Defy Gravity: The Campaign for the University of Toronto
With the support of our alumni, the Faculty of Information is preparing students to meet the information challenges of the 21st century. The Defy Gravity campaign supports Faculties as they raise the funds necessary to meet their highest priorities. Gifts go toward endowing student aid, ensuring faculty excellence, supporting new program initiatives, and meeting capital project objectives.
The Defy Gravity campaign will enhance the Faculty of Information’s ability to attract top students and faculty as well as strengthen our ability to offer innovative programs and provide an outstanding teaching, learning and research environment.
For information, please email advancement.
The Faculty of Information is part of the University of Toronto’s Defy Gravity campaign, the most ambitious campaign in Canadian history.
Our goal is to raise $10 million and inspire 2,500 members of our alumni community to get involved as volunteers, mentors, donors, participants and leaders.
Defy Gravity Campaign Priorities
Bissell Building Revitalization
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
- OLA/Grace Buller Indigenous Student Scholarship
- Grant for Black or Indigenous Students
- Lynne C. Howarth Award
- John Smart Memorial Scholarship for Social Justice and Democracy
Student Success and Support
- Scholarships, bursaries, awards and fellowships, internships
Teaching and Research Excellence
- Chairs and Professorships (endowed or term)
Community Engagement and Partnerships
- GLAM Incubator
Giving to the Faculty of Information
A full list of giving opportunities, including featured funds and specific areas, can be found on the Faculty of Information giving page where you can donate online at your convenience.
You can donate by phone or by email, as detailed on the University’s “Ways to Give” page. This page also provides information on many other topics including how to make a legacy donation, get donations matched and claim a tax receipt.
See the names of alumni, friends, faculty, staff, foundations and corporations who have generously donated to the Faculty of Information.
If you are considering a donation of any kind, please feel free to contact our Advancement team at advancement.
Giving in Action
The parallel lives of an alumni couple
For John and Elizabeth Warrener, library school was a direct path to careers they loved. Now, they’re giving back to their alma mater, the Faculty of Information When John and Elizabeth Warrener first met as teenagers at North Toronto Collegiate Institute, neither was planning on becoming a librarian and they weren’t yet a couple. All that changed in the decade after they left high school. They began dating, enrolled […]
Legacy of learning
Family members honour former dean, Ann Schabas, with generous gift to the Faculty of Information The Schabas family has a long, proud history at the University of Toronto, where the late Ann Schabas, a woman who was quietly ahead of her time, served as Dean of the Faculty of Information from 1984 to 1990. Now, […]
New scholarship supports BI students interested in public service
If the Bachelor of Information (BI) program had existed when Karla Weys was beginning her university studies back in the eighties, she is certain she would have applied. And now, with the benefit of hindsight and a long successful career working in government, Weys thinks a bachelor’s program in her field is more important than […]
Teaching Award honours late Dean and Professor, Brian Cantwell Smith
An anonymous donor has funded a new award to publicly and formally recognize teaching excellence at the Faculty of Information. In honour of the late Dean and Professor Brian Cantwell Smith, the award embodies the Faculty’s commitment to maintaining and building the best possible learning experience for students. Smith’s course, “Minds and Machines,” inspired many […]