A major centre for Reformation and Renaissance studies, the university is home to international scholarly projects and holdings devoted to pre-Puritan English drama and the works of Desiderius Erasmus.

Victoria College was founded as the Upper Canada Academy by the Wesleyan Methodist Church.

[6] The school officially opened to male and female students on October 12, 1836, with Matthew Richey as principal.

[10] Although the school taught a variety of liberal arts subjects, it also functioned as an unofficial Methodist seminary.

A plaque was erected at 100 University Avenue at the intersection with College Street in Cobourg, Ontario.

Victoria's first president was the Reverend Egerton Ryerson, newspaper editor and founder of Ontario's present educational system.

On the Old Ontario Strand for piano by Joyce Belyea was published for the Victoria College Music Club between 1946 and 1948 by the J.H.

The Victoria College Building, colloquially called Old Vic, is an example of Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style, built in 1891.

The campus is centred on the main quadrangle of Victoria, outlined by the Upper and Lower Houses of Burwash Hall.

The site of the library and the adjacent Northrop Frye Building was originally on the route of Queen's Park Crescent.

In part this has been because of alumni donations, but much of the growth is specifically due to the rapidly increasing value of Victoria's large real estate holdings in downtown Toronto.

The collection of approximately 250,000 volumes is geared towards the undergraduate programs at Vic and contains mainly humanities texts with a focus on History, English, Philosophy.

During the past few years the theatre has been used as a lecture hall for University of Toronto students, an active learning space for Victoria University students groups, numerous concerts, film screenings, conferences, and theatrical productions, including the annual sophomore tradition launched in 1872, The Bob Comedy Revue, each written, directed, produced and performed by students such as Lester B. Pearson, Norman Jewison, E. J. Pratt, Northrop Frye, and Margaret Atwood.

[26] The Vic One program, launched in 2003, is an academic opportunity for first-year students at the University of Toronto to build communication and leadership skills in a small classroom setting.

The CRRS supervises an undergraduate program in Renaissance Studies, organizes lectures and seminars, and maintains an active series of publications.

From 1976 to 2009, the performance history research and publishing project Records of Early English Drama (REED) was based at Victoria University.

The most popular offering at Emmanuel is the Master of Divinity, which is undertaken by prospective ordinands to ministry of Word and Sacrament.