Welcome to the winter session at York University. We just completed an incredibly successful fall term and I am looking forward to what 2012 will bring.

In September, we opened the newly-renovated Osgoode Hall Law School, one of the many highlights of 2011.

Also in September, four York professors: Pat Armstrong, Isabella Bakker, Rishma Dunlop and Bernard Lightman, were named as Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, the highest honour a scholar can achieve in the arts, humanities and sciences.

In October, we received a $25 million dollar transformative donation from Pierre Lassonde, chairman of Franco-Nevada Corporation, for an expanded engineering school. This was in addition to the $50 million we received from the provincial government in June. The project, one of the largest expansions in the University’s history, will redefine engineering for the 21st century.

In November, our university was a sea of red and white as students, faculty and staff celebrated Spirit Day. It was a great day as members of our community showed the world how great York is by wearing red, white, and York gear.

And we finished November with a successful United Way campaign, which saw the University increase the number of donors by almost 80 per cent.

Finally, in December, HSBC Bank Canada donated $1 million to support undergraduate students in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.

If you would like to learn more about our many successes from this past year, please read my annual report.

We had a great fall term, and I can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring. I hope to see you around our campuses.

Sincerely,

Mamdouh Shoukri
President and Vice-Chancellor