Angela Esterhammer Bids Farewell as Principal

^{Photo by Peter Power.}

When I became Principal of Victoria College in 2012, I had been living and working in Europe for several years, so taking up this exciting role meant moving back to my hometown of Toronto and back to my alma mater.

At the end of that first academic year, when the annual alumni reunion took place, I realized—to my genuine surprise—that it was exactly 30 years since I had graduated from Victoria College. Back on Vic’s beautiful campus, back in the city where my family still lived, back amidst academic programs that had shaped my future direction and professors who inspired me when I was a Vic student, it was an unexpectedly meaningful homecoming.

But while many things were the same, many others had changed, and the changes were just as meaningful. Students can now start their university journey with the enriching Vic One program, which didn’t exist in my student days. Commuter students—like I used to be— are now offered more opportunities and activities, and there are commuter dons to help them balance life on and off campus (and on and off the TTC).

The Pratt Library had undergone a beautiful renovation, and library staff have introduced many new programs to support student learning. The whole university has become much more international, and more aware of the conditions and the contributions of international students.

We are all learning to become more attuned to differences in the lived experiences of students, faculty and staff who come to Vic from diverse backgrounds. Our efforts on behalf of equity, accessibility and reconciliation are more vital than ever. And a key aim of these efforts is to ensure that everyone can experience the Vic community as a welcoming, inclusive home.

One of the most important commitments of my term as principal has been to help create and sustain community—interdisciplinary and intergenerational connections and affinities, discovered through conversations about shared interests as well as dialogues across difference. It’s wonderful to see the communitybuilding that happens, for instance, in and around our academic programs, our research centres—the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, the Northrop Frye Centre, and soon a new Centre for Creativity— and in the intensive Scholars-in-Residence program that brings together cross-disciplinary teams of students and faculty to share a passion for research in the humanities and social sciences. Not to mention all the student life and outreach activities organized by the Dean of Students’ Office, the Office of the Registrar and Academic Advising, VUSAC, and other community-builders.

With these combined efforts, Vic continues to be a place to find friends and encounter colleagues, to share intellectual interests and co-curricular pastimes— a place, in short, to belong.

Once Vic becomes a home, it is a home to which you can come back and give back, and extend the welcome to others. It has been a profound joy and a once-in-a-lifetime privilege to serve as Principal of Victoria College for the past 12 years. I am filled with gratitude to those who welcomed me home and those who join together in the shared work of building and sustaining the uniquely special Victoria community.

— Angela Esterhammer

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of Vic Report.