The University of Toronto, it seems, is now brought to you by the letter “U.” No longer content with a number one rating in Canada’s prime university propaganda rag, Maclean’s magazine, this university has embarked on a propaganda campaign of its own. Friday’s edition of The Globe and Mail featured a handsome pullout advertisement supplement which doubles as the university’s annual report.
The supplement’s motto is “U of T: the future and you” and its visual key is a massive letter U. President Birgeneau poses cockily before Simcoe Hall and directly beside a massive “U” (in U of T royal blue), new faculty members strike academic poses on and beside another huge “U,” and students (the proverbial U’s themselves) dangle their neophyte legs or smile self-congratulatorily beside and on yet another “U.” Never before in the history of the modern alphabet has one letter come to represent so much to one university. (Perhaps the name of U of T will even one day be changed to U of U.)
This unsolicited endorsement has been brought to you by the colour blue, the number one, and… yes… the letter “U.”
