The University of Toronto Mississauga (commonly known as UTM or Mississauga) is one of the three campuses of the University of Toronto and its second-largest academic division, located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is set upon of protected forest along the valley of the Credit River, approximately 33 kilometres west of the St. George campus in downtown Toronto.
Established in 1967 as Erindale College, a constituent college in the Faculty of Arts and Science, it became its own academic division in 2003 following significant growth in student enrolment. The campus has since expanded to become the University of Toronto's second-largest division overall and its second-largest campus in terms of both student enrolment and land area, the other two of which are the St. George and Scarborough campuses.
The campus hosts more than 180 programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level, offered through 15 academic departments, three institutions, and other University of Toronto divisions, including the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing. The campus mainly provides undergraduate education in arts and science, similar to the Faculty of Arts and Science on the St. George campus, as part of the university's tri-campus structure. It also offers graduate programs, notably in the Mississauga Academy of Medicine, one of the four academies in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine's MD program, and the Institute for Management and Innovation.
Campus history Pre-colonization Before the arrival of European colonizers, the grounds on which the University of Toronto Mississauga stands today were inhabited by Indigenous peoples. The area surrounding the Missinnihe (the "trusting creek"), known today as the Credit River, was covered by a peace agreement between the Anishinaabe and Haudensaunee Confederacy under a Dish With One Spoon treaty. Other groups to use the land included the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and later the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Ownership of the land was transferred from the Mississaugas to the British Crown under Treaty 13A, part of the Toronto Purchase which was finalized in 1805 and remained disputed until a 2010 settlement by the Mississaugas and the Government of Canada.
Erindale College (1967–2003) Following the Second World War and the resulting baby boom, a predicted influx of university-aged applicants led the University of Toronto under president Claude Bissell to develop plans for new constituent colleges which would expand its students capacity. Among these new colleges planned in the late 1950s, two would be at a distance from the university's original campus in Toronto to serve the growing Greater Toronto Area. In 1963, the university purchased a 150-acre area of a village called Springfield-on-the-Credit in the rural Township of Toronto (in what is now the city of Mississauga) and a separate plot of land east of Toronto which would become Scarborough College the same year. The Toronto Township site was mainly farmland and included Lislehurst, part of the estate of Charlotte Schreiber's family which had been sold to businessman Reginald Watkins in 1928.
Erindale College, named after the nearby community of Erindale, was founded on May 23, 1963, shortly after Scarborough College; however, its campus did not welcome its first cohort until four years later in 1967. Erindale and Scarborough colleges were created as part of an expansion of the Faculty of Arts and Science's collegiate system following the establishment of New College in 1962 and Innis College in 1964, and they became the first regional expansions of the University of Toronto since the Ajax Division, which closed more than a decade prior. They were the first and only colleges to establish their campuses at a distance from the original St. George campus. Erindale's first courses leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree were offered in 1965, at Thomas L. Kennedy Secondary School in Toronto Township. David Carlton Williams, who spearheaded the effort to establish the new campuses outside of Toronto, was appointed as Erindale's first principal. The college's first dean was John Colman. Williams asked chemistry professor E. A. (Peter) Robinson to be the college's first associate dean, a role which he began in 1966. Robinson later went on to become dean of Erindale and its third principal. Construction of a temporary academic building began in 1966, later known as the North Building. The site was officially opened as Erindale College in September 1967 to an inaugural class of 155 students.
During this time, Erindale operated under academic direction of the Faculty of Arts and Science as "the U. of T.'s western off-campus college." In 1969, the college hosted the first showcase of Moon rock samples in Canada. In 1970, it saw its first graduating class, which consisted of 70 students. Architect and University of Toronto professor John Andrews was commissioned to create the original Campus Master Plan after his work at Scarborough, however the project was taken over by Raymond Moriyama, who envisioned one "central mega-structure" atop the Credit River Valley that would preserve the surrounding natural environment. Construction on the first portion of the South Building (later renamed the William G. Davis Building) was completed in 1971, called the Research Wing and later named in honour of Erindale's second principal, John Tuzo Wilson. The final part of the South Building was completed in 1973. In 1975, Erindale College became the first college of the University of Toronto to be granted its own official coat of arms; it displayed the Latin motto tantum nobis creditum, meaning "so much has been entrusted to us."
The period that followed the opening of the South Building saw Erindale College maintain a slow and steady growth. In 1981, the campus hosted the annual Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) conference, the first time it was held outside of the United States. In 1992, the Kaneff Centre was opened, named after benefactor Ignat Kaneff. In 1998, Erindale College became known as the University of Toronto at Mississauga, while retaining the Erindale name officially. It's Student Centre was opened in 1999, serving as the headquarters of the Erindale College Student Union, The Medium newspaper, and various student clubs and societies.
Modern history The campus took its current form as an academic division of the University of Toronto in the 2003–2004 year, becoming a faculty separate from the Faculty of Arts and Science. The position of its dean was formally instated and the campus formed new academic departments under its new structure. The role of the campus principal, held at the time by biology professor Ian Orchard, was expanded to now include vice-presidential responsibilities of the University of Toronto. The turn of the century saw substantial growth in its student population, and the campus underwent an expansion with the addition of several large academic buildings, including the Communication, Culture and Technology (CCT) building in 2004, and the Recreation, Athletics and Wellness Centre (RAWC) in 2006. New residence halls Erindale Hall and Oscar Peterson Hall were completed in 2003 and 2007 respectively. In 2007, the campus officially adopted its present name, the University of Toronto Mississauga. That same year, the university acquired the nearby Old Erindale Public School (now known as Alumni House) and the campus celebrated its 40th anniversary, a milestone which was capped off with the grand opening of the Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre the new campus library building on June 2, 2007.
The 2010s saw the campus grow by approximately 1,000 students every year. More buildings were under construction to accommodate the student population, and older ones such as the South Building (renamed the William G. Davis Building) saw major renovations to modernize the spaces. New buildings were designed to be modern, both in appearance and their prioritization of sustainability with the goal of meeting LEED certification in all new campus structures. These included the Instructional Centre and Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex in 2011. The Mississauga Academy of Medicine (MAM) opened in 2011 with a class of 54 students. It was created as a clinical partnership between the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the three hospitals of the Trillium Health Partners system to expand the university's MD Program to the Mississauga campus.
2014 saw a $35 million expansion of the Kaneff Centre known as the Innovation Complex, which coincided with the establishment of the Institute for Management and Innovation (IMI), an academic unit which provides interdisciplinary graduate programs including a Master of Management and Professional Accounting (MMPA) degree.
In April of that year, the UTM Eagles started a varsity sports program becoming the 30th member of the Ontario College Athletic Association (OCAA). Sports offered included badminton, cross country, and men's and women's indoor soccer.
Also during this time, plans were developed to replace the aging North Building, which had lasted since the campus opened in 1967 despite its original intention of being temporary. The building was demolished in two stages and partially replaced by Deerfield Hall as the first phase of reconstruction. The remaining North Building was fully removed by 2015, with some of its materials repurposed to build phase two, dubbed the New North Building: a large, modern, six-storey structure in its place. In 2017, the campus celebrated its 50th anniversary, a milestone that coincided with Canada's sesquicentennial. Phase two of the North Building reconstruction was finished in 2018 and officially named Maanjiwe nendamowinan (an Anishinaabemowin term meaning "gathering of minds") in 2019 following input from the campus community and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
The Eagles varsity program stopped competing in 2020 during a temporary suspension of OCAA athletics due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the program did not return once the OCAA resumed competition. The program formally ceased operations following the 2021–22 academic year.
In 2022, the Amazon Prime Video television series Gen V filmed its first season, with production mainly taking place at the University of Toronto Mississauga and the Greater Toronto Area. Gen V returned to the campus to film its second season in 2024.
In September 2026, the University of Toronto's Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing expanded its undergraduate nursing program with its first cohort at the Mississauga campus. The same year, the first new student residence on campus since Oscar Peterson Hall opened, comprising six-stories and 400 beds.
Location
The campus is an enclave of Erin Mills, a neighbourhood in west Mississauga, but considered a special purpose character area and not part of any neighbourhood. It is located between Erin Mills and Erindale on 225 acres of protected forest at the west bank of the Credit River. It is the second-largest University of Toronto campus in terms of land area. The area is roughly bounded by Mississauga Road to the southwest, Dundas Street to the southeast, Burnhamthorpe Road to the northwest and the Credit River to the northeast. The nearby suburban neighbourhood, the Mississauga Road area and the Credit Woodlands, is a fairly affluent section of the city.
In 2013, $1 million was spent on constructing a large stone monument at the entrance way to the campus, along with general repairs to nearby sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, lighting, and electrical equipment. The stone monument became the centre of a controversy, with an almost universally negative reaction from students due to what was seen as excessive expenditure and lack of student involvement in the approval process, though the university said that a student was on the committee that approved the project.