On Thursday, March 31, the chair and vice-chair of the University Renaming Advisory Committee provided an update on the renaming process and answered questions submitted by community members.
If you missed the video stream, or want to view it again, the full video recording can be found above.
Don’t have time to watch? Here are some key points you should know:
- Over 30,000 individuals provided feedback during the community engagement survey and in total, over 2,200 unique names for the university were submitted for consideration.
- Based on what the University Renaming Advisory Committee heard from the community, they have made the decision to focus on place and concept names, and will not put forward a name in honour of an individual in their shortlist.
- The University Renaming Advisory Committee is not selecting the final name. Their ultimate responsibility is to provide President Lachemi with a shortlist of recommended names with rationales for his consideration by the end of this term. A single name from the list will then be recommended to the Board of Governors for approval.
- To help ensure the shortlist includes names that represent and unify our diverse community, the committee is following best practices, professional guidelines and community informed parameters when considering name ideas. Some of the filters through which they are assessing suggested names are:
- Does the name represent a diversity of perspectives?
- Does it fit within post-secondary sector practices?
- Does it align with the university’s Strategic Vision?
- Is it legally available and ownable?
- Does it pass cross-cultural and global linguistics checks?
- Can it be abbreviated to an acceptable acronym?
- Are the domain name and social media elements ownable?
- Once a new name is chosen, the transition to the new name will happen in phases. While it is expected that the new name of the university will be announced by the end of the winter term, the legal name of the university cannot change until the PDF fileRyerson University Act is amended by the Provincial Government (a timeline that is out of the university’s control).
Once the amendment is made, all legal documents, including degrees, student records and contracts will use the new name. Until that time, Ryerson University will continue to be the legal name of the university. That said, the university can start using the new name in some applications more immediately – so the community will start seeing the new name in places such as the website, social media pages, and some signage around campus soon after the new name is announced.
All this and more is covered in the video, further information and ongoing updates on the renaming can always be found on the Next Chapter Website.
