Share your UTM memories for a new oral history project

Oral historian Lauren Ramsay wants to chat with you about your memories of UTM.

Ramsay has started gathering stories for the UTM History Project, an oral history collection initiated by the Office of the Vice-President and Principal.

Ramsay is looking for students, faculty, librarians, and administrative staff members who want to share their stories of life at UTM, from its foundation as Erindale College in 1967 through its development into a diverse hub for global education today.

Ramsay (they/them) says they have been pleased by the number of participants who have already reached out.

“People have been talking a lot about starting as a small campus, how that fostered a lot of interdisciplinary work and affected the teaching life, administrative life and different student communities at UTM and Erindale over the years,” Ramsay says. “It really started as a small institution, and the people built up a special place, mostly because they were committed to doing that.”

The project builds on work done for the campus’ 40th and 50th anniversaries, with a goal to “amplify marginalized or forgotten stories, honour successes and confront failures through the personal narratives of those at UTM that lived them.”

Ramsay is particularly interested in hearing about the experiences of people in racialized, queer, female and activist communities.

“It’s about who was in positions of administrative power in the ‘60s when the school began and onwards, trying to engage a representative sample of specific voices that maybe we haven’t heard from in these earlier periods,” they say. “Those experiences give continuity to the diversity of staff, students and faculty on the campus now.”

Ramsay developed an interest in oral history while studying for a BA in Public Work at Montreal’s Concordia University.

“The history department was doing a huge project interviewing survivors of genocide, war and human rights violations and it was an opportunity for me, as a student, to actually work with people, which really was my interest,” says Ramsay, who is beginning a master’s degree in social work at Wilfrid Laurier University in the fall. “It paralleled different forms of therapy, working with memory, trauma and narrative and the way people make meaning of their own experiences.”

Ramsay has since worked on several oral history projects, including collecting stories of migrant workers and the Iraqi-Jewish diaspora living in Montreal.

“It’s important to get these kinds of first-person stories while we can,” they say. “You want to hear them from the people who experienced them.”

Trying to collect stories during the pandemic, however, has created some new challenges, Ramsay explains.

“I really enjoy spending time with people in person, but this is a new reality,” they say. “I’ve turned to recording via Zoom, and some people are also experimenting with self recording.”

Ramsay says the participants they have spoken to so far have been enthusiastic sources of information.

“People like to share things that they are passionate about,” they say. 

Calling it “a dream job,” Ramsay notes that, although the UTM History Project is a pilot, they hope it is just the start of collecting campus stories.

“Projects like this are never actually done; we’re just working to uncover the first phase,” Ramsay says. “I hope what we create will inspire others to engage in this self-reflection regularly, as things are happening, to create cohesion in the community, to make sure people feel cared for and heard.

“I hope this work will continue on with many more interviewers.”

If you have stories to share or know someone that might, contact laureno.ramsay@utoronto.ca

For more on the UTM History Project, visit https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/vp-principal/utm-history-project