Welcome and thanks - fall 2025
Dear colleagues,
This week U of T Mississauga is welcoming 16,500 students to campus, many of them back for a new year, some joining us for the first time.
I’m writing with a heartfelt thank you to our faculty, librarians and staff for everything I know you are doing to support these students’ success — from completing a crucial infrastructure project under Outer Circle Road, to welcoming our students to residence and preparing the first week of classes.
We have a busy year ahead (as usual), and there’s lots to look forward to.
In teaching and research, we're planning expansion of our co-op internships and developing new programs in diverse areas, including communication technology, theatre and drama and accounting and finance. In 2024-2025, UTM's total research funding was up 74 per cent compared to the 2019-2020 grant year — with an average annual increase of 12.4 per cent since 2020. We will be implementing new research support to leverage this success and set ambitious new goals.
This fall we will host our third All-Nations Powwow, publish our first well-being and belonging plan and celebrate the renovation of Spigel Hall. We’ll also continue work towards our new central utilities plant, which will extend a sustainability strategy that has decreased UTM’s natural gas consumption by 16 per cent in the last three years. This will help lower our greenhouse gas emissions by 39 per cent by 2030, compared to 1990, and take us to carbon zero by 2050. (UTM is a big part of the reason that U of T is first in the world for sustainability.)
We’re making this difference in Peel, one of Canada’s fastest growing and most economically dynamic regions, which has the youngest population in the GTA. U of T provides this community with unparalleled access to world-leading higher education. Earlier this year, US News and World Report ranked U of T 16th globally, tied with Princeton and Cornell. In 2025-2026, U of T will teach more undergraduates than Princeton, Cornell and the six other U.S. Ivy League universities combined.
I hope you feel, as I do, the joyful energy on our campus this week, and I hope you are proud of the positive impact of your work.
Best wishes for the start of the academic year, and thanks again,
Alex
Alexandra Gillespie
Vice-President and Principal
University of Toronto Mississauga
