University of Toronto

The University of Toronto (U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated a mile north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park.
Academically, the University of Toronto is noted for influential movements and curricula in literary criticism and communication theory, where it originated the concepts of "the medium is the message" and "global village". The university's Hart House is an early example of the North American student centre, simultaneously serving cultural, intellectual and recreational interests within its large Gothic-revival complex.

http://www.utoronto.ca/

The university is consistently ranked among the world's best. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2008, the University of Toronto is placed at 24th in the world; The Times Higher Education ranking of 2008 places Toronto at 41st in the world, and in the Newsweek global university ranking of 2006, Toronto ranked 18th in the world, 9th among public universities and 5th among universities outside the United States. The University of Toronto ranked as the nation's top medical-doctoral university in Maclean's magazine for twelve consecutive years between 1994 and 2005.

History

The University of Toronto was founded as King’s College in 1827 and has evolved into a large and complex institution. It now occupies three campuses: Scarborough and Erindale and the historic St. George campus. It has federated with three smaller universities which are on the St. George campus, and is affiliated with several colleges and institutes. There are ten fully affiliated teaching hospitals in metropolitan Toronto. Faculty conduct research in many places in Canada and around the world.

The University is Canada’s most important research institution and has gained an international reputation for its research. It enrols more students, employs more faculty, and offers a greater range of courses than any other Canadian university.

A liberal arts education is the heart of the undergraduate curriculum at Toronto, and the Faculty of Arts and Science has more students than any other faculty. The education of students for the professions has always been an important part of the University’s role, and the University accordingly maintains a wide range of professional faculties. The University’s insistence on the importance of research in all disciplines has made it the major centre for graduate education in Canada. In many fields it produces a majority of the nation’s doctoral candidates. The quality and range of the programs - undergraduate, graduate and professional - attract students from all parts of the province, from around the country and from abroad.

To support its work of teaching and research, the University has collected a library that is the largest in Canada and among the best in the world. The University maintains many laboratories and specialized aids to research. The Library and many of these research facilities are available for use by members of other universities. The University of Toronto Press Inc. is the chief institution of its kind in Canada and one of the most important scholarly publishers in North America.

Library

The University of Toronto Libraries is the fourth-largest academic library system in North America, following those of Harvard, Yale and Berkeley, measured by number of volumes held. The collections include more than 10 million bound volumes, 5.4 million microfilms, 70,000 serial titles and 1 million maps, films, graphics and sound recordings. The largest of the libraries, Robarts Library, holds about five million bound volumes in its fourteen-storey complex, forming the main collection for the humanities and social sciences.

The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library constitutes one of the largest repositories of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts. Its extensive collections range from ancient Egyptian papyri to incunabula and libretti; the subjects of focus include British, European and Canadian literature, Aristotle, Darwin, the Spanish Civil War, the history of science and medicine, Canadiana and the history of the book. Most of the remaining holdings are dispersed at departmental and faculty libraries, in addition to about 1.3 million bound volumes that are held by the colleges. The university has collaborated with the Internet Archive since 2005 to digitalize some of its library holdings.

Reputation

In the Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2008, the University of Toronto is placed at 24th in the world; by academic subject, it ranks 21st in engineering and computer science, 27th in medicine, 34th in natural science and mathematics, 48th in life and agricultural sciences, and 51–76th in social science. The Times Higher Education ranking of 2008 places Toronto at 41st in the world, 9th in natural sciences, 10th in technology, 11th in arts and humanities, 13th in life sciences and biomedicine, and 16th in social sciences. Toronto is one of five universities in the ranking that places within the top 16 in every subject category. In the Newsweek global university ranking of 2006, Toronto ranked 18th in the world, 9th among public universities and 5th among universities outside the United States.

The University of Toronto ranked as the nation's top medical-doctoral university in Maclean's magazine for twelve consecutive years between 1994 and 2005. Since 2006, it has joined 22 other national institutions in withholding data from the magazine, citing continued concerns regarding methodology. The university places second, tied with Queen's University, in the Maclean's ranking of 2008. The Faculty of Law is named the top law school in Canada by Maclean's for the second consecutive year, placing first in elite firm hiring, faculty hiring and faculty citations, second in Supreme Court clerkships and fifth in national reach.

Research

The University of Toronto has been a member of the Association of American Universities, a consortium of leading research universities in North America, since 1926. The university manages by far the largest annual research budget of any university in Canada, with direct-cost expenditures of $749 million in 2006. The federal government was the largest source of funding, with grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council amounting to about one-third of the research budget. About 8 percent of research funding came from corporations, mostly in the health science industry.

Its research achievement:

• developed first electronic heart pacemaker, artificial larynx, single-lung transplant, nerve transplant and artificial pancreas
• isolated gene that allows plants to grow in salt water
• developed the chemical laser
• developed the anti-blackout suit, later adapted to create the astronaut space suit
• created the infant cereal Pablum

Faculties and schools

Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
Faculty of Arts and Science
Faculty of Music
Faculty of Nursing
Faculty of Pharmacy
Faculty of Physical Education and Health Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design
Faculty of Dentistry
Faculty of Forestry
Faculty of Information
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Medicine Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
School of Public Health
School of Public Policy and Governance
Rotman School of Management
Faculty of Social Work
Toronto School of Theology

University of Toronto was ranked 41st in the 2008 THES-QS World University ranking