Welcome to 2024 at U of T Mississauga

To our UTM community,

Just before the holiday break, I had the chance to take a walk on campus – from the Tipi and teaching lodge in the north to the student services hub in the south. From there, I spent the rest of the day talking with colleagues and students in Davis. That meant reconnecting with old friends, making new ones, and sensing in all our conversations the same energy and excitement I feel walking in this beautiful place. 

It’s a great joy for me to be part of this community and serve as acting vice-president and principal for the next six months. Thanks for welcoming me back to a role I held for eight years, which I continue to believe is the best job at U of T. I am proud of all the ways our campus has grown, as my walk shows – and excited for all we can accomplish together in the year ahead.

We have a lot to look forward to, guided by priorities of our Strategic Framework, as developed through the leadership of Professor Alexandra Gillespie, who is on a well-deserved research leave.

In 2024, UTM will open our new science building and student services hub – new ways, respectively, to power impactful research and meet our students where they are. We will launch the first year of our climate positive strategy, taking steps needed to go carbon neutral before 2043, and develop our next academic plan, priming five more years of research and teaching success. Our community will advance a new model of academic advising, welcome entrepreneurs to U of T’s first wet lab accelerator for life science innovation, and continue to answer calls to action for truth and reconciliation.

Behind it all is this amazing group of students, faculty, librarians, and staff, who continue to make a positive impact and earn recognition locally and around the world. Part of our impact resonates in U of T’s rankings, including those we earned in the latter half of last year: top public university in North America for graduate employability; second most productive university globally for health science research; most sustainable university on earth. I am grateful to be a part of it – and to be back in this role, since it means I can brag with impunity about our U of T community again.

It also means I get to welcome you to U of T Mississauga in 2024 and join the next six months of amazing opportunities. See you on campus.

Yours truly,

Ian Orchard
Acting Vice-President and Principal
University of Toronto Mississauga