September 24, 2024
THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880
Vol. CXLV, No. 4
U OF T PRESIDENT MERIC GERTLER SITS DOWN WITH THE VARSITY FOR THE LAST TIME
Gertler on divestment decisions, transparency, freedom of speech
Jessie Schwalb Business & Labour Governance Correspondent
Content warning: This article discusses incidents of Islamophobia, gender-based violence, voyeurism, and mentions of Nazism. June 30, 2025 will be Meric Gertler’s last day as president of U of T — marking the end of nearly 12 years of leadership. On September 16, The Varsity sat down with Gertler to discuss a year marked by student protests against the university’s investments, mourning for victims of Israeli bombings in Gaza, at least eight reported voyeurism incidents at New College, and budget challenges tied to the ongoing domestic tuition freeze and rising costs. The Varsity: U of T now ranks as a top public university, but at the same time, a lot of people on campus seem more discontented with the university administration than ever. Why do you think that disconnect between the public rankings and U of T community viewpoints exists and what can the administration do to heal those rifts? Meric Gertler: I actually don’t accept your premise that more people are unhappy with the administration than ever. Universities are places that, by definition, attract people from a variety of different backgrounds who are passionate about the disciplines that they’re studying and about the world around them. And that world is more challenging and stressful these days. I think what we’re seeing is people in our community expressing that anxiety in a variety of ways. I also believe that the pandemic has had an impact on people’s well being, and on their ability — or lack thereof — to interact with one another in a civil and respectful way.
MG: What I have learned through experience is that if you try to rush these consultative exercises and go a little too quickly, you’re likely to run into bigger problems where people will feel like they haven’t had adequate opportunity to be heard. Yes, they can take time, but I think what one has to remain focused on is the quality of the recommendations that come out of the process, and the extent to which the community is willing to embrace those recommendations. You’ll never achieve complete unanimity or consensus but in my experience, as long as people regard the process as being sufficiently open and [feel they have had] an opportunity to weigh in fairly, they’ll be okay with the results and recommendations implemented. TV: I do want to speak about the steps from these groups’ recommendations to implementation. In 2014, you appointed an advisory committee to look into whether U of T should divest its financial holdings from fossil fuels. In 2016, you rejected that committee’s recommendation that U of T divest, but you reversed course six years later in 2021. Can you walk us through how divestment decisions are made at the presidential level?
MG: I would describe that process a little bit differently. That advisory committee deliberated extensively, sought extensive consultation, and wrote a very thoughtful document which made the case for why university action in this space was quite important and urgent. They did recommend a specific form of divestment — it was not wholesale divestment, and it had a number of specific tests associated with it. I was aligned with the spirit of their recommendations that the university take some action, but I didn’t actually think that their recommendations would move us far enough, fast enough. We calculated that, had the university simply divested from investments it held directly or indirectly in fossil fuel companies, it might have reduced the carbon footprint of our portfolio by about 13 per cent. Instead, we embraced a different approach where we applied an Environmental, Social, and Governance framework to all of our investments. In a few years, University of Toronto Assets Management (UTAM) was able to reduce the carbon footprint of our portfolio by 39 per cent: three times larger than what would have happened had we simply divested from fossil fuels with the passage of time. Simultaneously, third-party fund
TV: Some have criticized U of T for addressing issues, from Islamophobia to fossil fuel divestment, through processes like task forces and working groups that can take years. How could U of T speed up some of those processes, and do you think it should?
managers began coming forward and offering new investment vehicles that were similar to their existing funds but eliminating fossil fuel investments. By 2021, when we were doing our annual assessment of our progress, we thought that the time was right to implement a divestment strategy. TV: Speaking of UTAM, the university has come under fire from some groups for a lack of transparency. Earlier in the year, Chief Financial Officer Trevor Rodgers told us that U of T is open to engaging with its investment managers to increase transparency, but we haven’t really seen any action since then. We have [also] noticed that there’s been a lack of transparency specifically for the student press, where The Varsity was barred from attending a press conference that you held during the encampment. What steps can the university take to increase transparency, both for students generally and specifically for the student press? MG: Transparency is important, and we are committed to increasing it. Currently, UTAM reports the names of the third-party managers it works with [but] doesn’t identify the funds or their contents. The barriers are that the contents of those funds change frequently and that, when UTAM signs on with these third-party fund managers, they sign investment agreements that usually have confidentiality clauses in them. Having said that, the school has begun a conversation with third-party fund managers through UTAM to explore ways in which it could reveal more about the investments that it holds. We’re also looking at what other Canadian universities are doing, particularly those that have an investment approach that is similar to ours. You can expect to see more developments in that space within this current academic year. With regard to The Varsity and student media, our goal certainly is to achieve a reasonable level of transparency as much as possible, and I regret if there have been any incursions on that in the past.
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