As the year 2013 and the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Victoria approaches, Ian MacPherson offers a comprehensive history of one of Canada's most progressive and visually beautiful campuses. A reflection on the people, history, and legacy of UVic - once known as Victoria College, a satellite of McGill University - Reaching Outward and Upward brings five decades of learning to life.

From its beginnings in 1963, serving a mere handful of students in a hastily developed site, UVic has grown to become one of Canada's leading universities serving over 20,000 students on one of Canada's most stunning university campuses. Ian MacPherson examines how this transformation took place despite some difficult phases and all the challenges that accompany institutional transitions - the development of new faculties, growing student numbers, struggles over funding, equity issues, and computerisation. He looks at the university's development during the presidencies of Howard Petch (1975-1990), David Strong (1990-2000), and David Turpin (2000-present), and suggests that new ways of knowing changed established disciplines and created new alliances among students and faculty and led to the creation of the numerous research centres for which Uvic is well-known.

A visually rich book, including pictures, quotations, and sidebars, Reaching Outward and Upward is above all a story of the communities - on-campus, off-campus, local, national, international, physical, and electronic - that together form the University of Victoria.