What’s your story?

If you attended the University of Toronto, we want to hear from you!

What are your accomplishments? Do you spend hours volunteering for a health charity or as a little league coach? Have you published a novel or helped develop a research breakthrough? Have you created jobs as the CEO of a major company or are you working to create the next big social innovation? 

Starting today, U of T is launching its first-ever online Alumni Impact Survey. It's believed to be the largest university survey of its kind ever conducted by a Canadian university.

The voluntary survey, which takes about 15 minutes to complete, is designed to capture the social, economic, cultural and artistic impacts of U of T’s 500,000 alumni on a local, regional and global scale.

Harvard, Stanford and MIT – which like U of T are regularly named among the top universities in the world – have all recently conducted similar alumni surveys.

For example, Harvard found its alumni volunteered 1.6 million hours every month and had helped create more than 146,000 companies and non-profits worldwide.

What will be U of T’s story? And how do your accomplishments fit into that overall picture?

“We know the individual stories of many of our former students, [but] we know very little about how our alumni collectively are contributing to their communities,” explains U of T President Meric Gertler.

“It’s our hope that by creating a clear picture of the scope and scale of our alumni’s activities, we will better understand the impact of the entire University of Toronto community in the Toronto region, Canada and the world.”

The U of T Alumni Impact Survey is first and foremost an academic undertaking, says the president. The survey project was reviewed by the Research Ethics Board. Analysis will be rigorous and results will be shared publicly in late 2017.

Leading efforts is economic geographer Shiri M. Breznitz, an expert on the economic and innovative impacts of universities. She is the author of The Fountain of Knowledge and an associate professor at U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

Joining her is Professor Vivek Goel of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and U of T’s vice-president of research & innovation. 

The survey will create an evidence-based understanding of alumni careers and experiences by asking specific questions about employment, professional activities and civic engagement. It asks whether alumni have started a company, published a book or spent time volunteering. There is also space for alumni to share other unique impacts not included in the survey.  

Survey invitations will be emailed to alumni on a rolling basis until April 26 by R.A. Malatest and Associates, Ltd., which is conducting the survey on behalf of the University of Toronto.

Each email contains a unique code for the alumnus to access the survey. If you don’t receive an invitation, visit the survey site. For more information on how the results will be used and your privacy respected, please visit the FAQ section.

The survey will close on June 26.