Toronto Metropolitan University Libraries has received a $140,000 gift from Ryerson Centre, a charitable foundation operating within the Toronto Metropolitan University Community since 1953, to support the preservation and cataloguing of archival materials related to the Centre, campus student groups, and university community organizations.
“For 70 years, our organization has been dedicated to fostering activities that support students, staff, faculty, alumni, and the broader community—both on and off campus,” said Michael Walton, Urban and Regional Planning alumnus, Ryerson Centre president, and 1971-72 students’ union president. “This gift ensures that our rich history and contributions will be preserved for future generations.”
The aim of the donation is to preserve past records of the university’s student governing bodies, groups and communities, and to demonstrate the importance of continuing to archive student organizational activities and records to maintain legacies, voices, and narratives on an ongoing basis.
“This generous donation not only provides welcome support for the university’s archives, but it also allows us to acknowledge the significant legacy of Ryerson Centre,” says Joanna Beyersbergen, director of development, TMU Libraries. “This organization has played a vital role in the evolution of the university and its student body. TMU Libraries is pleased to help tell this story.”
The gift specifically supports three areas. Firstly, it provides the Archives with designated funding to create a one-year project archivist position focused on organizing uncatalogued or under-catalogued archives of the Centre, campus community organizations, and students’ unions and groups.
Campus community partnership positions will also be developed giving students opportunities to work with the Archives and project archivist to further build relationships with present campus community organizations, and student unions and groups, encouraging them to contribute their records and narratives to the Archives.
Lastly, the donation will support an annual award for a student research paper. The paper will centre around the use of archival research on a topic related to the University’s campus community organizations, student unions and groups. The award will be given out each year, over a five year period.
The final papers will become part of the Archives’s outreach activities to educate campus communities and students about the importance and value of archiving records to preserve legacies.
The generous donation provides an opportunity to acknowledge archival gaps related to campus community organizations, student unions and groups, and to take vital steps to remedy those gaps. “The Ryerson Centre donation will allow the Archives to enhance access to our collections, raise awareness about the importance of the archives, and help us preserve and amplify underrepresented voices in archives such as student voices,” says Tanis Franco, archivist, Archives and Special Collections, TMU Libraries. “This interesting and colourful history will no doubt be a source of research for years to come,”
Throughout the project, the Archives will conduct workshops and seminars using the Archives for research and storytelling. “One area of interest we often get asked about is on student history and activism on campus,” notes Franco. “The Ryerson Centre material will no doubt illuminate this history and provide us with ample opportunities for research and archival workshop activities.”
The underlying goal for this donation and collection is to build and maintain relationships among university community organizations, student groups and the Archives, and to continue growing archival collections related to these entities that provide students and faculty access to their important history.
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