Contexts

Exterior of MN building in the summer season with blue sky in the background

This Strategic Framework is also available as a downloadable PDF.

Founded in 1967 as a small college in a small town, UTM has grown into a powerhouse campus for Canada’s largest cities and U of T’s world-leading tri-campus system. We became a fully-fledged campus distinct from U of T’s Faculty of Arts and Science in 2003—and then blossomed quickly as U of T’s second largest division.

Now, in 2022, we provide a home to over 16,100 students and 1,250 continuing faculty, librarians, and staff and contribute to U of T fifteen departments, three academic institutes, and more than 180 undergraduate and graduate program options. We also strengthen Ontario’s reputation as a national and global hub for inclusive post-secondary education: our 11,500 domestic students are drawn to this community from neighborhoods across the country; our 4,500 international students come together from more than 130 countries around the world.

Students referring to a binder

We ground UTM’s global campus in our Mississauga location—and in the responsibility based in the land on which we work. UTM is situated on the traditional lands of the Wendat and the Seneca, on the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. It stands alongside the Missinnihe, the trusting creek. That’s what French and British colonists called the Credit River because, at its mouth, they traded goods on credit with Indigenous peoples, who have travelled and cared for this place from time immemorial. UTM seeks to earn a trust that lives up to this place’s name, through a commitment to truth and Indigenous reconciliation. So, we work to address the legacies of colonialism that have raised some histories over others and to dismantle barriers facing equity-deserving groups. It’s the right thing to do; it’s also the best, because diverse ways of knowing help the world better tell the truth.

UTM has a special responsibility to build truthful, right relations here in the Peel Region. As the only research university in a region of 1.45 million people, we connect students in Mississauga, Brampton, and Caledon—and in nearby Oakville, Milton, Halton Hills, and Burlington, too—with unique opportunities for personal, intellectual, and professional development. The impact radiates here: our students thrive as North America’s most employable public university graduates, giving a special boost of talent to Canada’s largest life science, business, arts, and technology sectors across the GTA. Our UTM community creates more than $1.3 billion annually in local economic growth, designing teaching, research, and engagement programs that give back to a region that gives so much to us.

UTM leverages this location to strengthen connections of national and international importance. As the heart of Canada’s supply chain, and a centre of Canadian industries in life sciences and advanced manufacturing, Peel links communities from coast to coast to coast. As the home of many Canadian newcomers, where 51% of residents speak a first language other than English, Peel shows the power of the world’s vibrant diversity. And so does UTM. We lean into initiatives—from robotics to health equity, new stories to urban sustainability—that support our region’s strengths and create outsize impact here.

We also confront our region’s challenges. The pressure of economic injustice—like historic underinvestment in the region’s social services and infrastructure—hits Peel’s residents unequally. It shapes the social determinants of health where our region suffers a disproportionate burden of diabetes and chronic illness. It also informs our collaborations with other anchor institutions, including Trillium Health Partners, Canada’s largest community hospital system, with whom U of T runs the Temerty Faculty of Medicine Mississauga. We bring world-class doctors and allied health professionals to train here—and they stay to serve this community after graduation.

Our commitment to healthcare locally matches our focus on environmental care globally. UTM takes up climate change, biodiversity and species loss, and urban resilience as our responsibility for action. We’re proud to be part of a university that has divested from fossil fuels—the first university in the world to join the UN’s Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance. And we’re dedicated to taking similarly bold steps going forward, including by decreasing our GHG emissions by 37% before 2030 and extending our leadership as one of the most sustainable universities on earth.

In all this work, we seek to make good on the responsibilities of our Latin motto: tantum nobis creditum, so much has been entrusted to us. On our beautiful campus, by the Missinnihe, UTM has been entrusted with caring for our natural environments and breaking new ground in research; with educating courageous thinkers and creating space for connection; and with walking the path towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. We work to fulfill the trust that our students and communities have placed in us by honouring the better futures that they will help create.