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Toronto Metropolitan University (Ryerson) Campus Public Realm

W. K. Lis said:
I would consider Toronto Metropolitan University only as a place holder, until a more proper name is selected.
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I mean, it won't be a placeholder though. There is no way they spend tons of money doing this rebrand, and then spend just as much again later to rebrand it again. That's phenomenally pointless and wasteful, and isn't going to happen just because people on the internet think the name is boring. Especially given they intend to change the actual legal name of the university here, unlike what Western or UOIT did.
 
Admiral Beez said:
My guess is this name is just a placeholder until some rich bastard gives a massive donation in return for naming rights.
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Maybe I'm missing one, but I offhand (and from a quick check of google) can't think of a time where a public university changed it's entire institutional name for a donor. They'll do a building, a program, a stadium, etc. but not the entire university. A lot of medical and business schools are named for donors, but not entire post-secondary institutions.
 
I doubt it is as flexible as that. There is no doubt multiple pieces of legislation that govern accreditation, corporate governance, etc. Degrees are issued 'in the name of' an authorized entity.
 
Toronto Metropolitan University (née Ryerson University) is ranked #853 in the world.

University of Toronto is ranked #24.

York University is ranked #433.

Harvard University is ranked #1.

Siberian Federal University (Russia) is ranked #1950.


See

GLOBAL 2000 LIST BY THE CENTER FOR WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS​


2022-23 Edition

at this link.
 
lenaitch said:
I doubt it is as flexible as that. There is no doubt multiple pieces of legislation that govern accreditation, corporate governance, etc. Degrees are issued 'in the name of' an authorized entity.
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Yup exactly. You can change the marketing name of a university more easily (as they have already done here), but the name on the degree is enshrined in a piece of legislation. In this case, they need the Ryerson University Act to be amended to reflect the new name in order to put it on diplomas. As such, it's unlikely you'd see TMU become Rogers University, for example. At least in the case of Western and Ontario Tech, neither name is that far off from the name you see on the degree (University of Western Ontario or University of Ontario Institute of Technology, respectively), but there'd be no clear relationship between a university branded as Rogers University (hypothetically) but that has degrees that say Toronto Metropolitan University, and in general, it's certainly desirable to have degrees that reflect the name of the school giving them out.

People are acting like universities can just change their names whenever, for no cost, when it's actually a very complicated, expensive process (which was the reason Ryerson themselves had used in the past for not changing the name sooner). Like, yeah I get the name is boring and generic, but what did people expect?
 
TossYourJacket said:
Maybe I'm missing one, but I offhand (and from a quick check of google) can't think of a time where a public university changed it's entire institutional name for a donor.
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I agree it is rare, bit not unprecedented. Yale University changed its name from the Collegiate School (opened in 1701) to Yale College when in 1718 it received a large donation from the family.

Modern examples are rarer still, https://www.insidehighered.com/news...e-its-name-after-receiving-350-million-pledge

There are many universities, especially in the USA named after the rich guys who fronted the original seed money, like Harvard and Vanderbilt University.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I agree it is rare, bit not unprecedented. Yale University changed its name from the Collegiate School (opened in 1701) to Yale College when in 1718 it received a large donation from the family.

Modern examples are rarer still, https://www.insidehighered.com/news...e-its-name-after-receiving-350-million-pledge

There are many universities, especially in the USA named after the rich guys who fronted the original seed money, like Harvard and Vanderbilt University.
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Oooh good finds. One thing I will say though is every one of those examples is a private university, which are far more common in the US than in Canada. Given they aren't owned by the government, it's much easier for them to be named for a donor (plus there is likely more incentive due to the lack of government funding). On the other hand, most universities in Canada (including TMU) are public.
 
I would have preferred something like Toronto Polytechnic University (Toronto Tech). But Tor Met is bland and inoffensive. That is arguably the only real knock on it. Maybe it'll grow in reputation in due course. Nobody looks down on the City University of New York (CUNY).

Part of the problem with naming universities in Canada, particularly anglo Canada, is the cultural view that unless it is called "university", it's not a university. So for example, Canadians would struggle with names like this:

United State Military Academy (West Point)
London School of Economics
École Polytechnique
College of William and Mary
Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD)

I am still surprised by the amount of Canadians I meet who don't understand that the Royal Military College of Canada, is a university which grants degrees.
 
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kEiThZ said:
I would have preferred something like Toronto Polytechnic University (Toronto Tech). But Tor Met is bland and inoffensive. That is arguably the only real knock on it. Maybe it'll grow in reputation in due course. Nobody looks down on the City University of New York (CUNY).

Part of the problem with naming universities in Canada, particularly anglo Canada, is the cultural view that unless it is called "university", it's not a university. So for example, Canadians would struggle with names like this:

United State Military Academy (West Point)
London School of Economics
École Polytechnique
College of William and Mary
Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD)

I am still surprised by the amount of Canadians I meet who don't understand that the Royal Military College of Canada, is a university which grants degrees.
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Yeah, Americans seem to refer to all post secondary education as "college" when talking about it, but yeah, here there's a very hard distinction between 'college" and "university" when people talk about post-secondary institutions. Certainly does limit the naming options, that's for sure.
 
kEiThZ said:
It's not just Americans. Take a guess at how many of France's Grandes Écoles are called "Université".

en.m.wikipedia.org

Grande école - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

We have a very bizarre fixation on the word "university".
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I certainly agree that we could be more flexible w/nomenclature. Although, I tend to like specificity in language (its that word, for that reason, not another).

In the case of Ontario, we very clearly chose, at one point, to convey that University meant degree-granting; and College meant Diploma granting.

( * I believe the clear line was drawn when Ontario built the Community College system; I make note that before being affiliated with the University of Toronto, Trinity College was its own University.)

There's a certain logic to that I can understand.

That said, its one we've outmoded by having the majority of colleges have some degree-granting power; though there's still a statutory limit in Ontario, on the number of degree-granting programs a Community College can have.

****

In respect of the comparison to Les Grandes Ecoles, its worth saying many, if not all, occupy a niche we largely don't have here.

That is to say, they are often program-specific graduate education such as public administration; as opposed to what one might term a full-service university.

I don't oppose the existence of such schools here as possible centres of excellence; I simply observe we don't really have those in Ontario currently.
 
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