Frequently Asked Questions
We want our community to understand why we’re asking you to complete our Diversity Self-ID, as well as how we've developed our process and what we plan to do with the information. We've collected a list of common questions below and encourage you to review each.
Have a question that's not listed here? Check out our contact information below.
At TMU, we believe that understanding the diversity of our university community and our city makes us a better university. It is critical to TMU's success to remove barriers and promote the inclusion of all TMU members, including those from equity deserving groups.
Your information will help us understand where we are now, and what progress we have made, so we can set realistic equity, diversity and inclusion goals and continue to measure our progress.
Aggregated data will be used to inform equity, diversity and inclusion goals, develop action plans, and monitor progress.
Read more about how your data is collected and used on our privacy and confidentiality page.
No. We consider it an important first step towards equity and inclusion to know who is part of our university community and who isn't here. If we don't know what the gaps are, we can't fix them.
These groups have been identified as ones that continue to face systemic barriers to a university education. While students who are first in their families to attend university and those with limited financial means may also face barriers, higher education institutions tend to be already aware of the research on this and have taken steps to address the issues. The diversity self-id data helps to develop a better and more nuanced understanding of these barriers as they impact students who identify in these six groups. In addtiion, programs and services that were developed in the past for a privileged few are not always welcoming or inclusive of people from underrepresented groups, who often have different perspectives, experiences and ways of understanding the world. There are structural barriers and biases in our current system that can prevent students from these groups from achieving their potential, and research indicates that if changes are made to address the concerns of one disadvantaged group it usually results in a more equitable environment for everyone.
This doesn't mean that individuals with identities related to religion, ethnic origin, first language, immigration status, etc. don’t experience discrimination and harassment. Toronto Metropolitan University has many services available to support all students, including Human Rights Services.
Your contribution helps us gain a fuller picture. We still want and need to know who is here. Your answer definitely still matters to us because you are part of the Toronto Metropolitan University student body. A diverse student body has been shown to enhance learning for all students.
It would be great if that were true. However, some people have advantages and some people have disadvantages. It is like a video game where some players get more and better tools with fewer and easier obstacles, and some players get less and weaker tools with more difficulty and a greater number of obstacles. If both players can get the same number of points for completing the same tasks, then the player with the better tools, and fewer and easier obstacles, is more likely to get a higher score. That doesn't mean, however, that they are a better player.
If university admission is comparable to getting a high score, then students with fewer resources and more obstacles are disadvantaged and their academic ability may not be fully recognized.
Most scholarships, student awards and programs providing financial support are available to any student who needs it and/or are based on academic performance and criteria other than being part of an equity-deserving group.
A small number of scholarships and awards are established to help address the disadvantages some students have in accessing education. This is because of a long history of discrimination, ongoing barriers, stereotypes and biases. For example, because of past and ongoing discrimination there are many Indigenous Peoples who may be the first in their families to discover pathways to university. Therefore, there are specific scholarships and awards to help provide financial support for Indigenous students to be able to attend university. Contrary to the common misconception, Indigenous students do not get a free university education.
We are all individuals, so it is always challenging to see ourselves as part of larger groups, especially when they are defined by someone else. For this reason, we give you the option of specifying an identity in addition to the categories listed.
If we are going to know who is here and who is missing at Toronto Metropolitan University, based on specific characteristics, we need to be able to identify people based on broad groups. And we want to be able to use available information to compare with who is in the community, such as the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario and Canada. Most of the external community information comes from Statistics Canada, through the Census or other surveys. That is why, for the most part, we use the Statistics Canada terminology.
We know that these categories reflect many diverse identities and that students do not necessarily apply the terminology in the questionnaire to identify themselves. For example, Statistics Canada uses Black people as a category, so that determines our terminology in the Self-ID. However, we realize that this is not a homogenous group and many students would identify as Afro-Caribbean or African-Canadian rather than Black. Not all Indigenous students identify as Indigenous Peoples and not all students with disabilities identify with the same labels.
You will be able to select from the categories provided AND indicate how you prefer to identify.
As difficult as it might be to group people in this way, we cannot assess our equity, diversity and inclusion progress without doing so. It's important to note that we are not asking you to consider if you identify in these groups for any other purpose, or to label yourself with this terminology.
Terminology is fluid and we are always open to suggestions for changes and would like to keep the conversation going about these matters.
The Student Diversity Self-ID survey supports the priorities of the TMU Academic Plan. The priorities include:
- Enable greater student engagement and success through exceptional experiences
- Increase SRC (Scholarly Research and Creative Activity) excellence, intensity and impact
- Foster an innovation ecosystem
- Expand community engagement and city building
We know that some groups have been historically and persistently under-represented in higher education generally or in specific programs, such as women in the Science, Technology, Education and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Providing equitable opportunities to access a university education is an important goal for the university. We also need to make learning and the educational environment more inclusive for students who haven’t typically been present but who are making up a growing number of students, e.g. Indigenous students and students with disabilities. Having a diverse student population has been shown to enhance learning for all students. TMU needs to understand the students who are enrolled at university as well as those who are not enrolled so that we can establish a baseline and measure our progress towards a goal of becoming even more inclusive.
We also want better data to compare the representation of our faculty with, which will also help us to attract and retain diverse students.
Academic leaders and faculty have long been asking for student diversity data by program.
Students have also asked for this information in order to help address issues raised in the campus community.
Have a question to add?
If you have any questions you’d like to see answered here, please contact the Research, Planning and Assessment unit in the Office of the Vice-President, Equity and Community Inclusion at diversitydata@torontomu.ca.