The November 27 Business Board meeting focused on brands — both U of T’s and Canada’s more broadly. 

Vice-President (VP) Communications Christine Szustaczek walked Board members through how U of T became the most visible public university in the world, according to the 2024 Global University Visibility Rankings, due to its methods for “reputation management.” 

However, university administrators told the board that federal immigration policies have framed Canada as less open to international students. Alongside financial hits from U of T enrolling fewer international students, U of T’s investments underperformed this year. 

Administrators also presented ways that the university hopes to bolster its budget — including seizing opportunities in the wake of the 2024 US elections and expanding the housing and academic programs it offers. 

The meeting was closed off to the general public in-person in-person due to security concerns about a potential protest.

Canada’s brand problems

According to VP Operations and Real Estate Partnerships Scott Mabury, Canada is experiencing brand problems.

After announcing in January that it would cut international student study permits by 35 per cent, Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced another 10 per cent cut in September. That same month, the government also tightened restrictions on post-graduation work permits. On November 8, Canada abruptly ended the Student Direct Stream that fast-tracked visa applications for students from 13 countries — including India, China, Pakistan, and the Philippines. 

According to Mabury, government officials have told U of T that they hope these policies will target colleges, not universities. However, the changes “are not helpful with the perception of Canada being open for international students.”

Due to changing perceptions, U of T’s international enrolment fell six per cent below target — resulting in a $62 million decrease in the university’s budget, according to Mabury’s calculations. U of T offset this loss by enrolling more domestic students, retaining more students overall, and increasing summer enrolment, leaving the university only $30 million below budget. However, the effects of the government’s tightened restrictions on international students will carry into the next few years, as the class of 2028 works its way through the university. 

U of T President Meric Gertler continues to visit countries including India, Singapore, and Hong Kong, generating publicity that can drum up international student enrolment. Mabury suggested that recent election results in the US might allow the U of T to pick up international students dissuaded from attending institutions in the US. “What happened south of the border — that’s an opportunity,” he told the board. 

U of T and the province also continue to negotiate a new strategic mandate agreement that the university hopes will provide it with more funding in light of the increasing numbers of Ontario high school graduates, according to Mabury. To capitalize on the provincial government’s focus on STEM in this round of the agreement negotiations, U of T proposed adding 5,500 funded slots for STEM students across the three campuses. 

Mabury also hinted that the university has room to increase productivity, and described the university as “10 years behind” technologically speaking. U of T also hopes to bring in more money by offering microcredentials and plans to “go to the market with a very major housing initiative” on December 6.

U of T’s brand upkeep

Szustaczek’s annual report gave a glimpse into how the university maintains its “brand.” 

During the fiscal year from May 2023 to April 2024, U of T secured more than 3.2 million views of its web pages and the number one spot in the 2024 Global University Visibility Rankings among public institutions. The communications department won multiple awards from business communications associations, such as the International Association of Business Communicators — which the report describes as “the standard of excellence” in the communications industry.

Communications plans its marketing so that it releases ads in the period when academics complete surveys that magazines such as The Times use to rank universities. “There’s a very strategic intent to that work,” Szustaczek told the board. In 2024, the university ranked 21st in the Times Higher Education rankings.

Global news mentioned U of T more than 310,000 times this past fiscal year, with 92 per cent of coverage classified as “positive or neutral.” However, these numbers don’t reflect news coverage during and after this summer’s pro-Palestine encampment in King’s College Circle. The report acknowledges “notable unfavourable themes” such as on-campus protests as well as international student enrollment and housing. 

The department’s “reputation management” efforts include reading any news coverage and notifying newspapers if they make factual errors, along with “monitoring online conversations” to address problems before they gain traction. The Varsity was able to independently verify this.

Communications sends documents to “communicators” across the university “to create institutional alignment and coherence on timely issues-related topics, including the Israel-Hamas war,” according to the report. It also helped craft the Memo on Institutional, Divisional, and Departmental Statements that U of T released in April. The memo acknowledges discontent with some of U of T’s official statements and states that U of T should only release statements “in which the mission of the University and its most fundamental values are being challenged.” The memo reads, “The University’s role is… not to act as an arbiter among competing positions.” 

UTAM’s recent losses

Chuck O’Reilly — president and chief investment officer for the University of Toronto Asset Management (UTAM) corporation — gave his semi-annual report. The report showed that U of T’s investments in its Long-Term Capital Appreciation Pool — which consists of the university’s endowed trust funds and a few other funds of a permanent or long-term nature — were 1.3 per cent below target in the past year, despite consistently remaining above target in the past decade.

Since fall 2023, the market has performed well with major indexes, such as the S&P 500 which returned 23 per cent, according to O’Reilly. However, he explained that U of T didn’t fully cash in on these gains because the university’s policies require that UTAM diversify its portfolios, and “it’s really just a handful of really big companies that have performed extremely well over this period.”

Instead of comparing to the market as a whole, UTAM assesses its active management style — where it relies on managers to change up U of T’s investments in response to market trends — by placing some of its money in a diversified portfolio and comparing the two investment portfolios. Even after accounting for UTAM’s costs, active management increased U of T’s returns in its Long-Term Capital Appreciation Pool by $350.8 million over the past 10 years, compared to the reference portfolio.

U of T’s targets for returns will be “more challenging” to meet in future years, in part due to rising inflation. O’Reilly also said he’s currently talking with administrators about how to reduce interest rate risk in order to protect the university budget. 

Mabury introduced a large program where the university would take on debt to address its maintenance backlog — the building updates that the university has put off because it lacks funds. The value of these updates ballooned to $1.2 billion in 2023. The administration hopes to bring the program to the Business Board for approval in January.

Behind closed doors

In the minutes before the meeting began, multiple campus safety officers stood outside Simcoe Hall to vet those trying to enter. One Campus Safety officer told The Varsity that U of T had posted additional security because it expected a possible protest. On November 21, the student activist group Occupy for Palestine held a protest outside of Simcoe Hall and confronted those attending that day’s University Affairs Board meeting. 

In an email to The Varsity, a spokesperson for the university wrote, “Open sessions of governance meetings are accessible to the public via in-person attendance and livestream. In the event access to a building where a governance meeting is taking place is restricted, only members, registered guests and credentialed media are permitted to attend in person; all others are welcome to watch online.”