AS I AM WRITING these lines, I hear familiar sounds in the hallways and outside my office window, sounds we had missed so much during the past academic year: that of students in conversation while rushing to class or to eat in the dining hall; while sitting on the grass in front of the building and in Sir Dan’s quad; or while getting ready to retire to their residence or to leave campus to go home. It is these sounds that we missed most in the dark months of the pandemic, during which the liveliness of study was confined to virtuality. And while the whole institution learned a great deal about the advantages of the digital – and about our ability to keep a university going virtually during various lockdown stages – we always knew that a college, this group of students, faculty, staff, and alumni working together—functions best in person and in physical co-presence.
Students are back, and UC is operating with necessary precautions, but with determination and optimism: our residences are running at 90% capacity, ventilation in classrooms has been updated, and full vaccination is the rule now on campus. Everyone is masked indoors – I myself teach German literature with a face mask in a UC classroom – and the students, like all of us pandemic veterans, are now experts in taking the essential precautions to keep themselves and each other safe in our continuing pandemic conditions.
The halls of UC have awoken, and students have fully reclaimed the campus. One day in September, I walked toward our magnificent vestibule to exit the main doors (more on that very fact below), right behind a group of chatting students. One of them looked up and around and said: “Oh, this is good,” with the tone lingering on the last word, marvelling at our signature architecture, to then continue: “And I had my first in-person class. That was really good.” And then they left through our main doors together and had what I hope and think was a really good late summer evening – responsibly cherishing the most important aspect of student life: socializing as people, and not as tiles on a computer screen.
People say that you only know what you had once it is gone. But I can say with conviction that the newly buzzing life on campus also serves as a reminder that sometimes something has to be returned to you to make you realize how much you missed it. This is good.
The little scene I described to you has another exciting detail: the U of T community can enter and exit the building through the main doors again, after years of renovation! While health regulations don’t yet allow us to celebrate the spaces with the wider community, the interior renovations are complete, and our new award-winning UC Library has opened to U of T students – of course, under clear and strict health regulations. The renovation of our UC quad, the Clark Quadrangle, is in full swing and scheduled to be completed by this winter. From what I have seen, through site visits and just by peeking over the construction zone hoarding from various windows of the College, the result will be a phenomenal multi-functional and accessible space, remaining true to the heritage character of the building, as is the case with all of our renovations. Our revitalization will not end here, of course: The part of the Laidlaw Wing that once housed the UC Library is awaiting its own turn at being reinvented in the service of UC and U of T students. Stay tuned for further updates as this next chapter takes shape.
This issue of the UC Magazine presents – we hope – interesting and exciting stories from all corners of our UC community: the history of a century-spanning “UC family;” information about the esteemed UC alumni who have been elected to our circle of Alumni of Influence; and news about college life and academics, including the founding of a Black Canadian Studies Certificate for U of T students, a profile of our 2021-22 Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor, and an alumnus who is honouring the legacy of his parents’ social justice engagement through a new UC scholarship.
Let me close with words of thanks: The pandemic has asked a lot from every one of us and poses challenges that differ for different people. The crisis has taught me that we can rely on our UC community to lift our students up and also to look out for one another in touching ways. I’d like to ask all of you to continue to be a part in actively building UC, in order to keep the UC experience as unique for our students as it has been for generations.