The History of UTSC Project
Menu
The collections housed on this site include blogs, audiograms, and video shorts conceived and produced by members of our research team, as well as a selection of the oral history interviews that we have conducted over the years. These materials are searchable by format, theme, and tag, which can be filtered using the search tool in the left-hand sidebar below.
Welcome to the new school year. At this time, many begin new experiences here at UTSC. With such experiences comes memorable first impressions of the campus and community. When conducting oral histories for this project, our participants, who include alumni, faculty, staff, and community members, are often asked to describe their first impressions of UTSC. Below, […]
Tags: 1960s, 2000s, 2010s, Buildings and Facilities, Faculty, Featured, Students
September 18, 2023
Every August since 1998, Beloit College has produced “The Mindset List,” a description of the social and cultural context shaping the lives of the fall incoming first year university classes in the United States. Excerpts from the list published in 2015 for the incoming class of 2019 (named for the year you graduate): students were most likely […]
Tags: 1960s, Community, Featured, Students
August 14, 2023
Course enrollment at UTSC for the Fall 2023/Winter 2024 terms begins July 5th for first year students and July 13th and 11th, respectively, for second and third-year students. For some, these days represent when students race to ACORN and rapidly click the “enroll” button before their required courses and coveted tutorial or lab times are […]
Tags: 1960s, 1970s, 1990s, Courses, Technology
July 7, 2023
Anthony (Tony) McWatt immigrated to Canada from Guyana during the 1980s to attend Scarborough College as an undergraduate student. He reflects on his both exciting and painful experiences as an international student and the ways that the sense of community at Scarborough College helped him navigate feelings of isolation in a new country. Tony recounts […]
Tags: 1980s, Activism, Community, Diversity, Extracurricular, Students
June 7, 2023
When asked about memorable moments during his time as a student at Scarborough College, Anthony McWatt recounted attending a class in the 1980s where the Professor introduced himself saying, “I am Professor John Lee and I’m gay, and those of you who don’t like that can leave” (Ainsworth and Berkowitz 2020). Lee would become one […]
Did you know that the UTSC library was housed in many locations (including the Bendale Library, in the upper levels of SW, and even in a barn) before being established in its current home in the Academic Resource Centre? Or that the Leigha Lee Browne Theatre was built on the remains of a television studio, […]
Tags: 1960s, Architecture, Buildings and Facilities
April 13, 2023
Scarborough College celebrated it’s twentieth anniversary in 1984, the same year the University of Toronto celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the admission of the first woman to University College, 1884. As part of the celebrations, the Scarborough College Women’s Centenary Committee sponsored a production of The Sweet Girl Graduate (“Women’s Centenary Committee” 1985). Written in 1882 […]
Tags: 1960s, 1980s, 2020s, Activism, Faculty, Feminism, Gender and Sexuality, Students, Women
January 30, 2023
In 1967, the University College Alumnae Association asked a number of academics and other experts to discuss “what life would be like in Canada in the year 2000”. Here is what they said: Dean W.E. Beckel of Scarborough College predicted that children would begin school at 3 years old instead of 5 or 6, and education […]
Tags: 1960s, 2000s, Technology, Television
January 20, 2023
It is with sadness that we mark the passing this week of David Onley, former Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 2007 to 2014. Many of you will know that most recently Mr. Onley was an Associate Professor, Teaching, in the Department of Political Science here at UTSC. But did you also know that he was also […]
Tags: 1970s, Accessibility, Extracurricular, Faculty, Students
January 16, 2023
As you walk through Excellence Hall with laptop and Tim Hortons coffee in tote, do you ever wonder what a school day was like for those graduates pictured on the wall? As we begin another winter session, perhaps you wonder what it was like for those students who first walked through the freshly poured concrete […]
Tags: 1960s, Community, Students
January 3, 2023
