Director's Message

Welcome to the Transitional Year Programme (TYP) at the University of Toronto. 

Since its founding in 1970, TYP has stood as a testament to the transformative power of education, community, and justice. Born out of the activism and vision of Black students, educators, and community members in Toronto, and building on the  struggles and organizing for liberation on the part of the anticolonial and Black Power movement including the Black Panther Party, TYP was created to serve the oppressed, to address systemic barriers to post-secondary education, and to affirm the right of all people to access learning and opportunity within an anticolonial framework.  

  At its heart, TYP is about equity and access. We recognize that traditional academic pathways do not always reflect the lived realities, talents, and potential of every student—particularly those from Black, Indigenous, racialized, low-income, or otherwise marginalized communities. Our program exists to create a different kind of door into university and a different kind of curriculum: one that acknowledges systemic inequities while fostering academic excellence and personal growth. 

TYP is more than a program, it is a space for transformation. Students who join us are stepping into a multi-racial, multi-cultural, and multi-faith learning environment that is committed to equity across race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, culture, religion, and lived experience. We expect and encourage our students to not only thrive academically, but also to contribute meaningfully to a learning community that values justice, dialogue, collectivity and mutual respect. All of us are committed to this.  We are fiercely proud of our program and fiercely committed to the continuation of its legacy. With this in mind and honoring the legacy of those who came before us, we consciously choose not to use the term 'drop-out. None of our students 'dropped out' of schooling. They were pushed out. They were pushed out based on race, class, gender, sexuality, disability and all the many, many ways in which oppression impacts us, our families and our communities. 

Our commitment to supporting and defending our students—to having their backs—recognizes that oppression doesn’t end at the doors of our program. This is why we approach everything we do, and everything we are, with a holistic lens. Above all, our commitment is not only to the support and defense of our community—it is also about reclaiming the inherent power we’ve always possessed, the power that has always resided within us. 

This is what we are committed to—and we do this, both as a program and as a community, because you are us. Our program comes from the people. So, this is not a one-way commitment—it’s a mutual one. It involves you, and your relationships of defense, solidarity, and unity with and between each other, as a collective. 
Because—as they used to say in the Black Panther Party liberation schools—“I is we.” 

We are that different door. 
We are that different curriculum. 
We are that different understanding of what education is, what it ain’t, and what it should be. 

And many of us come with similar experiences. We carry important knowledge—the kind that comes from surviving and navigating systems that weren’t built for us. For me, beyond my own experiences of direct colonialism, racism, and poverty throughout every level of education, I remember vividly the fear I had of computers. When I was an undergrad at Ryerson (now TMU), I went through the entire four years without even being able to switch one on. I was afraid to ask for help—because the first time I did, I was humiliated by a library technician. 

We are not that. 
We are the opposite of that. 
We are the antidote to that. 

We know you have a deep desire to learn, to grow, and to engage. So, bring that with you—and come to us with anything.  

We’re glad you’ve found us, because what we’re building here is your space. A space for you, by you, with you. 

Dr. Stan Doyle-Wood, Director at Transitional Year Programme, UofT