From the Nominator

On April 26, 2022, Ryerson University became Toronto Metropolitan University, the first post-secondary institution in North America to change its name to address colonialism. The university had spent over 10 years to address the legacy of Egerton Ryerson, the founder of public education in Ontario who is also viewed to have paved the way for Canada’s residential school system. 

In November 2020, the university president launched the Standing Strong Task Force (SSTF) to understand the history and impact of the university’s former namesake. The resulting report in August 2021 made 22 recommendations, including changing the university’s name. Calls for reconciliation reached a fever pitch in summer 2021, when the bodies of hundreds of Indigenous children were discovered at former residential schools.   

From September 2021 to January 2022, supported by SSTF research, communications and marketing (1) developed a microsite to be the source for all SSTF recommendation implementation work, (2) supported the committee for renaming to engage in broad community consultation and (3) worked to inform the community on progress updates.

From January to May 2022, the Marketing Communications team developed a pre-launch communications plan with tactics to educate, inform and build excitement for the new name—without actually knowing the name. When the new name was released, launch efforts led to more than 3,670 media stories with a total potential reach of 1.35B and 50.3K social media engagements. Earned and social media sentiment was largely neutral or positive. These results outperformed targets and we achieved our overarching goal: position the university for the future.

From the Judges

Anti-colonial renaming of a university. This was a big decision for the institution. Excellent process for stakeholder engagement. Good understanding of challenges and opportunities. Good example of how to address a sensitive an emotive topic well. Another great example of issues management tied closely to communication strategy.