Goin' Downtown! Ryerson University:

Having missed my connection , whom I was to meet at a Starbucks at Ryerson ( it turns out there are a dozen and his phone was off), I figured I would walk through the campus myself. It was a revelation. While the U of T St George (main) campus is certainly urban, it is its own island in the midst of the city. Ryerson, on the otherhand is woven right into the of retail and business in the heart of the downtown action. While it was orgtinally a church based college, it has assimilated several blocks of the downtown core. It is part of the core.

basic student union building fare...

As Providence would have it I fell in with a campus tour. Andrew,  our guide, walked us through the various buildings and sections of the campus. As it turns out, with space at a premium, the various faculties all share lecture space. Students will most likely have one three hour lecture per course per week and then do their various projects and homework in the rest of the time.

Tour Guide Andrew and my BFFH ( Best Friends For an Hour)

When we walked into the Architecture Building, I originally thought it was a display of ironic humour. It was bare and ugly. Not unlike the Brutalist architecture on some other buildings on various campuses. However, it turns out that this is intentional. The idea is to have everything stripped and open so the students can “see” what has gone into the construction of the building. It does make sense.

Architectural Bldg

The tour nears the end...

Ryerson is located on the edge of the middle of what I have dubbed the Commercial Power Corridor. Dundas/Bay/Yonge. 



Dundas and Yonge ( corner of Ryerson)

Note the Ted Rogers School of Mgmt – connected with the Eaton's Centre and bordering Bay Street. In Canadian commerce this place rocks. And Ryerson is right in of the action.

from 100m to the west .. The Eatons Centre/ Ryerson-Rogers School of Mgmt.

Rogers/Ryerson - on the corner of Bay and Dundas

Incidentally, Ryerson is named after Egerton Ryerson, one of Canada's outstanding evangelical Christians ( in fact, a truly outstanding Canadian!) - considered the father of Canadian public education - an all around Rennaissance Man.

Egerton Ryerson

Here is some basic information about Ryerson from Wikipedia - a decent summary.

Ryerson University is a public university located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its urban campus is adjacent to Yonge-Dundas Square located at the busiest intersection in Downtown Toronto. The majority of its buildings are in the blocks northeast of the square in Toronto's Garden District. Ryerson's business school, Ted Rogers School of Management is on the southwest end of the Yonge-Dundas Square, located on Bay Street, slightly north of Toronto's Financial District and is attached to the Toronto Eaton Centre. The university is composed of 31,000 undergraduate students, 2,170 graduate students, and 65,400 certificate and continuing education students.^[4]

In June 2001, the school assumed its present name as Ryerson University. Today, Ryerson University offers programs in chemical, civil, mechanical, industrial, electrical and computer engineering. The university is also one of only two Ontario universities to offer a program in aerospace engineering. Ryerson offers the only stand-alone biomedical engineering program in all of Canada.

For what it is worth; Numbers like these would place Ryerson as one of Canada's largest universities. With its multicultural dynamic and strategic placement,  it also has the potential to be one of its most influential. We are looking forward to seeing what God is going to do here...