Toronto Star: In a historic gesture toward reconciliation, Ryerson University is rebranding itself as Toronto Metropolitan University, cutting its connection to the man considered to have laid the foundations of the residential school system.
The new name came after years of advocacy by staff, students and community members.
In 2021, the school embarked on a renaming process following years of calls for it to drop its name. This also followed a summer of protest by students, advocates and Indigenous leaders, which led to the toppling of Egerton Ryerson’s statue on Gould Street after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at a Kamloops residential school in May last year.
Ryerson, a Methodist minister and superintendent of schools for Upper Canada, was the architect behind the 1847 Ryerson Report, which laid the foundation for residential schools in Canada. The residential school system saw Indigenous children taken from their families in an attempt to assimilate them at government-funded, church-run schools that often abused and starved children and led to thousands of deaths.
Over the past year, more unmarked graves have been identified by authorities across the country, and there have been discussions on how to memorialize these sites.
Last June, 18 Indigenous faculty at the university wrote an open letter that called on the school to change its name. The letter called for “removing the face and name of a symbol of oppression, violence and pain.”
While there is a sense of relief that the Ryerson name is being stripped from the school, some Indigenous faculty and students say the renaming process has been challenging and caused harm to the very groups the name was hurting. “I’m happy the name is getting changed. That’s part of what we wanted,” said Anne Spice, a professor of Indigenous environment knowledges at Toronto Metropolitan. “But the way that this has been done feels really disempowering for the Indigenous people that have been organizing to make this change happen.”
Spice said the school did not consult extensively with Indigenous faculty and students who pushed for a change, and there’s been a lack of transparency about how the name was picked, including what names were on the short list. “The self-congratulatory tone that the university is taking is disturbing to a lot of us who’ve been involved in this work,” she said. “It feels like a brand exercise.”
In an email, the university said it engaged in a three-week-long public survey that polled the entire community on the most “critical elements” of the renaming process. It said the school remains committed to implementing all recommendations from the Standing Strong Task Force.
“The name just really reflects how they are trying to distance themselves and really remarket the university,” Howden said. “They just took it upon themselves to have these conversations behind closed doors, with very particular, curated individuals, to decide.”
The renaming process is occurring amid a reckoning with Canada’s history of colonialism and racism that has brought up discussions of who society should be honouring. Other institutions and organizations like the Toronto District School Board are engaging in renaming processes that have also been mired in concern from community members about ensuring a renaming is done fairly.