I am very pleased to announce that, at its meeting this afternoon, the Governing Council approved the appointment of Professor Meric Gertler for a second five-year term as President of the University of Toronto from July 1, 2018 until June 30, 2023.

Since February, the Executive Committee of the Governing Council has been engaged in a review, seeking input and advice from governors and from specific groups and individuals within the University of Toronto community and beyond. The dominant theme of the consultations was that President Gertler has had a very successful first term to date, and that he should be re-appointed for a second term. We are grateful that President Gertler has agreed to serve a second term and look forward to continuing to work with him in the coming years.

President Gertler became the University’s 16th president in November 2013. Previously he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, a position he had held since 2008. He is one of the world’s foremost urban theorists and policy practitioners. A graduate of McMaster University (BA), the University of California, Berkeley (MCP), and Harvard University (PhD), President Gertler was awarded an honorary doctorate from Lund University, Sweden, in 2012, and from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, in 2017. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Academy of Social Sciences (UK), and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He received the Award for Scholarly Distinction in Geography from the Canadian Association of Geographers in 2007, and in 2014, and both the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley and the Distinguished Scholarship Honor from the Association of American Geographers (AAG). He was appointed to the Order of Canada in December 2015.

Please join me in congratulating President Gertler.