Principal's Blog

I read with interest the editorial written by the outgoing AMS Executive in today’s Queen’s Journal. Let me begin by saying that I, along with other members of the Queen’s administration have worked collaboratively with the AMS executive on many initiatives over the past year.  It has been a relationship based on respect and working towards shared goals.

I recognize the importance of dialogue and debate and the value of student voice on matters affecting our community. However, I find some assertions in the editorial misleading.

Last year the Coroner recommended we look at our alcohol and non-academic student discipline policies. Ignoring the Coroner’s recommendations that we examine those policies was, and is, not an option.

Two committees, both of which include students, are actively engaged in reviewing the policies, and all views are being considered in any recommendations for changes. While much work has been done, no final decisions have been made on either policy, nor will any decision be finalized over the summer, with students absent, as is suggested in the editorial.

This has been a year of change and growth for us as a community and I will continue  to work cooperatively with student leaders to address the challenges, on these and other issues, that still lie ahead. I have a scheduled dinner with the executive on Monday and I look forward to further conversation.

I don’t usually use this blog to endorse any particular activities – there is so much going on at Queen’s, I could hardly do it all justice.

However, in light of Queen’s long tradition of public service and our close connections with the Canadian Public Service in particular, I wanted to bring a really neat opportunity to the attention of students.

The federal government is recruiting right now for its next Student Ambassador at Queen’s.

It’s a part-time job for a full-time student who will raise awareness among peers of the breadth of the employment opportunities available within the federal public service and help fellow students apply for these positions.

I recently met with this year’s Student Ambassador, Alexandra Petre, who is more than enthusiastic about the role. I had also met with her immediate predecessor, Xiren Wang, who shared Alex’s enthusiasm. Alex is one of only three students in the country who work on their campuses to spread the word about the value and role of public servants and the impact of their work on the lives of Canadians.

Alex runs workshops and information sessions about how to apply to federal summer job programs and what the government is looking for in new recruits. She holds weekly office hours (in the 3^rd floor lounge of Career Services, Gordon Hall, every Wednesday from 1-3pm) and gives advice on job searches, resumes and cover letters. You can follow her on Twitter (@Queens2gov) and Facebook (GCAmbassador Queen’s).

Alex is graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Studies this spring and she will be working at the Canadian Embassy in Washington for the summer. She told me her role as Student Ambassador made her resume stand out among potential employers.

She says the position provides exciting opportunities for the student in the job to have regular interactions with senior public servants, including key members of the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Chief Human Resources Officer, and gives the student a valuable perspective on how the federal government works.

Queen’s is lucky to have had this program in place for the past three years.  I encourage interested students to check out this job opportunity. It has just been posted to Alex’s Facebook page and the deadline to apply is March 16^th by midnight.

Meeting with Fudan University president Yang Yuliang.

I recently returned from two weeks abroad that included several destinations (a visit to silicon valley and San Francisco among them) but which was built around an 8-day, two city trip to China. In that country, I travelled to the campuses of several universities, met with representatives of government bodies (a highlight was the China Scholarship Council, which funds many graduate students at Queen’s and this year will begin to fund select undergraduates for year-long visits), the Canadian consulate in Shanghai, attended two combined alumni/recruitment events (joined by international recruiter Andrea McIntyre and Queen’s School of English Director Elaine Armstrong), and enjoyed a number of meals with senior alumni or Queen’s parents. Owing to internet access restrictions, and an exceedingly busy schedule, it was not possible to blog from China, so I am providing now an overview of the mission and what we learned and achieved.

This was the first visit to China by a principal of Queen’s since 2000 when Bill Leggett travelled there. Ideally, there should not be another such gap. China, much like India, is not a country one can drop into on occasion, leave some business cards and brochures (though in fact we did that) and then tick it off the ‘to-do’ list. Relationships are both institutional and personal, and they require frequent contact and regular, if less frequent, visits.

We have yet to map out the international strategy for Queen’s over the coming years–appropriately, the academic plan needed to come first–but it is in progress. Without prejudging that exercise, I think it hard to imagine that China would not feature prominently in our internationalization plans. For one thing, it is by a substantial margin the biggest source of international students for Queen’s at both the undergraduate and graduate/professional level. For another, it is the fastest growing economy in the world and it is important that our graduates be able to engage meaningfully with it and that, ideally, they learn something about its culture and practices.

Senior university administrators from Queen’s and Fudan discuss their partnerships.

China is not India, the other very fast growing Asian economy. Things can occur quite slowly in India, especially where government is involved. In China they move with lightning speed. At one university in Shanghai we toured a brand new library, about four times the size of Stauffer, that was built from shovel-in-ground to opening in barely a year. New universities are being created all the time, and there appears to be a limitless, or at least a very large amount of money to fund them: though, be it noted, the Chinese have decided on a very clear differentiation among their universities, ranging from ‘small’ (by Chinese standards) local ones through several higher gradations leading to the top tier of a very small number of institutions. These are Beijing’s Tsinghua (science and engineering mainly, though now with a medical school recently re-merged with it); Peking University, also in Beijing (very strong in humanities and social sciences, but with a polymer chemist as its current president); and Fudan in Shanghai, our long-standing anchor partner. There is a ’985′ group (this is not an area code, but refers to a particular party speech on a given date, articulating an ambitious vision for China’s universities) and a ’211′ group (same idea). Differentiation is a policy that in China, with a national, rather than state, jurisdiction over education (though in fact there are PSE institutions described as regional and even municipal) it is much easier to enforce than in Canada, with our provincial jurisdictions and, by and large, political reluctance to date, to enforce differentiation.

There are also specialist institutions, three of which we visited. CELAP in Shanghai, a training ground for senior civil servants, is a government sponsored institution with which Queen’s already enjoys a relationship, one that will be strengthened by our recent visit. We had the opportunity to visit the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing (a school with which I have a personal connection having, in my last job, negotiated a ’1 plus 3′ degree arrangement between it and my former university/faculty. In addition, its dean of international studies was in Kingston quite recently, as her son graduated from Queen’s last year and is now working in Moscow).

Officials from Queen’s and Fudan, seen here following their meeting in Shanghai, recently renewed several student and faculty exchange agreements.

All of the visits were productive, some exploring possible new relationships, others advancing existing ones. A few schools have specific bilateral exchange arrangements with Queen’s faculties (in particular, Queen’s School of Business), which we would like to broaden.  Memoranda of Understanding were signed to facilitate such discussions. Expanded relationships would include exchange opportunities for students in other faculties, and enhanced research linkages. Queen’s Vice-Principal (Research) Steven Liss and Vice-Provost (International) John Dixon, both of whom travelled with me, were able to open doors for our researchers by raising awareness, at the universities we visited, of our areas of expertise.

The wisdom of Principal Emeritus Leggett and of Dr. Dixon (who will be leaving his international role later this spring after 12 years and 7 visits to China), of starting slowly in China, with a single major partner, Fudan, has I think paid off, as that relationship is especially strong. It can now provide the base from which to expand to other universities.

Fudan hosts our China office, staffed by Queen’s Political Science part-time PhD candidate Dr. Zhiyao Zhang (he already has a PhD from a Chinese university). Dr. Zhang, as our full time representative in China, helps students seeking admission to Queen’s, visits with other universities, and keeps Queen’s ‘on the radar’ in China. He has done a remarkable job of this in just five years (in 2007, Queen’s became the first Canadian university to open a China office, a pattern now being emulated by others, and a very good initiative on the part of Dr. Dixon).

Our delegation (one does not visit Chinese institutions, officially, as individuals, as I’ve learned over 4 different trips since 2005) also included Jonathan Kong (Arts ’11), who spent time in our Fudan Global Development Studies semester abroad program (a real jewel, which puts our students in the same class as Fudan students, not merely swapping places with them). Jonathan, now working for Queen’s Advancement office, was also a ‘Castle Kid’, who spent his first year at Herstmonceux, and we were struck at many of our meetings by the enormous interest in Queen’s presence in the southern UK, something that truly does set us apart from most other North American institutions. Fortunately we also had with us Dr. Bruce Stanley, the newly appointed Director of the Bader International Study Centre. Bruce’s vision for the BISC is to include many more international students and, eventually, international faculty members, who may wish to come for short periods or for conferences.

Was the trip worthwhile? Unquestionably. Its ultimate worth will be demonstrable down the road when we see more widespread recognition of Queen’s degrees and of the Queen’s name abroad, when there are greater opportunities for our students to spend time at a Chinese institution, and in an increased number of Chinese students choosing to come here either on exchange or for their full degrees. The ones that come have a good experience. We hosted two public events, in Shanghai and Beijing, for alumni and prospective students and their parents. At the Beijing event, a student from Tsinghua who had spent a term at Queen’s School of Business here in Kingston indicated enthusiastically that her term at Queen’s had been the best experience of her academic career. So we are off to a good start. But there is scope for much much more engagement between Queen’s and China.

Tuesday, November 22 was a great day for Queen’s. First and most obviously, almost two years of discussion, documents, drafts, consultations, web-postings, petitions, town halls and hallway conversations culminated in the University Senate’s vote on the Academic Plan.

There was, once again, constructive debate . Specifically, a significant amendment to the Academic Planning Task Force’s motion was developed collaboratively by two Senators, introduced on the floor, debated, and then adopted. After its passage, the amended motion to adopt the Academic Plan was quickly passed, unanimously, and the APTF was discharged with the thanks of the chair and of Senate.

That the plan was not merely passed, but adopted by a vote of 52-0, speaks volumes about the ability of the community to work through differences, have debates, make compromises, and–even in very tough financial times–keep our collective eyes on the academic ball.

Is the Plan perfect? Of course not. Ten more years of debate would not make it so. Does it provide answers or guideposts to every question that will come up, or every new circumstance in which we will find ourselves? Also no.

What it does do is to identify, at a critical juncture in our history, some important principles that we share institutionally and externally. It does not bind deans, faculties or departments to particular courses of action, or to particular budgetary decisions. It will provide guidance to the alignment of scarce resources, but it is emphatically not, and never has been, a ‘cost-cutting measure’. It will certainly help me in articulating to our external stakeholders (alumni, government, industry and donors) what Queen’s is about, and the unanimity of the vote (accepting that there is still much that needs to be worked through) is already a powerful signal in that regard, and one that I happily relayed to our Campaign Cabinet (the distinguished volunteers who will lead our fundraising efforts) yesterday at a meeting in Toronto.

The Plan will be of enormous use to Provost Harrison, the Vice-Principals and the Deans as they work with faculties and departments to implement some of the values articulated in the Plan. But at the end of the day, the Plan should not be made into more than it is. It is a map or, as I said in Senate, a set of stars, by which we can sail the ship called Queen’s. There will be rocks, reefs winds, islands and unanticipated obstacles along the way, and doubtless some tempting harbours that we may wish to pass by. We will continually need  to tack and adjust course to deal with these as they emerge.

In its final deliberations, Senate expressed the clear view that a single plan could not do everything, and that the process of the past year has worked sufficiently well to be replicated in some way to deal with other issues. We have yet to see how that will unfold, but it is encouraging to see that there is still, after two years, appetite for such discussions.

This leads me to the second reason why Nov. 22 was a great day for Queen’s. Again, it has to do with things that happened in Senate.

There were other features of Tuesday’s meeting that have caused me to reflect on the excellence of this institution and its people. First is the civil debate over the Plan and several other important issues. I must admit that when I arrived at Queen’s 2009 I was told repeatedly that Senate had been rather quiet for many years, and hadn’t tackled very many substantive issues. I cannot comment on the accuracy of that statement, but even if it were true at some point in the past, it certainly isn’t now. We have had a series of animated Senate meetings, including a couple which have gone into ‘extra innings’. And, yes, there have been some times in which things did not go exactly the way in which I, as chair, or the proponents of particular measures, had anticipated or hoped. There will be again. Such is the power of a functional university Senate over academic matters in a healthy model of shared governance.

The second feature of Tuesday’s Senate that I found quite remarkable was the presence of many guests, not least a number of students in the BFA program. These students obviously care very deeply about the future of their program, and their respectful presence in the meeting, within the rules of Senate, was impressive (as indeed was some of the art which they brought with them). I offer no comment on the decisions made about that program, which properly rest with the Faculty of Arts and Science in the first instance; rather, my comment is intended to draw attention to the fact that it is possible to engage politically within the conventions of governance and without disruption of the conduct of Senate’s business. That the business of the meeting was also being widely live-reported via twitter, and many guests applied for the limited number of guest slots, indicates a strong interest on the part of students, staff and faculty in the future of the university.

It was milestone day for Queen’s, and an important day for academic governance. I left the meeting very proud of our university.

On Thursday morning Nov. 3 I visited St Lawrence College, where I was joined by several of the vice-principals, some of the deans, and other colleagues. We were generously hosted by SLC president Chris Whittaker (Queen’s Artsci ’82) and his administrative colleagues. Media were on hand. The occasion was the signing of a memorandum of understanding between our two institutions.

Why is this a big deal? It’s not as if we have not had relations with St Lawrence before. In fact, there have been collaborations between our two schools for a long time, between specific programs and individual faculty members. And, of course, we have a well established and productive relationship with Kingston’s other university, the Royal Military College, including most recently the initiative in Military and Veterans’ Health Research. Our collaborations with local and regional hospitals, in which a great deal of teaching and research takes place, are equally well-established and mutually beneficial.

Notwithstanding these links, Queen’s historically has not, as an institution, done as much as some of our sister universities to collaborate openly with community colleges and indeed we have something of a reputation–not really a reflection of reality–for having resisted such overtures. In fairness, one major reason we have not has to do with historical differences in programming and mission: not every college program is mappable on to the first two years of university, any more than our courses map on to college offerings. (Though these differences are shrinking, a point to which I return below). Another has to do with simple space constraints. While the government has signified that it wishes to move toward a seamless transfer from two year colleges (some of which already offer applied degrees in certain areas) into universities, such an across-the-board block transfer arrangement would be deeply problematic for Queen’s as we simply do not have the room to accommodate a large additional intake of students into the large majority of our programs in their 3rd and 4th years. 94% of Queen’s students who start degrees with us also finish them. (In contrast, as a dean of faculties at two other institutions from 1999 to 2009, I often counted on college intake to make up enrolment numbers as retention figures there were not as robust, and first year intakes sometimes fell short of target).

The MOU commits us to work with St Lawrence on a strategic level, to find areas where we can mutually assist each other (which may, ultimately, include intakes of their graduates into the upper years of our programs, where space permits and where the students are academically qualified). But the relations of colleges and universities are no longer defined solely by college-to-university transfer. Quite the contrary, there has been an increasing trend in recent years of our graduates (and those of other universities) to seek an additional one- or two-year qualification at a college. At least two Queen’s alumni whom I follow on twitter have been, for instance, enrolled in media and marketing programs at Humber College. Given this trend, are there opportunities for us to engage more systematically with colleges, and in particular with SLC. I believe that there are, and in the coming months a working committee will be exploring a number of these. I hope that within a year we will have some concrete proposals for programmatic collaboration to bring through the governance processes of both institutions.

The MOU itself, while of symbolic importance in signifying that we are open for business with other parts of the Ontario PSE system, is just a beginning, a framework. The real test of it will be whether we can realize some concrete collaborations in the next few years that will help both institutions, and our students, and which will provide Kingston and eastern Ontario with a more powerful collective higher education environment. That, in turn, can benefit the community and the region in the medium to long term by making it an education destination of choice, which in turn will help attract industry, create jobs, and keep more of our graduates working here.

As with our older relationship with RMC, the end goal of our discussions in the coming months should be ‘win-win’ for both St Lawrence College and Queen’s.

I was chatting yesterday to a professor emeritus and we got on to the subject of rankings. “You know”, he said, “they really represent a kind of A grade for the whole community”. He was right. We recently have seen several different positive results in a number of rankings exercises. In Maclean’s rankings we moved up a notch overall to 4th spot, behind McGill, Toronto and UBC, all 3 much larger institutions. In the recent Globe and Mail, student-driven rankings, we scored more A grades than any other school and finished number 1. Yesterday’s Research Infosource rankings, which measure research activity and intensity, showed us moving up a position into sixth spot (see story on this and related links at http://www.queensu.ca/news/articles/queens-moves-research-ranking). And in the international exercise of the Times Higher Education Rankings (an exercise we sat out last year because of concerns with the methodology which have since been addressed), we continue to place in the top 200 schools in the world.

My well-known scepticism about rankings exercises aside (they are too often subject to impressionistic ‘reputational’ data, and a small change in one or two inputs can have a disproportionate effect on overall standing), the collective picture is very clear. We are doing well by most indicators; the good results reflect tremendous effort by faculty, staff and students; and most students remain highly satisfied with their experience. This is occurring in circumstances that are scarcely ideal as the university continues to face funding shortfalls, class sizes have expanded in most faculties, and some of our indicators (for instance student to faculty ratio) have climbed. We had a difficult time of it last year with several student deaths and some very complicated labour negotiations.

We should therefore take some collective pride in the results of all of these exercises combined, while making sure that we pay due attention to any warning signals that the data contain. Our institutional analysis unit, which now reports to the Provost via Vice-Provost (Planning) Jo-Ann Brady (till Oct 31, our Registrar), will assist in analyzing the results of these rankings (and other indicators, for instance those in the National Survey of Student Engagement, on which our own Chris Conway is a recognized expert). These sorts of data can help us make evidence-based decision-making. They are, of course, not the only factors driving decisions–qualitative evidence such as student comments and feedback from faculty and staff count also. They will assist in integrated planning across all portfolios of the university.

Another thing that some rankings exercises do is help us see what other universities are up to and where we can learn from them. We are all part of a provincial PSE structure, and relate also to other institutions outside Ontario. But it is helpful  to read about the pedagogical and research innovations that are going on elsewhere, some of which (though not all) may be suitable for experiment at Queen’s (other schools will probably be imitating some of our activities).

So, let’s  be pleased by the rankings results, as we should be, and glean from them what we can, especially in areas where we can improve, in teaching, research, and administration. At the same time, let’s also acknowledge that we have some significant challenges ahead of us if we want to keep those overall results positive. Let’s be willing to experiment and try new ideas. And let’s admit that just as our students learn from each other as much as they do from their professors and TAs, so institutionally we can improve by keeping a close eye on what goes on elsewhere in higher education. But for now, congratulations to all members of the community for a strong performance in often difficult circumstances.

I recently returned from 3 days in Montreal, during which I attended the fall meeting of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. Normally this is held in Ottawa, where AUCC is based, but we were in Montreal for a reason: that was where 15 university presidents and principals assembled in 1911, the first such gathering in Canada. It would evolve into AUCC, the national organization of universities and affiliated university colleges (it does not include community colleges, which have a separate organization, ACCC). AUCC lobbies on behalf of universities in Ottawa, acts as a repository for key data on higher education, and plays a significant role in international initiatives–for instance organizing last year’s successful expedition, in which I participated, to India of 15 “executive heads” (the generic admin-speak term for principals, presidents and recteurs [not the same as our Rector] of Quebec universities). A Board of Directors governs AUCC and it is run by a permanent staff headed by President and CEO Paul Davidson (who holds an MA from Queen’s in history). Apart from its Board, the Associaton has a number of Standing Advisory Committees (including one on International Relations to which I belong).

As a centenary celebration, this was a rather special meeting, graced by some distinguished guests at the dinner on Tuesday night, including former Minister of Industry and of Environment Jim Prentice, federal Liberal Leader Bob Rae and (by video from Rideau Hall), His Excellency Governor General David Johnston, who of course is no stranger to the group he was addressing, as a former president of the University of Waterloo and, prior to that, Principal of McGill. He gave a wonderful address (personally, I’ve never heard him give a bad one), and issued a charge to us, his former colleagues, to continue to push to make universities relevant to the next century and a major contributor to his vision of a ‘smart and caring society’. We also saw a very good retrospective video of AUCC and its members over the past century.

Much of day two of the meetings was spent in small group discussions. I was particularly pleased by the significant presence of student delegates, who actively participated in these deliberations. Undergraduate student Lauren Long (Com Sci ’13) ably represented Queen’s. We also had a very informative plenary session on the political landscape after the most recent spate of federal and provincial elections. This was given by Nik Nanos, a Queen’s grad in Commerce and MBA, whose firm, Nanos Research has become one of the most prominent Canadian public opinion research services over the past several years.

Apart from the more routine business meetings that occurred during the conference, a highlight for me was my colleague UBC president Stephen Toope’s rousing inaugural address (as Chair of the AUCC Board) on the “new narrative” that AUCC has been developing for the past year. Prof Toope’s speech is readable at http://president.ubc.ca/files/2011/10/aucc_toope_speech_bilingual_20111026.pdf

It set out five commitments that universities ought to make:

1. A commitment to broadening the view of education;
2. A commitment to innovation in learning;
3. A reaffirmation of our collective commitment to excellence;
4. A commitment to pursue solutions to the greatest problems of our age;
5. And a commitment to pursue engagements and partnerships beyond our campuses, while being careful to remain true to the core missions of the academy, in particular unfettered and free inquiry.

These certainly struck me, as others in the audience, as both lofty and achievable goals: even if financial and other constraints can sometimes stand in our way, these should still stand as commitments. Indeed, I would maintain that during such times of limited resources (and what time in universities’ recent history has not been?) and enormous complexity in university life, it is even more important that we keep our ‘eyes on the prize’, and maintain clarity about our raison d’être. That does not mean doing things the same way we have always done them (note the commitment to innovation, no. 2 above), nor does it mean that we can operate in isolation. Rather, it is a challenge to us, to remain adaptable and relevant, constant yet flexible.

As I remarked in my own installation address two years ago this week, “Tradition is about growth and cumulative development, not about stagnation and complacency. Our history illustrates countless innovations that now make up our traditions.
Let us keeping adding to the old with the new.” Queen’s is a unique university, but it is also part of provincial and national systems of public postsecondary education, and it lives in a world of real problems which will require our attention, from, and across, all the disciplinary corners of campus.

I marked the day’s end by going to a great event at the Stauffer Library, the dedication of the Alan Green Reading Room on the 2nd floor. Prof Green, who died about 10 months ago, was a long-serving Economics professor at Queen’s, and a highly regarded economic historian.  But above all, he was the champion who caused the Stauffer Library to be built and the Douglas Library to be renovated. He did this in the late 80s and early 90s on top of his ‘day job’ in the Economics department, where he was a very popular instructor.

The depth of respect he attracted was evident in the room; apart from many colleagues in the Economics department, the Faculty of Arts and Science and the library, several members of his extended family including his wife and children were there (son David, also an economist, spoke very eloquently of what the project had meant to his father). The evening was capped by a rare performance by internationally renowned soprano Edith Wiens, sister of former University Librarian Paul Wiens. Ms Wiens is now retired as a full time singer so it was a special treat to hear her.

The library, as a staff member observed to me during the reception, is one of those places on campus that really binds us together. I think of it as in some ways housing the soul of the university, a place where the line between student and faculty blurs: we all use the same books, articles and computer terminals.

It was great also to see again Mr Denny Jordan, of the Stauffer Foundation, who worked with Prof Green to secure from the Foundation one of the biggest gifts the university had at that point seen. As Martha Whitehead, University Librarian, noted the library was a product of Prof Green’s vision and determination, and the Foundation (along with other generous donors) helped turn that into reality.

One just has to walk out of the building and see the desks and terminals filled with students to see what an impact the combination of vision and philanthropy can have.

I recently spent a very pleasant and exciting morning reading the Senate Academic Planning Task Force’s proposed academic plan, which on Tuesday will go to Senate for discussion and debate. It is moderately long, but very rich. Built on four pillars, and very student-focused, it also states very clearly Queen’s position as a pre-eminent research university.

As with the Academic Writing Team report, Imagining the Future which began to circulate just over a year ago, the Task Force has wrestled with some extremely complex issues. The document itself is the result of months of discussion and wide consultation, and without prejudging discussion or suggested revisions at Senate, I think it has captured both the notion of a ‘balanced academy’, excellent in both teaching and research–melded in the notion of learning–and the idea that we can build on our great traditions while contemplating some serious changes or revisions in the ways in which we teach our undergraduates. It is clear on the important role of graduate students as fellow researchers and TAs (but above all, students) and of postdoctoral fellows. It speaks to the importance of having sufficient professional staff to handle many of the administrative tasks (what a former colleague of mine at another university was fond of calling “the monkeys on the professors’ backs”) that are necessary but take up professorial time. It speaks to the critical place of writing and communications skills. Above all, it asks some very big and fundamental questions. What kind of students–and we get the best and brightest in Canada as well as an increasing number from abroad–do we wish to graduate? What kinds of skills (in the broadest sense of the word) do we wish them to acquire? And how can we best deliver these?

This is the most complex academic planning exercise that Queen’s has ever undertaken, at least in modern times, and I for one am eagerly looking forward to the Senate deliberations. Beyond that I look forward to being part of the voyage that lies ahead into a world of learning that our Task Force, chaired by Prof Peter Taylor, and building on the earlier fine work of the 2010 Academic Writing Team, has opened up for the Queen’s community of students, faculty and staff.

Mayor Gerretsen and Daniel Woolf

As I’ve said many times, the full name of our university is Queen’s University at Kingston, and the school and the city are quite inextricably joined. A taxi driver expressed to me just last week how much he looks forward to the return of the majority of students in the fall. We all know what benefits the university enjoys by its situation in a lovely, lakeside community relatively close to several larger cities; and the city in turn profits from the economic activity and voluntarism of the university’s students, staff and faculty.

Of course, agendas can diverge, and differences can arise on particular issues. One of my priorities as Principal has been to build better bridges with our colleagues at City Hall, both at the political level (Mayor and Councillors) and administrative level (the CAO and commissioners and their staff). Thanks to a great deal of hard work in our Provost’s office in particular, and engagement by senior administrators with city officials on a wide variety of files, relations are currently very productive and genial. There are several different working groups devoted to different aspects of the town-gown relationship, and over here on the west side of Barrie Street we pay close attention to what is happening down at City Hall.

From left to right: Councillor Jim Neill, Ann Tierney, Dean of Student Affairs, Mayor Gerretsen and Councillor Liz Schell

Last year we invited the then newly elected or re-elected councillors and Mayor to a reception at Benidickson House. The meeting went so well that we decided to repeat it this year, and we met in the same venue last week. I was accompanied by the Provost and Vice-Principals, and by a number of Associate Vice-Principals including new Dean of Student Affairs Tierney and AVP Facilities Browne. The city sent all but 3 Counsellors, the Mayor and the CAO. Over the course of two hours we had a lively discussion on a wide range of issues, including Queen’s plans for growth, and how we might accommodate that growth without putting further pressure on Kingston’s already over-subscribed rental stock, and how Queen’s can continue to assist Kingston’s social improvement and economic expansion. The meeting covered a lot of territory and gave us all a big ‘to do’ list for the next year. More important than any individual subject, however, was the mutual commitment at the table to keep each other informed about our plans, and always think about how actions we might wish to take affect the other party. It was a terrific way to start the year, and I am looking forward to continuing our dialogue with Mayor Gerretsen and his colleagues downtown.