Exterior of the Ryerson University Building in Toronto, June 8, 2021. Fred Loom / The Globe and Mail
Ryerson University will now be called the Metropolitan University of Toronto after a proposal to change its name was approved Tuesday by its board of governors.
Ryerson President Mohamed Lachemi recommended the name of Toronto Metropolitan from a list developed by a committee of professors, administrators, students and alumni. The board voted on the decision at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon.
The renaming process began last year in response to a working group examining the legacy of the university’s namesake, 19th-century educational reformer Egerton Ryerson.
Ryerson University decides to change its name amid local housing school reporting
The protests against the use of the Ryerson name date back more than a decade and are mainly focused on Mr Ryerson’s connection to the design of the local residential school system. The working group decided that his name became associated for many with a system called an act of cultural genocide because it forcibly separated indigenous children from their families.
Dr Lahemi said the new name reflected the wishes of tens of thousands of community members who said they wanted to highlight the university’s location and values.
“It’s a name that suits us perfectly,” said Dr. Lahemi. “We are in the heart of the largest and most diverse city in our country, so the university is everything that means being a metropolitan. We are a gathering place for people from all over the world, from all walks of life, with broad and diverse perspectives, experiences and aspirations. ”
Although the new name is similar to that of the University of Toronto, Dr. Lachemi said he believes there is a distinctive niche for the University of Toronto Metropolitan. He pointed out that the Metropolitan University of London coexists with the University of London, and the Metropolitan University of Tokyo coexists with the University of Tokyo.
Ryerson, located in downtown Toronto, began as a technical institute in 1948. Its founder, Howard Kerr, believes Ryerson’s name will signal authenticity and tradition. The new institution is located on the same site where Mr. Ryerson opened the Toronto Normal School for Teacher Training in 1847.
It eventually became a polytechnic, then a polytechnic, before becoming Ryerson University in 2002. The university has grown rapidly over the past two decades, expanding to 40,000 full-time students with a new law school in 2020. and a medical school scheduled to open in Brampton by 2025.
The university expects the transition to the Toronto Metropolitan name to be underway by the beginning of the fall semester. Some websites will be able to use the new name very quickly, while it will take longer to replace the signs on campus.
The brand and logo of the university with a blue-yellow color scheme will not change. Ryerson’s name will still appear in official documents such as transcripts and degrees until the university’s legislation is amended, which is likely to happen only after the provincial elections expected in June.
Jennifer Simpson, Ryerson’s rector, said the new name would better reflect the values the university wants to present to the world. It is the first university in Canada to change its name in response to debates about colonization and historical remembrance.
“The university is really at the forefront of finding a way forward and acknowledging the complexities and complexities of colonialism,” Dr. Simpson said.
Dr. Simpson chaired the renaming committee, which presented a short list of Dr. Lahemi’s options, a process that began with a survey of 30,000 people. This led to a list of opportunities that the committee thought could serve the university for decades to come.
Tanya (Tony) De Melo, assistant dean of law students, was also on the renaming committee, made up of a wide range of people, including indigenous people. The group concluded that the new name should reflect the diversity of the campus, as well as its connection to the city and innovation, Dr De Melo said.
The university has hired a consulting firm, Operative, to help the commission ensure that the proposed names do not violate other existing institutions and do not carry negative associations in other languages and cultures.
Opposition to the Ryerson name gained momentum last year after unmarked graves were unveiled on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. instead. A statue of Egerton Ryerson was removed after a demonstration last June and the university did not replace it.
A group calling itself the Friends of Egerton Ryerson is campaigning to halt the name change, claiming Mr Ryerson has been unjustly convicted. Mr. Ryerson died in 1882, before the housing school system became widespread, but his work is related to an 1879 report by Nicholas Flood Davin, which laid the foundation for the system.
Dr Lahemi said Ryerson’s name had come as a dividing line, but added that the past would not be erased.
“This name change process is driven by our values and the importance of being more inclusive. However, I think it is important to recognize that what has been done over the last 73 years is also a source of pride for all of us, and we must not deviate from that, “said Dr Lahemi.
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