Golden Return: UTM’s first alumni celebrate their 50th-Anniversary Reunion
Alumni from UTM’s Classes of 1970 to 1973, their guests and professors returned to campus to celebrate their 50th-anniversary reunion last June 2, 2023. The inaugural UTM Class of 1970 was originally scheduled to celebrate their jubilee in 2020, but the pandemic delayed in-person celebrations until this year.
Erindale College welcomed its first cohort in 1967. There were 155 students, 28 faculty, and 40 staff members. Fifty-six years later, the former Erindale College graduates (or Erindalians as they were called) got to tour U of T’s second-largest division, now boasting 16,000 undergraduate students, 900 graduate students, and over 3,400 employees.
With enthusiasm and awe, the alumni marvelled at how much the campus has grown from the single temporary North Building they were familiar with. They even had an opportunity to visit the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry and learn how the lab is developing new drugs for cancer and other diseases.
The Classes of 1970 to 1973 gathered back at the Blind Duck Pub for lunch, to catch up, and to reminisce on their Erindale days. Some took the microphone and shared their favourite student pranks, while others passed around their keepsakes from the era.
From now until May 2024, UTM alumni who graduated between 1970 to 1979 can share and access photos from their student days through the Classes of the 1970s digital yearbook.