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University of Toronto

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Template:Infobox University2 Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto (U of T), in Toronto, Ontario, is the largest university in Canada, and by many definitions its most prestigious.


U of T attracts top students from across Canada, as well as a significant number of international students. It has produced four Prime Ministers, two Governors General, and numerous internationally recognized academic and business leaders. It has the most Nobel Prize-winning graduates among Canadian universities.[1] It is one of the most important scholarly publishers in North America.[2] As Canada's pre-eminent research institution, the University of Toronto is widely acknowledged as one of the world's finest publicly funded universities.[3][4][5]

History

The Collegiate Gothic Hart House, the university's student centre, exemplifies many of the oldest buildings.

The University was established on March 15, 1827, when King's College at York (Toronto) was granted its Royal Charter. This institution was founded by John Strachan, Anglican bishop of Toronto and the school was strongly Anglican, which was Upper Canada's established religion at the time. Most of the population of the region was not Anglican, however, and when the colony was granted responsible government in 1848 the college was transformed into a nondenominational institution, and renamed the University of Toronto in 1849. The old King's College building, located on the current site of the provincial legislature, was closed and the new University College opened in 1853, with its large Gothic home being completed in 1858.

The Brutalist Robarts Library, completed in 1973, was one of a number of major projects built during the period of rapid expansion.

In 1853, was founded, as a non-denominational teaching institution within the university. Several other Toronto-area religiously affiliated universities and colleges would incorporate with University of Toronto, becoming "federated" with it. Those federated universities are the Catholic St. Michael's, Methodist Victoria, and Anglican Trinity.

Graduate House, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne, reflects the Postmodern design of many newer structures.

Over the next decade the school grew both by building, and by federating with smaller universities. The area around Ontario had a network of denominational schools, but these smaller private schools found it difficult to compete. Thus, often with great reluctance, they decided to affiliate with the University of Toronto. Federation meant the colleges kept their autonomy, but their students had full access to U of T facilities. The Methodist Victoria University joined in 1892, the Anglican Trinity College in 1904, and the Catholic St. Michael's College in 1910. These federated colleges retain much of their independence.

After the turbulent years of the Great Depression and the World Wars, in which many U of T students and faculty served, the school began to grow dramatically in the 1950s and 1960s due to the baby boom and the ever increasing rate of university attendance. During this period five new colleges were established. New College, Innis College, Woodsworth College were all created on the St. George campus. 30 km to the west the Erindale College was established in Mississauga and University of Toronto at Scarborough was established 30 km to the east in that suburb.

For most of its history the University of Toronto had been a well respected institution, but not as prestigious as McGill University in Montreal or Queens University in Kingston. The 1980s and 1990s saw a dramatic change in Canadian education as years of government budget cuts forced university's to turn increasingly to the private sector for donations and sponsorships. The University of Toronto, located in the heart of Canada's financial capital, and as the traditional feeder school for the city's commercial elite, was by far the most successful in this fund raising rapidly collecting an endowment that today approaches $2 billion dollars. The 1990s and 21st century have also seen expansion resume on all three campuses.

Academics

U of T has 75 PhD programs, and 14 professional faculties. It attracts some of the world's most renowned scholars and was ranked by The Scientist as the best place to work in academia outside the United States. Research InfoSource also ranks U of T as the top research university in Canada [6]. Over the last two decades, its faculty members have received almost a quarter of all national awards although they represent just over seven per cent of Canada's university professors.

The great size of the university allows for a large variety of courses. Everything from Intermediate Sanskrit, to Computational Genomics, and Estonian Literature from 1700 can be taken at UofT. There are some programs that are not offered by the university. One of the most prominent absences is of any journalism program, in part because nearby Ryerson University has such a major journalism school. The size of the university also means that some classes are enormous. General introductory courses in psychology, sociology, and other subjects are taught in Convocation Hall with well over a thousand students at each lecture.

For eleven years in a row, U of T has been ranked the top medical-doctoral research university in Canada by Maclean's Magazine. In 2004, international rankings such as the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Institute of Higher Education of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked U of T 37th and 24th, respectively in the world.[7]

Among other accomplishments, U of T-affiliated researchers developed the first electronic heart pacemaker, artificial larynx, single-lung transplant, nerve transplant, artificial pancreas, chemical laser, G-suit, built the first practical transmission electron microscope and extracted insulin.

The university's library system, based at the fourteen floor Robarts Library, is the largest in Canada and among the best in the world. The 15 million holdings in U of T's rank it fourth among North American university libraries after Harvard, Yale, and UC Berkeley. [8]

U of T's endowment exceeds $1.5 billion, far larger than that of any other Canadian university. It has an operating budget of $1.1 billion, with $517 million in research and grant and contract support. The university has nearly 100 spin-off companies with over 3,000 employees and revenues of $821 million. The university itself is the 15th largest employer in the Greater Toronto Area.[9]

Widely acknowledged to be Canada's top school[10], U of T attracts many of the best students from Ontario and the rest of Canada, and also has a significant number of international students (over 6,000 international students or about 9% of the student population)[11]. Its student selectivity is generally thought to be high and competition is extremely intense for programs from its Medical, Dentistry, Law, Business, Architectural, and Engineering schools.

Student life

The former Louis B. Stewart Observatory is the home of the Students' Administrative Council

Despite the prevalence of a wide variety of student interest groups and related organizations (its 340 student clubs and organizations [12] are probably more than any other Canadian university), U of T suffers from the same impersonal atmosphere and rates low on surveys of student happiness. Most students live off-campus, and for many the U of T experience is limited solely to attending classes. This has resulted in a general lack of school spirit and the disconnection many of its students feel from the school and other students. Student government is headed by the Students' Administrative Council, votes for student council generally gets a turnout of below 10%.

The university is represented in Canadian Interuniversity Sport by the Toronto Varsity Blues. Today they are not particularly success, but have a long and storied history, such as winning the first ever Grey Cup. There are six main sports that are funded by the university: hockey, football, basketball, track and field, soccer, and swimming. The many other sports are funded through donations and fees paid by those participating.

The school has two main newspapers. The Varsity and The Newspaper. Each college, faculty, and many other groups also publish newspapers. It has a radio station CIUT.

Student Activism

The University has borne witness to much activism over the years. In 1895, University College students, led by William Lyon Mackenzie King boycotted classes for a week after the editor of the Varsity student newspaper was suspended for anti-administration articles.

The 1960s saw the creation of Rochdale College, a large high-rise residence where many students and staff lived, though it was "officially" not connected to the university. Rochdale was established as an alternative to what had been seen as the traditional, authoritarian, and paternalistic structures within universities.

In the fall of 1969, after Pierre Trudeau decriminalized homosexuality, the first gay and lesbian group in Toronto or on any Canadian campus — the University of Toronto Homophile Association — was formed. Jearld Moldenhauer, a research assistant at the Faculty of Medicine, placed an advertisement in The Varsity, asking others to join in setting up an organization. While the first meeting drew a meager 16 people — 15 men and one woman — the group quickly established a significant profile within the community and the city at large. Two decades later, David Rayside, a professor of political science, would organize the Committee on Homophobia. Ten years after that, he would help introduce a sexual diversity studies program at University College, to much success.

Campuses

The University comprises three campuses. All three campuses are undergoing massive construction, with over 40 facilities recently completed, upgraded or in the works. These capital expansion projects are designed to increase study space as well as attract top-level talent. The study space requirement is in large part due to the cancellation of OAC and predicted increases in enrollment.

St. George

The downtown, or St. George campus, includes four constituent undergraduate colleges, and three colleges from its three federated universities (federated universities were incorporated into the University; constituent colleges were created within the University). The campus is also home to several theological colleges associated with the Toronto School of Theology, as well as the University of Toronto school of Applied Science and Engineering.

The downtown campus has a rich architectural history, making it a popular attraction for visitors to the city, as well as a common location for shooting movies. It is bounded by Spadina Avenue to the west, Bloor Street to the north, Bay Street to the east, and College Street to the south. Increasingly the university is expanding beyond these borders as it buys Toronto real estate. The campus is well-served by public transportation (TTC), namely by the Spadina, St. George, Museum, and Queen's Park subway stations. At the centre of the university is Queen's Park, the home of the Ontario Legislature. The Royal Ontario Museum and Royal Conservatory of Music are both also located within the university area.

Mississauga and Scarborough

File:Utmstudentcentre.jpg
UTM Student Centre.

Thirty kilometres (18 miles) west of the St. George campus is the University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM; formerly Erindale College) in suburban Mississauga. Set on the banks of the Credit River, UTM's 224 acre (0.9 km²) campus is decidedly modern. It is off Mississauga Road between Dundas Street and Burnhamthorpe Road in the Erindale area. A shuttle bus connects the UTM and St. George campuses. UTM is currently undergoing massive construction, and will soon be the home of a new athletics facility, including a state-of-the-art pool. Also in the works at UTM is brand new library called the Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre, set to open its doors in June of 2006. In the summer of 2007, UTM will open a brand new residence building. In spite of being at some distance from main campus, UTM is the home of the Toronto Argonauts.

At the other end of the Greater Toronto Area is the University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC; formerly Scarborough College), approximately 30 kilometres east of the downtown campus. The 300 acre (1.2 km²) campus is on Highland Creek in the Scarborough area of eastern Toronto, on Military Trail, near Highway 401 and Morningside Avenue.

The College System

Old Vic, the main building of Victoria College

Every arts and science student on the St. George Campus is a member of one of the seven colleges (federated and constituent), which act, ideally, as a smaller-scale intellectual and social community for its members. In practice, they are mostly residential and administrative in nature. The university administers almost all courses, and what courses one may take are independent of ones college. While U of T's college system was originally based the system at the University of London, U of T's colleges are not as autonomous, nor do they bear as much of an instructional responsibility to their students. However, first-year seminars and academic programs are offered by all colleges.

Colleges have differences in character and resources. Trinity and Innis are both quite small, and thus more selective. St. Michael's remains solidly Catholic, and to a lesser degree Trinity is quite Anglican. Each college is home to certain academic departments, and thus also sometimes attract such students. Trinity is home to the Munk Centre for International Studies, while the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies is associated with St. Michael's.

The Brennan Hall complex at St. Mike's.

Federated colleges

Constituent colleges

Faculties

The university is also divided into a series of faculties. These faculties are directly administered by the university with varying degrees of autonomy. Some are undergraduate, but many are only open to graduate students, though these often cooperate with the Faculty of Arts and Science to offer undergraduate programs. Undergraduate professional faculty students (profacs) live in the residences of the Arts and Science colleges. The faculties are:

Other divisions

Centres and institutes

Toronto School of Theology colleges

Affiliated Teaching Hospitals

Other affiliated units

Previously affiliated institutions

Senior Officers of the University of Toronto

List of Chancellors

List of presidents

See also

Student societies and organizations

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