The University of Toronto: Meeting the moment, for Canada and for the world
An address by Professor Melanie A. Woodin
on the occasion of her installation as
the 17th President of the University of Toronto
Thank you, Madam Chair. Chancellor Hall, distinguished guests, members of the University of Toronto community: Good afternoon. Let me extend a special, warm welcome to Minister Quinn, Mayor Chow and Chief Sault, and to the representatives of our sister institutions from across Canada and beyond. We are delighted that you’ve joined us to celebrate this milestone.
As I passed through the doors of Convocation Hall today, I felt the weight of history. I thought of the 16 former presidents of this great, good place, to use Claude Bissell’s wonderful description of the University of Toronto. I am honoured to follow in their footsteps. And I am proud to do so wearing pumps instead of wingtips!
I would like to offer special thanks to my immediate predecessors – Professor Meric Gertler, Professor David Naylor, the Honourable Frank Iacobucci, and Professor Emeritus Rob Prichard. I am inspired by your example, and I am so grateful for your support. Thank you for being here today.
It was just over 34 years ago that I first walked through the doors of Convocation Hall, as an undergraduate student, here for my first university lecture. I’d come to U of T because I wanted to be a scientist. My interest had been sparked by my mother’s love of the natural world, and the many happy times our family spent together on Georgian Bay.
To be honest, I didn’t really understand what being a scientist is all about. My impressions came from movies and science fairs – think eccentric personalities, mixing colourful, frothing solutions. But, on that day in 1991 – as I sat right there, in the middle of that balcony – I had my first glimpse into the amazing world of science.
The great Spencer Barrett was our professor. He explained that tropical ecosystems contain a store of unexploited chemical compounds, and that researchers were testing some of them as possible treatments for cancer. The part that really hit me was that those researchers were from U of T, my own university. They were the ones out in the field, breaking that new ground.
That’s when I began to understand the power of a research-intensive institution such as ours. It’s an experience that unfolds right here in this hall and across our three campuses every day, as U of T professors transform the way our students understand and engage with the world.
The University of Toronto is a place where great minds have the freedom to go where our curiosity takes us. It’s a place where we can think, freely, together – about what it means to be human, what it means to live in society, and about the wonders that nature has to reveal. It’s also a place where we can talk, openly and respectfully, about how to build a better world.
That conversation is especially urgent, because at this time in history, we need to build a better world. We are witnessing a dangerous erosion of the rules-based international order, widening inequality and deepening polarization, and almost daily reminders of the fragility of democracy.
Universities are no longer fully trusted, as authoritative sources of knowledge or as bastions of free inquiry. Scholars are facing new threats to academic freedom, including censorship and intimidation. Scholarly expertise – and even the very notion that public debates must be informed by facts and reason – is viewed with increasing suspicion.
While Canada is not immune from these disturbing trends, our commitment to the principles of liberal democracy remains strong. This springs from our tradition of dialogue over discord, inclusion over isolation, and evidence over ideology.
People everywhere are looking to our country to be a beacon of light in this time of gathering darkness, because Canada has something essential to offer the world. And so, as Canada’s flagship university, we must rise to meet this moment. We must bring the full power of our enterprise to bear in service to society, as we have done so often before.
In just over a year, the U of T community will celebrate our bicentennial. Today, I invite you to join me in reflecting on our first two centuries, and in looking ahead to our third. Together, we can help chart the way to a brighter future, for our city region, our province, our country and our world.
We started small, in 1827. But the University of Toronto began to grow, in due course, from strength to strength. Under a succession of pivotal leaders, we recruited outstanding scholars and teachers, in the humanities and natural sciences, and the emerging social sciences, too.
We added graduate programs and professional schools, while joining forces with other leading institutions to become the federated university we are today. And, by the start of our second century, we had made our debut on the world stage – alongside our partners at Toronto General Hospital – with the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of insulin.
In successive eras of epic loss and change – two world wars, a devastating depression, and a nuclear arms race – the U of T community rallied to the cause of protecting society, defending democracy and keeping the peace. We welcomed generations of newcomers, helping to shape Canada’s modern, multicultural identity. We expanded east and west, and U of T Scarborough and U of T Mississauga flourished as distinctive and innovative communities from the start.
Our students and faculty became increasingly prominent, nationally and internationally, in every field. And our alumni emerged as leaders, in virtually every country on the planet – as heads of state and prime ministers, captains of industry and community activists, Oscar winners and Olympic champions. As a result, U of T’s impact is all around us – from electron microscopy to the evidence for black holes, from the discovery of stem cells to labs-on-a-chip, from late-night sketch comedy to some of the greatest works of modern literature.
Before I continue, I want to highlight one more development, a breakthrough of singular importance. It was only very recently that we, along with the rest of Canadian society, began to reckon with our treatment of the Indigenous peoples of this land. The University of Toronto has made a solemn commitment to address that terrible legacy.
And our gathering today began with a beautiful sign of that commitment, in the procession led by our colleague, Professor Susan Hill, Director of the Centre for Indigenous Studies. She bore the University’s Eagle Feather, which was established in 2022 as a standard element of every convocation and ceremony such as this.
We are taking a wide range of actions beyond this, throughout our teaching and research activities, as well as our communal life. And we have a great deal more to do, as we continue answering the call of truth and reconciliation.
But change for the better is happening. And it is a powerful source of hope for all of us, in our capacity to learn, change and grow together.
These are just a few of the many milestones in U of T’s first 200 years. Reflecting on them, a key question comes to mind: At the turning points in our history, how did we rise to meet the moment? The answer came to me during the chapter we wrote together just a few years ago.
It was early in my deanship, when COVID-19 descended on the world. My children – Madeleine and Peter, who are here with us today – remember well how their mother would get up before the crack of dawn to work on the latest set of contingency plans or to record video messages to her students, encouraging them through to the end of term.
And I remember well, the extraordinary work U of T colleagues were doing, across the university. We simply had to ensure that our teaching and research would continue. Our mission is too important. In fact, it is literally vital to our society, as we saw so clearly during the pandemic.
In so many ways, it was an unprecedented experience. But, in one crucial way, it followed a pattern that’s unmistakeable throughout our history. In the face of a fiercely complex, urgent problem, the U of T community stepped up to meet the moment, with all our breadth of talent and depth of expertise. And, driven by our resilience, creativity, and dedication to the greater good, we played an outsized role in addressing one of the most daunting challenges of our time.
Here’s another, especially daunting challenge that we’re addressing with everything we’ve got. Under Meric Gertler’s leadership, we transformed our three campuses into a massive ‘living lab’, in response to the global climate emergency. He inspired us to create a plan and make a commitment, that U of T would go beyond net-zero, to become climate-positive by 2050. Then he put out a call to the community to bring forward their best ideas on how we could achieve that goal even sooner. And, wow! – did you come through!
As a result, we’re giving the world a new reason to hope, that a sustainable future is possible. And we’re showing the world that U of T really does defy gravity.
Let me mention one more reason why that’s true. In 1998, under Rob Prichard’s leadership, we enshrined a landmark policy: that no domestic student offered admission to U of T should be unable to enter or complete their program due to a lack of financial means.
This defining act still distinguishes us from our global peer institutions. And it remains a cornerstone of our commitment to inclusive excellence. One of our most prominent alumni told me recently that what he loves most about his alma mater is this: Whether you had all the breaks in life or absolutely none, U of T is here for you. So well said!
As we have seen, in every generation since our founding, the U of T community has rallied to meet the moment. But what will that mean for this generation? How will the University of Toronto help Canada to meet this moment?
And, let’s be honest: This isn’t just a moment we’re in. It’s a time of profound disruption, on so many levels – social, economic and geopolitical. It’s been hard. And it may well become much harder before it’s over.
But I know in my heart that this university is one of the few institutions, anywhere, that can do the heavy lifting required. U of T matters, and we have the potential to matter even more, as this tumultuous time unfolds.
In the face of these many challenges, Canadians are responding with a renewed sense of national purpose. And we are determined to defend and strengthen our sovereignty.
As a partner in that effort, U of T will be an indispensable source of resilience and strength, for the Toronto region, for Ontario and for Canada. Our faculty and students are growing a vast ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship. Our graduates form a critical mass of top talent in every sector. And the U of T community is an enduring source of creativity that can help propel the world towards greater, long-term prosperity.
U of T can also play a key role in tackling the many global health challenges before us. We bring to the table a rare combination of multidisciplinary expertise and a rich culture of collaboration, across the health sciences, public health, engineering, economics and beyond.
Our faculty and students are doing incredibly promising work at the intersection of genetics, regenerative medicine and artificial intelligence. And they’re leading the way – towards a cure for diabetes, the development of rapid-response vaccine platforms, and the treatment of devastating degenerative diseases. Together, the U of T community can help save and improve the lives of countless people, at home and abroad.
For now, I’ll mention just one more area in which U of T can lead a major breakthrough. In this extremely divisive time – in politics, in our culture as a whole, and even in our personal relationships – we need to re-learn the habits of civil discourse.
U of T faculty and students have launched a grassroots effort to restore our culture of ‘thinking out loud together’. In doing so, we have the potential to make U of T a national and global leader in this crucial cause. Our bench strength is immense – in global affairs, public policy and law; history, philosophy and languages; digital rights, privacy and cybersecurity.
With humility, courage and good will, we can help to heal the divisions in our society. And we can help Canada to project its voice, in defence of pluralism and democracy. Fostering open, reasoned, and respectful dialogue isn’t just something we can do. It goes to the heart of our mission, and our responsibility to society as an academic institution.
Our world is facing some big problems. But U of T can make a big difference, in finding solutions. I know that you will have many other ideas to share, about how we can help meet the moment, for Canadians and for people everywhere. And I look forward to hearing from you and engaging you in conversation, in the months ahead. Together we’ll envision how we can write the next chapters in U of T’s history – how we can define what it means to be this great, good place in the generations to come.
I began my remarks today recounting the first lecture I attended here in Convocation Hall, as a first-year student. Recalling Professor Barrett’s reference to ecosystems, I think of trees. And I think of one particular tree – one that symbolizes an ecosystem of vital importance to the future wellbeing of our country, and indeed the entire world.
Velut arbor aevo, as it says in the coat of arms above me – “May it grow as a tree through the ages”. Our motto has proved more apt than anyone could have known, at the time it was adopted. The University of Toronto has grown – strong and tall, with many branches, more magnificent than our founders could have imagined.
Let us draw inspiration from our past – our record of achievement, and even more, our history of learning and growth. As we look to our future, let us allow our ambitions to match our talents, and our hopes to rise to our highest ideals. And, as we go out through the doors of Convocation Hall today, let us resolve that our ultimate priority will be this: to meet the moment, whatever it requires, for the communities around us, for Canadians and for all humanity.
As president, I dedicate myself to supporting you in every way that I can, as we embark on that great adventure. And I am so excited to see what we will accomplish together, at the dawn of our third century.
Thank you.
Melanie A. Woodin
President, University of Toronto
