Message from Scott Mabury, Vice-President, Operations & Real Estate Partnerships:

Dear colleagues,

It is with enormous admiration — and no small amount of disbelief at the passage of time — that I share the news that Anne Macdonald, our Associate Vice-President, Spaces & Experiences, will retire from the University of Toronto on May 31, 2026, after more than 23 years of extraordinary leadership.

Anne’s leadership has been nothing short of transformative. Over two decades, she has reshaped how students live, eat, gather, celebrate, and experience life at U of T, leaving an imprint on the physical campus and on the lives of thousands of students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community members.

A career defined by vision and purpose

When Anne joined the University in 2002 as Director of Ancillary Services, she inherited a diverse and complex portfolio. What she built instead was a deeply integrated, student-centred, mission-aligned enterprise — one that would eventually become Spaces & Experiences (S&E), a name that fully captures her belief that spaces must serve people, and that experiences shape belonging and success.

From the start, Anne understood that a great university must also be a great place to live and learn. Under her leadership, U of T’s residences, food services, retail environments, event and conference offerings, hospitality programs, and commercial partnerships were reimagined with students at the centre.

Transforming student housing at U of T

One of Anne’s most lasting legacies is her leadership in expanding and modernizing student housing.

She led:

• the acquisition and conversion of the Toronto Colony Hotel into the Chestnut Residence,
• the 20% equity acquisition of CampusOne, instantly adding 890 residence beds adjacent to St. George,
• the development of Oak House, the first new St. George residence in more than 20 years,

and has actively supported the Build More Housing initiative, a bold multi-year strategy that charts a realistic, sustainable path to 2,700–4,700 additional beds over the next decade.

This work builds on both Anne’s and the University’s broader commitment to its family housing portfolio — not simply maintaining buildings but strengthening the communities within them. From stabilizing and renewing Huron-Sussex to transforming Charles Street from an apartment complex into a vibrant, family-centred community with active programming and child-care services, these efforts reflect Anne’s leadership and a deliberate shift toward housing that supports families to thrive.

Beyond capacity growth, Anne has been a national voice in shaping how Canadian universities think about purpose-built student housing. Her work has been profiled by CRI as a model in how to align institutional needs with financial stewardship, partnerships, and modern student expectations.

A food services renaissance

Perhaps nowhere is Anne’s impact felt more immediately than in U of T’s dining transformation. She championed one of the first sustainable food procurement programs in the sector, built lasting relationships with local producers, and introduced innovations that earned national coverage in Maclean’s as “a great campus food makeover.”

She oversaw the successful transition from a global provider to a locally governed, in-house model, enabling fresher, healthier, more sustainable food — and enabling students to meaningfully contribute to shaping their own dining services.

Her belief was simple: food is not only nourishment but community-building infrastructure, and she made it so.

Spaces that enrich campus life

Anne’s leadership also extended to some of U of T’s most visible new spaces and partnerships:

• the opening and operational success of the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus West,
• revitalization of the Chestnut conference and event centre,
• building a modern Conference Services division that enables U of T to host academic, civic, and cultural events at a new standard,
• expansion of U of T’s commercial property and retail offerings, and
• extension of a more intentional portfolio of merchandise partnerships, reflecting a new, scaled approach to how the University collaborates with external brands to connect with its community.

Whether improving dining halls or activating a 20-storey innovation hub, Anne brought the same values: stewardship, creativity, collaboration, and a generous belief in what shared spaces can make possible.

A quiet force with an extraordinary legacy

Anne is known for her humility — for shining the spotlight on her team, not on herself. Yet her colleagues, students, and partners consistently describe her as a visionary, a builder, and someone whose impact is felt not through pronouncements but through the quality and character of the experiences she enables.

Her leadership created:

• a stronger, more connected campus,
• spaces that better support academic success,
• improved affordability and sustainability,
• more welcoming services for students and visitors, and
• a deeply integrated S&E portfolio that will serve U of T for decades.

Looking ahead

We will celebrate Anne appropriately in the months ahead. For now, we extend our warmest thanks for her decades of service, her remarkable contributions to student life and campus culture, and her deeply held belief that a great university must care not only for minds, but for the communities and environments that sustain them.

Please join me in congratulating Anne on an exceptional career — and in thanking her for lifting the University of Toronto in ways large and small, visible and invisible, and always with grace, humour, and unwavering commitment.

With deep appreciation,

Scott