During the February of 2018, with the construction of the north building’s second phase underway, a committee called the North2 Naming Committee was created to facilitate name suggestions from the UTM community.
The North2 Naming Committee, consisting of UTM students, staff, faculty and an alumnus, sent out an announcement about their “Name the Building” initiative to invite all the members of the UTM community to participate. From the suggestions submitted, the committee then recommended several to UTM Vice-President & Principal Ulrich Krull for consideration and administration through the U of T governance.
In an interview with The Medium, UTM’s Chief Administrative Officer Saher Fazilat stressed that “the ‘Name the Building’ initiative was not a contest, but rather an invitation to our community members to solicit names that would then be considered by the committee.”
The ‘Name the Building’ initiative closed its submission window on February 25th, 2018 with approximately 700 submitted suggestions from the community.
“The greatest number of suggestions related to nature”, Fazilat told The Medium, “names in recognition of people both current and historical, and names of an Indigenous nature.”
Intrigued by the latter, the North2 Naming Committee has “unanimously recommended that an Indigenous name be considered for the new building.” Its naming strategy was later approved by VP-Principal Krull.
“At this point, UTM will be engaging in consultations with our indigenous community to arrive at an appropriate name”, continued Fazilat. “This thoughtful process requires more time, and it will likely be several more months before we are able to submit possible indigenous name recommendations to VP-Principal Krull. The final decision on a name is approved through U of T governance.”
Currently, UTM’s newest north building, home to the Departments of English & Drama, Philosophy, Historical Studies, Language Studies, Political Science and Sociology, is temporarily being called “new North” by UTM administration until a name can be finalized.
