Toronto Metropolitan University
Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly known as Ryerson University, is a public research university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The university's core campus is situated within the Garden District in downtown Toronto, although it also operates facilities elsewhere in the city and a medical school in Brampton. The university includes nine academic divisions/faculties: the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Community Services, the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science, the Faculty of Science, The Creative School, the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, the Ted Rogers School of Management, the School of Medicine, and the Yeates School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. Many of these are further organized into smaller departments and schools. The university also provides continuing education services through the Chang School of Continuing Education.
The institution was established in 1948 as the Ryerson Institute of Technology, named after Egerton Ryerson, a prominent contributor to the design of the public school system and teachers' college in Canada West. In 1964, the institution was reorganized under provincial legislation and renamed Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. Under that name, it was granted limited degree-granting powers during the 1970s. The institution was reorganized into a full-fledged university in 1993 and renamed Ryerson Polytechnic University. In 2002, several years after the university's school of graduate studies was established, the university adopted the name Ryerson University. In 2022, it was renamed Toronto Metropolitan University, in response to concerns about Egerton Ryerson's influence on the Canadian Indian residential school system.
The university is a co-educational institution, with approximately 44,400 undergraduates and 2,950 graduate students enrolled there during the 2019–20 academic year. As of 2024, TMU has over 240,000 alumni. The university's athletics department operates several varsity teams that play as TMU Bold, competing in the Ontario University Athletics conference of U Sports.
History
During the Second World War, Howard Hillen Kerr, the director of the Training and Re-Establishment Institute, along with other members of the Toronto Board of Education, saw a need for specialized institutes to provide educational and vocational training for specific jobs for returning veterans. After a trip to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1943, Kerr envisioned a similar institute in Canada spanning "the gap" between secondary education and universities. Kerr's effort led to the Vocational Education Act and the creation of vocational schools and technological institutes in Ontario. Although several institutes had been planned during the war, their establishment was delayed by the advent of the Cold War and the potential need to remobilize. However, with the prospect of another war diminished greatly by 1948, the decision was made to open the Ryerson Institute of Technology, with class calendars hastily issued in August 1948.The school was named after Egerton Ryerson, who established the Toronto Normal School in 1847 on the future site of the Ryerson Institute of Technology. He also helped develop education in Canada West as the region's chief superintendent of education, creating a model for publicly funding the training of teachers and working on Canada West's Education Act, 1846. The site of the normal school eventually developed into several buildings used by the province's Department of Education and what became the Ontario Agricultural College, Royal Ontario Museum, OCAD University, and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Later, the grounds were used by the Royal Canadian Air Force as a training centre during the Second World War.
The Ryerson Institute of Technology was officially opened on September 16, 1948, with approximately 250 students enrolled. Kerr served as the institution's first principal until 1966, when he became the head of the Council of Regents for Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology. The initial aim for the institute to serve as a career training and vocational school was reflected by its early enrolment, with the majority of its early students being enrolled in continuing education part-time night school programs, as opposed to a full-year academic stream. Initially the institute only offered two-year career training and vocational programs; its program catalogue was later expanded to include three-year diplomas by the early 1950s. Kerr mandated that English, physical education, and history be mandated in the school's curriculum in 1952.
Initially, plans were made to house the institute entirely within the Toronto Normal School building but the rapid growth of the student population made such plans impossible. Therefore, work on the first building built specifically for the institute began in 1958; Kerr Hall was completed in 1963. Several buildings had to be razed, including temporary barracks used during the Second World War and the Toronto Normal School. A number of other buildings were later built surrounding the courtyard.
The Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Act was passed by the provincial Parliament in 1963 to reorganize the institution. The institution was provided with its own board of governors and renamed Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in 1964. The nursing programs of three hospitals were transferred to the institution, the first one to be offered in a post-secondary institution in Canada. In 1971, the institute received limited degree-granting authority: Bachelor of Applied Arts and Bachelor of Technology, then Bachelor of Business Administration in 1977.
In 1993, the institute became a full polytechnic university and renamed Ryerson Polytechnic University, expanding the mandate of the institution to include scholarly research. The school of graduate studies was formally established in 1997. In June 2002, the institution shortened its name to Ryerson University to reflect its new scope. The beginning of the 21st century saw another construction boom on its campus.
After the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released its report in May 2015, the university acted on several recommendations made out to post-secondary institutions in the report. As a result of Egerton Ryerson's association with the establishment of the Canadian Indian residential school system, the institution faced calls to reevaluate the namesake of the university in 2017. A consultation process to formulate the institution's response to the report was launched in 2018, led by faculty member Denise O'Neil Green. Green was later appointed the university's first vice-president for equity and community inclusion; the first vice-president position with this mandate in a Canadian post-secondary institution. In 2018, a plaque that describes Egerton Ryerson's role in the residential school system was placed next to the statue of him.
Pressure to rename the university grew after the finding of 215 possible unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021. Shortly after its discovery, staff and students of the university's Yellowhead Institute announced they would cease using the Ryerson name in favour of "X University" to advocate for a name change. In June 2021, the statue of Egerton Ryerson was toppled by activists and its severed head was thrown into Toronto Harbour. The university stated that the statue will not be restored or replaced. In August 2021, the university announced that it would accept the 22 recommendations of an internal task force, including the renaming of the university. On April 26, 2022, the university announced its renaming to Toronto Metropolitan University. The name change was formalized in December 2022 through an amendment to the institution's governing legislation.
On April 15, 2025, a motorist intentionally struck four pedestrians on the university's walkway, adjacent to Gould Street, leaving one with serious injuries.
Campus
The university's central campus primarily lies within the Garden District of downtown Toronto. The campus is "interwoven" with the rest of the downtown core, with few entrance markers delineating the campus from the rest of the city. Most of the campus is designated as a mixed-use institutional area, although portions of the campus are situated in areas zoned for commercial and residential use. In addition to zoning by-laws, the height of the university's buildings is also limited by ordinances that protect the flight paths of air medical services to St. Michael's Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children.Gerrard Street to the north, Jarvis Street to the east, Dundas Street East to the south, and Yonge Street to the west, serve as the perimeter for the campus core; although the university also operates facilities beyond the core campus. Kerr Hall serves as the "campus heart," while Gould Street to the south of Kerr Hall serves as the university's main east–west corridor, connecting it with the other areas of the campus.. In May 2025, the Dundas TTC station stop was approved to be renamed to TMU station and will be renamed December 7th.
Most of the streets and laneways throughout Toronto Metropolitan University's campus are considered a part of the public realm. These include connector streets open to vehicular traffic and pedestrian-only streets. Victoria Street south of Gerrard Street is designated as a pedestrian-only zone, having been closed to vehicular traffic since 1978. In 2010, a one-year pilot program was approved by the municipal government that limited Gould Street to pedestrian traffic only, an initiative that was later extended by six months. In February 2012, the city moved to permanently close Gould Street to car traffic, from O'Keefe Lane to Bond Street. The closed pedestrian-only portions of Gould Street is designated as Toronto Metropolitan University Square, and includes an outdoor skating rink in the winter.
Most of the parks, plazas, and green spaces on the university's campus are owned by the university, although access to these spaces is also open to the public. These spaces include Devonian Square, and Kerr Hall's quadrangle. Devonian Square was designed by Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation Division, and was partly funded by the Devonian Group of Charitable Foundations of Calgary—who also lent the park its name. The space features a reflecting pool, and large Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks that are approximately two billion years old from the Canadian Shield. In addition to green spaces, a green roof and urban farm, initially known as the Andrew and Valerie Pringle Environmental Green Roof, was built atop George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre in 2003. The urban farm operates on a five-year crop rotation, and contains 30 different crops and hundreds of cultivars.
Several undeveloped properties also exist on the campus, with the university having acquired two parking lots from Infrastructure Ontario in 2013 for $32 million; a at 202 Jarvis Street and a at 136 Dundas Street East. The university plans to continue to operate them as parking lots until enough capital is raised to develop the sites. In 2019, the university submitted a rezoning application for a 41-storey tower at 202 Jarvis Street, which will include an 11-storey academic base with classrooms, labs, and research space intended for the Faculty of Science, along with a student residence in its upper levels.