Scarborough Rising

New students, new faculty, new programs, new buildings – and a visionary new donation toward mental health education. The University of Toronto Scarborough had a lot to celebrate at its Boundless campaign launch in November.

During a ceremony held on campus at the historic Miller Lash House, UTSC principal Franco J. Vaccarino announced a $1.25-million gift from an anonymous donor to support several clinical placements each year for students in psychology. The department recently launched an undergraduate program in mental health studies that has since attracted a large cohort of new students – and has proposed a PhD program in clinical psychology.

“UTSC’s transformation is about much more than new cutting-edge buildings and facilities,” says Vaccarino. “It is about the students, staff, educators and researchers who inhabit these buildings and bring them to life. Through their research, our faculty make leading contributions to their fields, while our students receive an education that is both first class and responsive to a rapidly changing labour market.”

At the campaign launch, UTSC also celebrated its largest gift-in-kind. More than 200 paintings and 6,000 pieces of memorabilia – valued at $3.8 million – were bequeathed from the estate of Doris McCarthy, Canada’s celebrated landscape artist, to enhance the campus’s art history instruction and expand its public art programs. UTSC also announced that $1.7 million has been raised for more than 65 scholarships.

UTSC is growing rapidly, having recently made 30 faculty hires, added six academic departments, two new interdisciplinary centres and a number of degree programs, including a PhD in environmental science. In September, ground was broken on the Aquatics Centre and Field House Complex that will be used by students, the community and the 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games.

The campaign seeks to raise $35 million to bolster UTSC’s position as the intellectual and cultural hub of the eastern Greater Toronto Area and as a world-leading centre of scholarship in such vital areas as mental health, world hunger research and environmental science.