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 Meeting Place is one of the oldest parts of the UTSC campus, built in the 1960s as part of the original Andrews Building by architect John Andrews. The space, built in the brutalist architecture style with bare concrete walls and tall ceilings punctured by large square skylights, is an expansive, open area that has been used in various ways by various members of the UTSC community; at times, it serves as the perfect spot to lounge in between classes, while it other times, it functions as the ideal setting for official university ceremonies. This constant hum of activity, punctuated by laughter and animated discussions, makes it an eternally dynamic environment, serving as the steadily beating heart of our vibrant campus.
David Onley, a Scarborough College alum and former Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, recalls the celebrations at Scarborough College after Canada won the 1972 Canada Cup, which resulted in a stampede in the Meeting Place of over a thousand students.
Credits: Conceived and produced by Amena Ahmed. All images courtesy of Toronto Star, the UTSC Memory Collection, and University of Toronto Scarborough News.
Universities are often hotbeds for political action, and UTSC is no exception. In March 1970, the campus was visited by six members of the Marxist-Leninist Black Panther Party who were looking to rally students for their cause.
Credits: “Black Panthers Revealed”, The Scarboro Mirror, March 25, 1970. Accessed via UTSC Archives Legacy Collection, file 002-E-9-4-1, “General Publicity 1970”. University of Toronto Scarborough Library, Archives & Special Collections.
Bruce and Stephanie Geddes, who were a part of the first graduating class of Scarborough College in 1968, recall the centrality of the Meeting Place to the College student experience in the 1960s, where students could often be found playing bridge and smoking.
Credits: Conceived and produced by Amena Ahmed. All images courtesy of the Memory Collection via UTSC Library Digital Collections.
Linda Cahill, a Scarborough College alum and early graduate of the school’s new drama program, recalls drama instructor Leigha Lee Browne’s production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which featured some prominent university faculty in some unconventional roles.
I've talked a bit about Leigha the teacher and Leigha the director, but I haven’t really conveyed the extent of her influence and the sheer force of her will to get people to do things for her. Case in point, her production of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the mid 1980s. This was a major production put on in the Meeting Place, which was the only place on campus you could hold a large event...I believe she adapted the Alice's Adventures script herself with some specific casting in mind. She offered roles to a number of faculty members and also auditioned students, staff, and alumni. There was a huge cast, but imagine this. She cast Ron Williams, who was then the principal of U of T Scarborough, as the Dormouse. She cast the Chair of Humanities as the Mad Hatter and the Chair of Social Sciences as the March Hare. The scene the three of them were in ended with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare trying to stuff the Dormouse into a teapot. And other faculty members were also in that show, most of whom were handpicked by Leigha for their roles. I was in that show as well. She even cast her husband, John Brown, who was then the principal of Innis College, and the former principal of Innis College as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. So we had this production that had some of the most influential people at the university in the cast in the Meeting Place wearing crazy, ridiculous costumes and acting their butts off. For Leigha, who was, in the university hierarchy, a low level academic in a tiny program at a campus in the far reaches of Scarborough, it was just an incredible, amazing experience.
Some students like watching movies in their downtime. Others prefer playing video games. Others, still, would rather procure the services of professional exotic dancers. It’s this last category of students that the Scarborough College Students’ Union was targeting in September 1969, when the group invited a professional stripper to perform in the Meeting Place as a “student service”. The event was reported in the contemporary campus newspaper, Spectrum, and celebrated in the publication’s 25th anniversary issue.
Credits: Spectrum, January 1990 (Special 25th Anniversary Edition), UTSC Archives & Special Collections.
The Meeting Place is also a popular set location for moviemakers, with various productions shot there over the years. The space isn’t always recognizable in these productions, though; scroll through the galleries to see if you can recognize our campus in its new trappings!
Anon (2018), dir. Andrew Niccol
Dream Scenario (2023), dir. Kristoffer Borgli
