Our history

tatham centre building

Co-operative and Experiential Education timeline

  1. 1957
    1. University of Waterloo opens

      Co-operative education was a new concept and guiding value in the founding and opening of the University. Initially only for engineering students and a cohort of 74 students. 

  2. 1962
    1. Establishment of the first co-op program outside the faculty of Engineering

      The co-op program expands to the Department of Physics

  3. 1975
    1. Arts co-op program begins

      The first Arts co-op stream begins for Economics students, demonstrating the value of co-operative education in all fields.

  4. 2002
  5. 2003
    1. Tatham Centre opens

      The three-level building was named in recognition of the generous support of William Tatham, a former Waterloo co-op student whose first company sold for $1.76 billion. It is the largest building dedicated to supporting co-operative education and career action at a Canadian university.

  6. 2006
  7. 2017
  8. 2019
    1. Name Change: Co-operative and Experiential Education

      Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) department was formed in 2019 bringing together several units including Co-operative Education, WxL, WATPD (now the Centre for WIL) and EDGE.

  9. 2021
    1. WE Accelerate launches

      CEE launches its new work-integrated learning program, Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate. The program aims to help co-op students seeking their first work term during the COVID-19 pandemic.