University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada. Originally controlled by the Church of England, the university assumed its present name in 1850 upon becoming a secular institution. As a collegiate university, it comprises 11 colleges each with substantial autonomy on financial and institutional affairs and significant differences in character and history. The university maintains three campuses, the oldest of which is St. George, located in downtown Toronto. The other two satellite campuses are located in Scarborough and Mississauga.
This article is about the university's St. George campus in Downtown Toronto. For other uses, see University of Toronto (disambiguation).
The University of Toronto offers over 700 undergraduate and 200 graduate programs. The university receives the most annual scientific research funding and endowment of any Canadian university. It is also one of two members of the Association of American Universities outside the United States, alongside McGill University.[8] Academically, the University of Toronto is noted for influential movements and curricula in literary criticism and communication theory, known collectively as the Toronto School.
The university was the birthplace of insulin and stem cell research, the first artificial cardiac pacemaker,[9] and the site of the first successful lung transplant and nerve transplant. The university was also home to the first electron microscope, the development of deep learning,[10] neural network, multi-touch technology, the identification of the first black hole Cygnus X-1, and the development of the theory of NP-completeness. The University of Toronto is the recipient of both the single largest philanthropic gift in Canadian history, a $250 million donation from James and Louise Temerty in 2020, and the largest ever research grant in Canada, a $200 million grant from the Government of Canada in 2023.[11][12]
The Varsity Blues are the athletic teams that represent the university in intercollegiate league matches, primarily within U Sports, with ties to gridiron football, rowing and ice hockey. The earliest recorded instance of gridiron football occurred at University of Toronto's University College in November 1861.[13] The university's Hart House is an early example of the North American student centre, simultaneously serving cultural, intellectual, and recreational interests within its large Gothic-revival complex.
University of Toronto alumni include five Prime Ministers of Canada (including William Lyon Mackenzie King and Lester B. Pearson), three Governors Generals of Canada, nine foreign leaders, and 17 justices of the Supreme Court of Canada.[14] As of 2019, 12 Nobel laureates, six Turing Award winners, 100 Rhodes Scholars, and one Fields Medalist have been affiliated with the university.
History
Early history
The founding of a colonial college had long been the desire of John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada and founder of York, the colonial capital.[15][16] As an Oxford-educated military commander who had fought in the American Revolutionary War, Simcoe believed a college was needed to counter the spread of republicanism from the United States.[16] The Upper Canada Executive Committee recommended in 1798 that a college be established in York.[16]
University rankings
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William Lyon Mackenzie King, the longest-serving Prime Minister in Canadian history with over 21 years in office, BA, MA
John Kenneth Galbraith, noted economist and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism, B.Sc.(Agr.)
Harold Innis, professor of political economy, helped develop the staples thesis and the Toronto School of communication theory
In addition to Havelock, Innis, Frye, Carpenter and McLuhan, former professors of the 20th century include Frederick Banting, Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter, Robertson Davies, John Charles Fields, Leopold Infeld and C. B. Macpherson. Twelve Nobel laureates studied or taught at the University of Toronto. As of 2006, University of Toronto academics accounted for 15 of 23 Canadian members in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (65 per cent) and 20 of 72 Canadian fellows in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (28 per cent).[126] Among honorees from Canada between 1980 and 2006, University of Toronto faculty made up 11 of 21 Canada Gairdner International Award recipients (52 per cent), 44 of 101 Guggenheim Fellows (44 per cent), 16 of 38 Royal Society fellows (42 per cent), 10 of 28 members in the United States National Academies (36 per cent) and 23 of 77 Sloan Research Fellows (30 per cent).[126]
Alumni of the University of Toronto's colleges, faculties and professional schools have assumed notable roles in a wide range of fields and specialties. In government, Governors General Vincent Massey, Adrienne Clarkson, and Julie Payette, Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King, Arthur Meighen, Lester B. Pearson, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper, and 17 justices of the Supreme Court have all graduated from the university, while world leaders include President of Latvia Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, Premier of the Republic of China Liu Chao-shiuan, President of Trinidad and Tobago Noor Hassanali, and First Lady of Iceland Eliza Reid.[209] Economist John Kenneth Galbraith, political scientist David Easton, historian Margaret MacMillan, philosophers David Gauthier and Ted Honderich, anthropologist Davidson Black, social activist Ellen Pence, sociologist Erving Goffman, psychologists Endel Tulving, Daniel Schacter, and Lisa Feldman Barrett, physicians Norman Bethune and Charles Best, geologists Joseph Tyrrell and John Tuzo Wilson, mathematicians Irving Kaplansky and William Kahan, physicists Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Bertram Brockhouse, religion scholar Amir Hussain, architect James Strutt, engineer Gerald Bull, computer scientists Alfred Aho and Brian Kernighan, and astronauts Roberta Bondar and Julie Payette are also some of the most well-known academic figures from the university.
In business, University of Toronto alumni include Rogers Communications' Ted Rogers, Toronto-Dominion Bank's W. Edmund Clark, Bank of Montreal's Bill Downe, Scotiabank's Peter Godsoe, Barrick Gold's Peter Munk, BlackBerry's Jim Balsillie, eBay's Jeffrey Skoll, Fiat S.p.A.'s Sergio Marchionne, and Apotex's Bernard Sherman. In literature and media, the university has produced writers Stephen Leacock, John McCrae, Rohinton Mistry, Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje, film directors Arthur Hiller, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan, actor Donald Sutherland, screenwriter David Shore, television producer and writer Hart Hanson, musician Paul Shaffer, and journalists Malcolm Gladwell, Naomi Klein and Barbara Amiel.
The University of Toronto alumni-founded companies generate roughly equivalent to one-quarter of the Canadian GDP according to a survey published in 2021.[210]