The History of UTSC Project
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The Spaces & Places guided walking tour explores the history of locations on and around the UTSC campus by sharing the personal recollections of members of our campus community — reflecting a variety of perspectives, positions, and points in time.
The N’sheemaehn Child Care Centre is a licensed, non-profit child care facility serving children from 0-4 years of age, available year-round to families both within and outside of the UTSC community. It consists of four different rooms outfitted for children of different age groups, in addition to an attached fenced outdoor playground on the corner of the intersection of Ellesmere Road and Military Trail. While some students may pass by the Centre without paying it much mind, the facility serves as an important source of support for many working parents in the community, who take comfort in the hands-on approach to child care adopted by the Centre staff; indeed, by emphasizing exploration and creativity, the Centre helps raise the community’s children to be confident, well-rounded individuals capable of shaping the world around them into a brighter, better place.
Joanne McKay, Director of the N’sheemaehn Child Care Centre, describes the process architects used to design the Centre in the 1980s, which stands out from similar facilities in that the building was designed specifically for children rather than being a repurposed space.
The building was designed specifically for children...The architect walked on or crawled on his hands and knees throughout the building so that he could capture what children would see at their level and designed the building specifically around those impressions...Even now, when I have cleaners come in, I always say, 'You gotta think about where those little hand prints have been. You need to clean really well from halfway down the wall to the ground.'
The above images depict the groundbreaking ceremony, opening ceremony, and time capsule event for the N’sheemaehn Child Care Centre, c. 1990. These historical images are accompanied by two current images of the interiors of the Centre, namely the Toddler and Preschool rooms, which feature child-oriented architecture, including, for example, open-concept floor plans, soft furnishings, and low bay windows.
Images courtesy of David Harford via the Memory Collection, UTSC Library Digital Collections and
the N’sheemaehn Child Care Centre.
Credits: Conceived and produced by Amena Ahmed. All images courtesy of Sahra Togone, UTSC Photographic Services Collection, UTSC Archives Legacy Collection, and the N’sheemaehn Child Care Centre.
Kim McLean, a UTSC alum who served as the university’s Chief Administrative Officer from 1999-2012, discusses the N’sheemaehn Child Care Centre, which is located right on campus, and explains how signfiicant the Centre’s support was for her as a young working mother.
The October 3, 1995 issue of The Underground, UTSC’s official student publication, featured an article describing the provincial budget tabled by the Harris administration, in which childcare services would suffer significant cuts. In protest, workers from the N’sheemaehn Centre decided to hold a demonstration on campus — but they weren’t alone.
Credits: Dianne Choma, “News: ‘Tell Mr. Harris Children are Important'”, The Underground, October 3, 1995. Accessed via Memory Collection, UTSC Library Digital Collections.
