompson was an alumni representative on the Women's Athletic Board and was assistant director of physical education at the U of S from 1946-1950. Her first teaching job was at Balfour Tech in Regina. After two years she returned to Saskatoon. Thompson worked at Nutana and Mount Royal collegiates as a physical education teacher. Her love of sports allowed her to enrich many female students and athletes. Her move to Mount Royal in guidance counseling enabled her to focus on her compassion for mentoring students. Thompson was actively involved in the Saskatoon Kiwanis Club, members at Saskatoon Golf and Country Club and Nutana Curling Club. She was inducted into the U of S Athletic Wall of Fame as a two-sport athlete in 1984. Jean Thompson died 23 June 2011 in Saskatoon.

The University of Saskatchewan’s first pool opened in 1916. Located in the basement of Qu'Appelle Hall, it was 18 feet wide, 45 feet long and around 8 feet deep with a spring board and changing rooms. Speed swimming, diving, water polo and recreational swimming soon became popular activities in the long Saskatchewan winters. The pool closed soon after the Physical Education pool opened in October 1964.

Emmanuel College has a unique history and relationship with the University of Saskatchewan and pre-dates the Saskatoon institution by some thirty years. The College was founded at Prince Albert in 1879 by Rt. Rev. John McLean as a “training College for Native Helpers.” In 1883 by an Act of Parliament, Emmanuel College was incorporated as "The University of Saskatchewan.” When the provincial university was established in Saskatoon in 1909, the Synod decided to relinquish its title and opt for affiliation to the new university.

Emmanuel sold its old site to the federal government, to be used for a penitentiary, and shipped all its belongs to Saskatoon in four box cars. On unbroken prairie on the east side of the river, professors, students and carpenters began to construct a series of wooden buildings. This “College of Shacks” was moved between 1910 and 1912 to the campus. In 1913 Rugby Chapel, so named because it had been funded by the staff and students of Rugby School, England was moved to the campus from Prince Albert.

A stone clad, permanent college building was constructed between 1911 and 1912. Designed by Brown and Vallance, the building contained residential space for students and the college Principal, classrooms and a refectory in the basement. In 1916 the College was used as a military hospital for returned soldiers and in 1918, as a hospital during the outbreak of influenza. In 1962 McLean Hall was built as an addition to Emmanuel College but a proposed walkway connecting the two was never completed.

Rugby Chapel was reopened in 1922 after a period of disuse during WWI. A pipeless furnace was later installed to replace 3 heating stoves, the ceiling was raised, the walls decorated and finally, a pipe organ installed in the summer of 1923. In 1926 a stained-glass window, “For the sake of the Name they went forth,” was installed to commemorate the Emmanuel students who died in WWI.

In 1964 St. Chad’s College of Regina joined Emmanuel.

From the Greek for ‘five and ten,’ Pente Kai Deka was created on 8 April 1911 with the first 15 women students on campus – five “big sisters” and ten “little sisters.” Every woman entering the University automatically became a member. Eventually the group became its own directorate within the Student Representative Council, and the PKD president, the vice-president of the SRC. Activities of the group included a Big Sister-Little Sister Dance, June in January, Jeanboree, a Spring Tea and a Frosh Week fashion show. As the sexual revolution loomed large in the late 1960s women on campus grew increasingly ambivalent toward the group, which had been seen by many female students as irrelevant and antiquated since midway through the decade. It was this attitude, as well as the sheer increase in the number of women and students in general at the University by the late 1960s that led to the group’s demise after the 1968-1969 academic year.

The "Partners in Growth" Campaign raised over $12 million toward the cost of the Agriculture Building. Donors included faculty, alumni, students, individuals and corporations. The campaign, begun in 1986, was organized by Ketchum Canada Inc. and directed by Scott Smardon.

John Cameron was born in 1889 at Greenock, Scotland, and was educated at local schools. His family arrived in Saskatchewan in 1903 and homesteaded near Saskatoon. Cameron enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan by 1912. With war breaking out, he joined the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, University Unit, in 1915. He went overseas (France) in May 1915. Sergeant Cameron was wounded in April 1916. He rejoined his unit in June 1916, and was again wounded five months later. Cameron was Invalided to Canada and discharged in April 1917. He returned to the U of S and graduated with a BSA in 1918. Cameron was manager of the Saskatchewan Farmers' Mutual Fire Association in Saskatoon for many years.

The Physical Education Building was constructed from 1948 to 1949 as part of the $2.5 million Varsity Expansion Program. Built at a cost of $235,000, the centre was designed by F. J. Martin and built by Shannon Brothers Construction. The frame of the building was constructed from a double RCAF hangar erected at Dafoe, probably in 1940, and subsequently moved to Saskatoon in 1948. The Physical Education Building was unofficially opened on 10 February, 1950 for the annual basketball game against the University of Alberta, which the Huskies lost 27-36.

The completion of the building meant that the University of Saskatchewan finally possessed a real physical education and athletics centre after decades of makeshift facilities. The Main Gym floor consisted of three basketball courts and six badminton courts. The main basketball floor was the only regulation size basketball floor in Saskatchewan at the time. The building also contained dressing rooms, lockers, showers, drying rooms, boxing and wrestling rooms, and space for offices. In 1959 a dance studio was added to the building.

A pool addition was built by Shoquist Construction from 1963 to 1964 for $898,254. The Pool Addition was designed by Black, Larson and McMillan. During the 1969-70 academic year major renovations and alterations were made to the building; an Office Addition was completed in 1988 by Dunmac General Contractors for $136,952. This addition was designed by Bergerman Solodre.

In April of 1960 Black, Larson, McMillan and Associates performed an architectural and structural appraisal of the building in preparation for expansion plans on the building. They advised that with proper maintenance the current building could be structurally sound for another 20 to 40 years. However, they warned that major renovations towards the end of this period would likely be required. Their recommendation at that time was that an entirely new complex be constructed at a cost of $2,180,000. The advantages of such a proposal were said to be obvious, as “ the building would be planned from construction in stages, to meet ultimate requirements. Proper segregation and flow would be incorporated into the building. Outside activities could be located conveniently to the building.”[1] In short, the building could be built and designed to accommodate for the changing needs of the department over time. However, these recommendations were ignored in favour of extending the existing building, which was less expensive.

On 7 December, 1997 the University, acting on consulting Engineer's reports, determined that the Physical Education Centre was no longer structurally sound. Offices were moved from the building within hours and relocated to the Williams Building on Cumberland Avenue, and the building was partially demolished in 1998.

Born in August 1915 in Zheleznovodsk. Russia, Dr. Vasilii Vasilevich Vladimirskii graduated from Moscow University in 1938. Since 1946, he has been deputy director of the Theoretical and Experimental Physics Institute in Moscow. His works have been in optics, propagation of ultrasound and electromagnetic waves as well as in the theory of linear accelerators and neutron spectroscopy. He participated in the creation of the Serpukhov accelerator whose energy level is 70 giga-electron-volts. He was awarded the State Prize in 1953 and the Lenin Prize in 1970. He served as an advisor to the Theoretical and Experimental Physics Institute (ITEP) in Moscow.

The Rutherford Memorial Trophy was first awarded around 1949 by the Saskatchewan Agricultural Graduates Association for competition during its annual Farm Week Bonspiel. The trophy honoured W.J. Rutherford, first dean of Agriculture. The names of all the members of the class of 1912 are engraved on a plate on the back of the trophy.

Dr. Neil B. Hutcheon was professor of Mechanical Engineering from 1937-1953.

The Law Building was officially opened on September 22, 1967, and was first occupied in the Spring of 1968. At opening it included one 80-seat classroom, two 45-seat classrooms, one 30- seat classroom, four 15-seat seminar rooms and a library. Other space in the complex included the Dean’s office, a general office, 18 faculty offices, the librarian’s office, three graduate students’ offices, a Bar Review office and a Student Society office.

On opening, the Law Library contained stack space for 60,000 volumes and seating for 150 students. The Library consists of two floors, a full main floor and a balcony level which take up 16,000 square feet of space. An additional 6,400 square feet of book storage space, enough to house another 30,000 volumes, was left available in 1968 in the unfinished basement of the building, to be used when it was required.

In 1972 proposals were made to build additional classroom and lounge space in the unfinished basement of the building as part of greater renovations. Plans for the renovations were laid in 1977, and in 1980 the unfinished space in the basement of the Law Building was completed. An existing seminar room and a stack room in the main building were also converted into four new offices for faculty, and the existing lounge area as well as an adjacent classroom were renovated. The renovations were contracted to Tubby and Wilks for $120,800 and were designed by the architectural firm of Holliday-Scott Desmond Paine.

Dorothy (Rutherford) Logan, a graduate of Nutana Collegiate in Saskatoon, enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan (BHSc, 1934) in 1929. In track & field Rutherford excelled in the 220-yard dash and broad jump. She was an outstanding scorer in basketball. As well as competing on the two teams for four years, Rutherford was a member of the University Athletic Directorate, including a term as vice-president. Rutherford received a Major Athletic Award in 1933. She was killed in a car accident in Terre Haute, Indiana, in May 1966.

Dan Farthing (b. 1969) played with the Huskie football team from 1987 to 1990. In his rookie season, Farthing made his mark in football as a receiver with three touchdowns on 31 receptions for 759 yards. He was named the Canada West and CIS Rookie of the Year – just one of five Huskies to ever win a national football award. The next season Farthing again took the league by storm finishing with three touchdowns on 33 receptions for 756 yards, leading the conference and country in receiving. As well as winning the Canada West MVP award, Farthing was named both an all-star and a CIAU All-Canadian. Dan added another all-star nod in 1990 after helping the Huskies to their first-ever Vanier Cup championship. He was also awarded the Huskie Athletics Rusty MacDonald Cup, given to the athlete who best combines sportsmanship, leadership and athletics. He graduated from the College of Physical Education and was the first student in the college to win the President’s Medal for most distinguished graduate. He was drafted in the CFL in 1991 by the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the first round, second overall - the second highest of any Huskie. Farthing had an 11-year career as a receiver with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, starting in 1991. He won a Grey Cup in 1989. Farthing retired in 2001 and was inducted into the Roughriders Plaza of Honour in 2009.