Boundless!

The University of Toronto has unveiled Boundless, the largest fundraising campaign in Canadian university history. With a historic $2-billion goal, the Campaign for the University of Toronto will help expand U of T’s global leadership capacity across critical areas of knowledge and help develop the talent, ideas and solutions for the defining challenges of our time.

University of Toronto president David Naylor made the announcement at a ceremony in Convocation Hall in November. He noted that U of T will explore the boundless possibilities of its community of alumni, students and faculty for global leadership and societal impact.

“Canada must have universities that can achieve two related goals: conduct the advanced research that will help solve the grand challenges humanity now faces, and offer the best and brightest students an exceptional education to help them build a better world. No university in Canada is better positioned to meet those objectives than the University of Toronto,” said Naylor.

The university has secured nearly half – $966 million – of its $2-billion fundraising goal, with donations supporting two central campaign pillars: preparing global citizens and meeting global challenges. For the first, the university is seeking $500 million to foster international fluency and leadership skills among its almost 80,000 undergraduate and graduate students. These funds will also support student awards and will help build learning environments that nurture creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, interdisciplinary inquiry and global perspectives.

The second pillar, “meeting global challenges” – for which the university is seeking $1.5 billion – will support research and teaching that generates solutions for healthy, sustainable and successful societies. These funds will also bolster basic research, enhance programs and infrastructure, and enable the university to recruit a new generation of exceptional faculty.

Despite recent investments in higher education in Ontario, per-student funding for universities in the province remains among the lowest in Canada. As well, U of T’s total revenue per full-time student is significantly lower than the average for publicly funded peer institutions in the U.S. “The fact that we are able to compete with – and in many cases outperform – our peers, both in Canada and around the world, speaks to the quality of the University of Toronto,” said Naylor. Over the last 15 years, U of T has consistently ranked among the top 30 universities in the world – and frequently in the top three for scholarly output.

Describing the campaign launch as an “extraordinary moment” in the history of the university, the Hon. David R. Peterson, chancellor of U of T, said: “With input from across our community, we have developed an eloquent, bold vision for a world-leading university in the 21st century. We will look to our global network of friends and alumni – who now number more than 500,000 across 174 countries – to join us in this exciting campaign. Through their generosity and involvement, we will work together to find solutions to our world’s pressing challenges and prepare the next generation of global citizens who will venture across boundaries to inquire, invent and innovate.”

Find out more about the Campaign for the University of Toronto at boundless.utoronto.ca.

Watch a video about the campaign that was shown at the launch event: