TMU appoints Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano as first female president

Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano Named First Female President of Toronto Metropolitan University

Toronto Metropolitan University names first woman president in historic shift

It was an international search that ended right back at home.

Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano, currently provost and vice-president, academic at Toronto Metropolitan University, is the school's new president - the first woman in its history - the university announced Wednesday.

"We have to prioritize, strategically, what's important, and that's our core mission - teaching, learning, research and our student experience," she said in an exclusive interview with the Star. "I'm so humbled for being chosen to lead this amazing institution, and it feels surreal ... It will sink in eventually. I really feel supported by a community that embraced me and I love it here, too. It is my home."

Iannacito-Provenzano - an expert in Italian dialects, cuisine and culture and how ethnicity is represented in social media - started as a vice-provost at TMU in 2020, coming from York University, where she was an associate dean. She begins her five-year term in January.

She succeeds Mohamed Lachemi, who is finishing up 10 years as president after guiding the university through a name change, opening a new law school and medical school and even finessing an eponymous subway station.

"She's very collaborative, always thinking about what's best for TMU and always working well with others," Lachemi said, calling her a "strong leader."

"When you do this job, it's not just one person," he said. "The first advice I give is to make sure that you have a strong team around you, and I think that's the advantage for her, because she's an internal candidate. She has been part of the leadership team for a number of years now."

Iannacito-Provenzano, a Toronto-born author who has a PhD in Italian studies from the University of Toronto, said she likes being a leader who is visible to students and staff, "sitting at Balzac's (on campus) at seven o'clock in the morning and knowing everybody's name."

She is taking on the leadership role as the Ontario government recently boosted funding for post-secondary institutions, but while allowing tuition fees to rise and making student financial aid more loan-heavy than the current grant-heavy model. (It's a situation that the school is partly addressing through increased scholarships.)

As the daughter of Italian immigrants from the Molise Region, she said that has given her insight into the barriers students can face. She continues to be involved in the community and is vice-president of the Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association of Toronto.

While recognizing how campuses - especially south of the border - are increasingly polarized, the mother of two grown children said "I've dealt with navigating these challenges as provost, but the bottom line is every student deserves to feel safe, respected, regardless of identity. My whole thing is access - what can we do to remove the barriers so that everybody has the same opportunity to study, to feel a sense of belonging, to be a part of this community."

Iannacito-Provenzano is also among a number of high-profile female leaders at TMU - including the chancellor, Board of Governors chair and the law and medical school deans, with two-thirds of dean positions held by women. She also joins a growing group of women university presidents in Ontario, now leading more than half of schools including McMaster, York and the University of Toronto.

"We were really looking for the best candidate to come in - it was great that it just happened to be a woman," said Board of Governors chair Catherine Paisley. "We want to make sure that students, and the broader community, can see themselves in different positions within the university. And this opens up just that much further by having the first female president."

She said the new president will "really lean into some of the significant things that we've done with the law school, and most recently, the medical school, and continue on with that momentum and look for new opportunities (ensuring) that students are centred in the decisions that we make."