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    Financial Sustainability

    Queen’s budget planning update

    The university is implementing new budget planning measures to address its financial challenges.

    Planning is now underway across Queen’s to help the university address its challenging financial situation and a series of new measures will be put in place for the next few years to reduce expenditures across the university, including a reduction in budget allocations to all faculties and shared services portfolios.

    As announced in May, the university is facing growing financial pressures and this year the operating budget deficit is projected to be $62.8 million. It’s being covered with existing reserves (carry-forward funds) but ongoing reliance on these funds is not sustainable. To date, the impact of the provincial government’s 10 per cent tuition cut for Ontario students in 2019, and subsequent tuition freeze, has cost the university $179.4 million. Ongoing inflationary costs and a decline in international student enrolment in the aftermath of the pandemic have added to the budgetary strain.

    “As we look ahead to the next two budget cycles, it’s important we are being as financially prudent and responsible as possible, while also protecting our core academic mission,” says Donna Janiec, Vice-Principal (Finance and Administration). “Starting now gives us all an opportunity to work together and find effective and innovative solutions to help return the university to a balanced budget position by 2025/26.”

    In addition to the hiring freeze implemented last month for full-time operating budget positions not already posted, the new measures include a 1.5 per cent reduction on allocations for all units for 2024/25 and 2025/26.

    Faculties are also being directed to reduce their structural deficits to no more than five per cent of their operating budget allocation for 2024-25, followed by a balanced budget for 2025-26. Shared services will need to balance their budgets in each of the next two years.

    Funds from these combined measures will be held for subventions and strategic investments, where funds are needed to ensure our academic and research missions are not compromised.

    “We know that improving our financial situation is not going to be easy and some difficult decisions will need to be considered,” says Teri Shearer Interim Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic). “There is already promising work underway across campus to make sure we can adjust and adapt at the right time and in the right way. Overall, it’s important to remember that Queen’s remains in a strong position, thanks to our positive enrolment numbers and overall financial health.”

    For the upcoming academic year for example, Queen’s received more than 55,000 applications for 5,000 available first-year spots. As well, each year the university is rated by two external credit rating agencies. The recent AA rating issued by Morningstar DBRS and the AA+ rating issued by Standard and Poors each provide an independent and objective assessment of the university’s strong overall financial performance. Exceptional student demand, effective management practices, and the university’s strong academic profile were all cited as strengths contributing to a consistently strong balance sheet.

    As a next step, more information on these new measures is being made available across the university, with units now receiving updated Shared Services and Faculty Budget Guidelines to facilitate more detailed planning in their areas. 

    Queen’s first Responsible Investing Annual Report shows positive results on decarbonizing investments

    Responsible Investing Annual Report

    Queen’s University has published its first Responsible Investing Annual Report, which at the end of last year posted a five per cent decrease in the carbon footprint of its Pooled Endowment Fund (PEF) investments between December 2021 and December 2022, resulting in a carbon footprint that is 12 per cent lower than the carbon emissions of the global benchmark index.

    In June 2020, Queen's University became a founding signatory of Investing to Address Climate Change: A Charter for Canadian Universities, which commits Canadian universities to responsible investing to foster the transition to a low carbon economy. In March 2022 the Board of Trustees approved a number of Investment Committee recommendations which stemmed from the work of the Climate Change Action Task Force.

    Queen’s has made a commitment to de-carbonize the university’s investments through a holistic, collaborative, and comprehensive strategy across its entire $1.9 billion investment portfolio, with an approach that also remains consistent with its fiduciary responsibility.

    The largest of the university’s investment funds are the Pooled Endowment Fund ($1.4 billion) and the Pooled Investment Fund ($500 million). The university is taking a holistic approach to de-carbonization across these public equity portfolios without singling out specific industries. It is taking an ambitious approach to sustain carbon emissions at least 25 per cent lower than a widely accepted global benchmark (currently the MSCI All Country World Index), by the end of calendar 2030. The university sees using a relative target as much more aggressive than setting an absolute reduction target relative to a base year, due to the inevitable transition toward carbon-neutrality over time. The more the carbon footprint of the benchmark falls over time, the more aggressive the university target becomes.

    A key to achieving this goal is the establishment of a Queen’s Climate Action Allocation (QCAA), made up of investments with significantly lower carbon emissions than the equities benchmark. The university intends to allocate at least 15 per cent of the PEF to the QCAA by the end of calendar 2030. The QCAA was kickstarted in December 2020 with a US$30 million investment in Pattern Energy, a private wind and solar company with operations in North America and Japan.

    Work on responsible investing continues. Queen’s is currently reviewing its Responsible Investing Policy and will be launching its inaugural UNPRI report in 2024.

    The university has posted its Responsible Investing Annual Report as well as a video from an April 5, 2023 Town Hall on its Responsible Investing website.

    Responsible Investing update to be delivered through April 5 virtual town hall

    Representatives of Queen’s Board of Trustees Investment Committee will host a virtual town hall for members of the Queen’s community to provide an update on Responsible Investment actions undertaken by Queen’s across its investment portfolios in the Pooled Investment Fund (PIF) and Pooled Endowment Fund (PEF).

    Principal Patrick Deane and Queen’s Rector Owen Crawford-Lem will deliver opening remarks. Investment Committee members Todd Mattina (Chair), previous Chair Don Raymond, and Cathy Matthews will then provide an update on the Board-approved March 2022 responsible investing recommendations arising from the work of the Board’s Climate Change Action Task Force. The focus will be on Queen’s responsible investing commitments, highlighting the actions taken and an update on Queen’s carbon reduction progress, followed by a Q&A.

    The virtual event using Microsoft Teams will take place on April 5, 2023, 10:30-11:30 a.m. (ET). Anyone wishing to watch the event can follow the Responsible Investing Guest Link.

    To improve the experience for all attendees, advance submission of questions is strongly encouraged. Questions should be sent to vpfa@queensu.ca with the subject line “RI Town Hall question”.

    Information on Queen’s Responsible Investing can be found on Queen’s Investment Services webpage.

    $30M gift will advance ground-breaking research

    A transformative investment from Bruce Mitchell (Sc’68, DSc'20), will support the university in increasing research intensity, graduate student recruitment, and creating an environment for bringing scholars together to make life-changing discoveries.

    [Collage of Queen's Art of Research photos]
    Queen's Art of Research photos: [Clockwise from left] Inside Concord Floral by Naseem Loloie, Love Under the Microscope by Dalila Villalobos, Using Fire to Create Order by Gregory Jerkiewicz, Polypyrrole by Danesh Roudini, and Learning from the Land by Sarah Flisikowski. 

    Bruce Mitchell, Sc’68, DSc'20, is helping Queen’s, one of Canada’s leading research universities, bolster research capacity and volume to make groundbreaking discoveries that will deepen our knowledge of people, the planet, and universe.

    The business leader and philanthropist is making a transformative gift of $30 million to his alma mater with the goal of increasing research intensity and supporting graduate student recruitment.

    "The Queen’s community is grateful for Bruce’s generosity and his commitment to research," says Principal and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane. "This generous gift provides us with the resources to help achieve our bold research goals in part, through the support of top researchers. With these additional funds, we are realizing our aspirations to become a world leader bringing scholars and innovators together to make improvements across our many fields of study."

    The gift will dramatically improve and expand research and its real-world impact at Queen’s in many ways:

    • Nine existing faculty members will receive funds to ignite their research programs and teams
    • Nine new faculty members will be hired to support research intensity in strategic research areas
    • Queen’s will recruit 54 postdoctoral fellows
    • Queen’s will increase the size of its graduate student body and enhance the university’s competitiveness in attracting a diverse global pool of graduate scholars, through financial support for an estimated 79 grad students

    "The best way to invest in research is to invest in people and create the optimal conditions for them to thrive," says Vice-Principal (Research) Nancy Ross, Artsci'90, MA'92. "This gift allows us to focus on attracting and retaining the best faculty and graduate students. We hope to recruit rising stars and nurture them, setting up research environments where researchers are supported and able to progress."

    The gift will further bolster research at Queen’s. The university is already home to 35 Canada Research Chairs, 99 Royal Society of Canada members, and a Nobel Laureate – Professor Emeritus Arthur B. McDonald, co-recipient of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.

    "Research and innovation are powerful forces for positive change, and researchers play a critical role in shaping human knowledge," says Mitchell, the Chief Executive Officer of Permian Industries. "My hope is that this investment in increasing Queen’s research intensity and graduate student enrolment will lead to discoveries that will benefit the world."

    This is not Mitchell’s first significant gift to the university. He was the lead donor in the revitalization of the old Physical Education Centre (PEC), which was named Mitchell Hall in his honour. That transformational investment also supported the creation of the Ingenuity Labs Research Institute within Mitchell Hall as well as the installation of five engineering professorships across three departments.

    Data that helps define Kingston

    Researchers create a unique, regional, and accessible website that highlights key community information for residents in the Greater Kingston Area.

    Aerial view of Queen's University Campus
    Aerial View of Queen's University Campus

    For the past two years, researchers from Queen’s University’s Department of Geography and Planning have been meeting with municipal partners to investigate the community’s resiliency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Flowing from this collaboration, they have now created and unveiled a new interactive dashboard, called Kingston IN Focus, that highlights a range of community indicators, including information about the local economy, employment, environment, housing, and cultural heritage.

    “Evidence-based decision making is the hallmark of a leading city. The launch of the community data dashboard will be a critical knowledge resource as our economy emerges from the pandemic and as we use the data insights to inform greater resilience for our collective future,” says Craig Desjardins, Director, Strategy, Innovation, and Partnerships, City of Kingston.

    The online platform allows community members to delve deeper into the themes, and compare local, provincial, and national data, and relies on advanced computing techniques to perform automatic updates whenever new data becomes available, allowing site visitors to reference meaningful information when exploring changes in the landscape of the Kingston area over time.

    “We had been looking at this idea of a website through the lens of key indicators like the environment, housing, and public transit,” says Betsy Donald, a professor in the Department of Geography and Planning. “I had been working with Shauna Brail, an associate professor at the Institute for Management and Innovation, University of Toronto Mississauga. She was researching the impact of the pandemic on cities. Our team decided to learn from that, dig deeper, and tap into the Queen’s Centre for Advanced Computing to do some of the behind-the-scenes work and create the Kingston IN Focus dashboard website.”

    Carolyn DeLoyde, a post-doctoral fellow and adjunct assistant professor with the Department of Geography and Planning helped to develop the look, feel, and functionality of the website.

    “It is our regional visualizations that make our dashboard so unique. We have pie charts, line charts, and maps that are customizable, so there is something for every user. Hopefully, we can provide some benefit and help support data driven policy development, while encouraging community participation,” says Dr. DeLoyde.

    “The data behind the chart is available” says Fernando Hernandez of the Centre for Advanced Computing. “Every chart has a button you can click on and contains information. It allows people to verify the data for themselves.”

    Information contained on the dashboard also includes links to Kingston-centric research related to dashboard themes. Data sources for all community indicators are provided so policy makers and community members can explore additional information, independent of the dashboard.

    “What I love about this is that it’s accessible to non-experts,” says Jaime McKenzie-Naish, managing director of the Kingston and Area Association of Museums, Art Galleries and Historic Sites. “Having it in one location is absolutely brilliant. I already have used it to write a grant application. I needed to know exactly what the census numbers of the population of Kingston was, which, in other previous years I have found through much hard effort and looking.”

    The project has been a collaborative effort with the City of Kingston, Kingston Economic Development Corporation, Kingston and Area Association of Museums, Art Galleries and Historic Sites (KAM), the Centre for Advanced Computing (CAC), Office of Indigenous Initiatives at Queen’s University and the Department of Geography and Planning.

    The website has been up and running since last fall, but Jan. 25 marked the official launch of the dashboard. Media were invited to attend a virtual webinar to learn more about the project, and experts were on hand to answer questions.

    The creation of the dashboard was supported by Mitacs through the Mitacs Business Strategy Internship, and draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (SSHRC).

    Visitors are also encouraged to fill out the community engagement survey at the bottom of the website to reflect on their experience and suggest new data where they see value.

    More information on the dashboard can be found in the introduction video.

    Travel advances being phased out with new travel credit card program in place

    In 2021, Queen’s University introduced the travel credit card (TCard) program through Scotiabank that provides employees and departments more flexibility in paying for expenses when traveling on behalf of the university.

    With the successful launch of department and individual travel cards complete, Financial Services, in collaboration with Strategic Procurement Services, will be enforcing the Travel and Expense Reimbursement Policy, which states that “Faculty and Staff will not be issued travel advances for costs that can be paid for through a Queen’s TCard.”

    Effective Oct. 11, 2022:

    Cash/travel advances will no longer be approved for expenses such as: rail, airfare, hotel accommodations, rental vehicles, etc. However, if you can prove that you have applied and are waiting for a TCard, your advance may be approved.

    Faculty and staff must use the segments feature in the Expense Reimbursement System (ERS) when requesting an eligible cash advance otherwise the advance will not be approved.

    Effective Jan. 1, 2023:

    The expectation is that you have applied and received your Queen’s TCard. Cash advances will be rejected for expenses such as: rail, airfare, hotel accommodations, rental vehicles, etc.

    Faculty and staff must use the segments feature in ERS when requesting an eligible cash advance otherwise the advance will not be approved.

    SPS Business Services is currently contacting employees with travel advance applications and providing information about how to apply for a Queen’s TCard.

    Applications for Travel Credit Cards are now being accepted via acQuire. Complete the application found in Credit Card Forms. Mandatory training sessions are available for registration in the Learning Stream catalogue and are required as part of the TCard policy – information can be found on the SPS website.

    Full details regarding the new TCard policy and procedure can be found on the SPS website.

    Questions regarding the new TCard program can be sent to creditcards@queensu.ca.  

    Inspiring musical minds

    The latest donation by Bader Philanthropies, Inc., will ensure Sistema Kingston and the Faculty of Education continue to provide opportunities to aspiring young musicians and student teachers.

    Grade 2 students participating in Sistema Kingston's end of year concert at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.

    One of the largest donations ever to the Queen’s Faculty of Education is going to inspire children and help them reach their full potential through the power of music.

    A $533,000 (USD) gift from Bader Philanthropies, Inc., will guarantee funding for the next three years for Sistema Kingston – an intensive, after-school music program for elementary students focused on positive social development through the pursuit of musical excellence. Serving children from low-income and marginalized communities, Sistema Kingston is housed at the Queen’s Faculty of Education, which provides administrative support, office and storage space, and student-teacher volunteers. 

    “Sistema Kingston uses the music ensemble – strings, choir, and rhythm – as a vehicle to develop important life skills like attentive listening, self-confidence and perseverance.  Through group-centered learning and regular performance opportunities, we foster creativity and personal responsibility, and, of course, our goal is to spark joy,” says Sistema Kingston Director Karma Tomm. “It’s amazing knowing that, with this donation, we have funding for multiple years, and we can focus on supporting children and strengthening connections between the university and the community.”

    Tomm says the gift from Bader Philanthropies is the most generous donation the program has ever received. The gift will allow Sistema Kingston to reach more children by expanding its program to the Algonquin & Lakeshore Catholic District School Board – the region’s separate school board – and provide more practicum placements and hands-on learning opportunities for Queen’s Education students. 

    Sistema Kingston, which started in 2015, runs from October to May. Beginning in Grade 2, students participate for 10 hours a week, and the program culminates in a year-end concert at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. With a goal to eliminate barriers to accessibility, Sistema Kingston provides high-quality music instruction at no cost to families and works with The Joe Chithalen Memorial Musical Lending Library to provide free string instruments. 

    The program goes beyond just learning to play the violin, viola, or cello. Sistema Kingston focuses on the whole child by supporting emotional wellness and creating safe spaces for personal expression. It also offers a nutritious food program to make sure kids have the energy needed to thrive.   
     
    “At the Faculty of Education, we aim to create spaces where there is room for all to learn and grow. Sistema Kingston helps to build inclusive communities and brings music education, and its many benefits, to children in Kingston,” says Faculty of Education Dean Rebecca Luce-Kapler. “We are honoured by Bader Philanthropies’ gift and grateful for their continued support of music in our community.”  

    Sistema Kingston had to scale back programming due to COVID-19 restrictions, yet it highlighted that technology can be a tool to help teach. Reflecting on lessons learned during the pandemic, Tomm says the grant gives Sistema Kingston an opportunity to explore how to balance the benefits of technology and the online environment with the benefits of in-person engagement in an equitable way for students from all economic backgrounds.  

    Tomm is thrilled the new funding from Bader Philanthropies ensures the program grows and thrives by expanding to a new school board and providing more opportunities to both aspiring young musicians and student teachers.

    “Our goal is to reach more kids,” Tomm says. “I am really touched by (Bader Philanthropies’) confidence in what we do and their confidence in the way Queen’s and Kingston can work together to make our community a better place.”

    Transforming the global academy

    Principal Patrick Deane on how the SDGs are helping break down silos, provoke dialogue, and unite us all in a common global purpose.

    [Photo of Principal and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane]
    Patrick Deane, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Queen's University

    This op-ed was originally published in the Times Higher Education supplement in 2021.

    As a member of the international group tasked with updating the Magna Charta Universitatum – the declaration of university freedoms and principles that was first signed in Bologna in 1988 – I am struck by the extent to which the intervening three decades have altered the global consensus about the nature and function of universities. Where the original document spoke eloquently to the fundamental values of the academy, the new Magna Charta Universitatum 2020 reaffirms those values but also expands upon their social function and utility. I would summarise the shift this way: we have moved from an understanding of universities as defined primarily by their ability to transcend historical contingency to a more complicated view, which asserts that timeless principles such as academic freedom and institutional autonomy are the platform from which the academy must engage with history.

    If the situation in Europe and around the world in 1988 made it important to speak up for the freedoms without which teaching and research would be impoverished, by 2020 it had become equally important to speak of the responsibilities incumbent on institutions by virtue of the privileges accorded to them. The reality of rapid climate change has brought urgency and authority to this new view of universities, as have parallel trends in the social, cultural, and political climate, and “education for sustainable development” has emerged as the increasingly dominant model for global higher education – one which fuses the concerns of environment, society, and economy.  

    Recent columns in Times Higher Education have admirably described the diverse ways in which the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been intrinsic to this reorientation of the global academy: as a rallying point for students and staff, as an accountability framework, and as a global language for political action, for example. Here at Queen’s University, the SDGs have been an important frame for our current planning process, and in all of those ways have influenced the manner in which we understand and wish to articulate our mission.

    At one point in the process, an influential and valued friend of the university expressed some irritation to me about the way in which the SDGs had come to dominate and disrupt the university’s normally untroubled and inwardly-focused dialogue with itself about mission and values. “And in any case,” came the throwaway dismissal, “there’s nothing original or new about aligning with the SDGs.” Of course, that is true in 2021, but is it relevant? If a university is able to maximise its global impact, does the inherent originality or novelty of its planning parameters matter? In such exchanges – still occurring, I’m certain, on campuses everywhere – we can see that the changing consensus about which I wrote at the start is not yet complete.

    It seems to me, in fact, that much of the value of the SDGs as an organising framework for universities resides in their not being proprietary or “original” to one institution, or to an exclusive group of institutions. It has often been pointed out that they now provide a shared language which helps universities in diverse geographical, political, and socio-economic locations understand and build upon the commonality of their work in both teaching and research. Adoption of the SDGs, however variously that is done from institution to institution, is turning the “global academy” from a rhetorical to a real construct, and I can’t imagine why it would be in the interests of any university to hold itself aloof from that transformation. Having watched our planning process unfold at Queen’s over the last two years, I can confirm that what the SDGs do at the global level, they do also at the level of the individual institution, providing a common language that provokes and sustains dialogue – not only between disciplines, but between the academic and non-academic parts of the operation.

    I want to end by commenting on the excitement generated when siloes are broken open and when people and units understand how they are united with others in a common purpose and in service to the greater good. To cultivate that understanding has been the primary objective of planning at Queen’s for the last two years, and preparing our first submission to the Impact Rankings has been an intrinsic part of that process of learning and self-discovery. Naturally, we are delighted and excited by where we find ourselves in the rankings, but we are energised in a more profound way by the knowledge of what synergies and collaborations exist or appear possible both within our university and in the global academy.

    The first 16 SDGs point to the areas in which we want to have impact. The 17th tells us what the whole project is really all about: acting in community for the communal good.

     

    Queen’s commits to reduce carbon footprint of university’s investment portfolios by 2030

    Strategy calls to maintain significantly lower emissions than the global benchmark and drive meaningful change.

    Queen's University and Grant Hall

    In line with Queen’s commitment to make a real and lasting impact in the fight against climate change, Queen’s Board of Trustees has endorsed its Investment Committee’s Final Report on Climate Change Action Task Force (CCATF) Recommendations, which includes a commitment to lower the carbon footprint across the university’s investment portfolios.

    The Investment Committee report set targets to maintain at least 25 per cent lower carbon emissions than the global equities benchmark by the year 2030.

    “Queen’s University is deeply committed to making a global impact in advancing sustainability through its responsible investing,” says Jim Keohane, Chair of the Investment Committee. “We are aligned with students, faculty, staff and the administration in engaging on this issue. The recommendations we have brought forward will have a lasting positive impact on Queen’s and our planet.”

    The targets set out in the recommendations are impactful and designed to align Queen’s with Canada’s net zero commitments. With a target of at least 25 per cent below the broader global market’s emissions, the university will decarbonize its portfolios ahead of the market and without singling out specific industries. The benchmark target reduction approach is aligned with those taken by many large best-in-class institutional investors.

    “We will work closely alongside our investment managers to drive carbon reduction with all companies within our portfolios,” Keohane says. “We will ask a lot of our investment managers and we will be tough markers to effect real change.”

    “We have recommended a holistic, collaborative and comprehensive approach to the de-carbonization of our investment portfolios because we believe it is the most effective approach, and simply the right thing to do,” says Don Raymond, who chaired both the CCATF and the Energy Transition Subcommittee that was tasked to look at how to implement the recommendations.

    This approach will allow the funds to achieve strong, sustainable returns while enabling the university to do its part in working with other responsible shareholders to influence the companies in which it is invested to also decarbonize. The University Board and administration have listened to student input and reflected this in their decisions and actions.

    “We believe the recommendations put forward and approved by the Board are a significant step for the University to be taking,” says Aria Goldin, Co-President, Queen’s Backing Action on Climate Crisis, a climate change activism organization run by Queen’s students. “We look forward to working with University Investment leadership to provide our input on the progress of these important commitments.”

    The recommendations are notable in Queen’s broader strategy to tackle climate change, supporting Queen’s overall commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

    The Board of Trustees approved the following three key recommendations of the CCATF final report:

    1. Reduce the carbon footprint of the Pooled Endowment Fund (PEF) and Pooled Investment Fund (PIF) and sustain by the end of 2030 a public equity portfolio (and real assets and private equity where data are available) with 25 per cent lower carbon emissions than the equities benchmark.
    2. Allocate at least 15 per cent of the PEF to a Queen’s Climate Action Allocation (QCAA) by the end of 2030, comprising investments across asset classes that are expected to outperform with the transition to a lower carbon economy. In taking this targeted allocation approach, the committee no longer recommends including the previously planned donor direction program.
    3. Queen’s should become a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI).

    A key to achieving the targets set out in the plan is the establishment of a Queen’s Climate Action Allocation (QCAA), made up of investments with significantly lower carbon emissions than the equities benchmark. The recommendations target an allocation of at least 15 per cent of the PEF into the QCAA by the end of calendar 2030. The QCAA was kickstarted in December 2020 with a US$30 million investment within the PEF into Pattern Energy, a private wind and solar company with operations in North America and Japan. That investment represents just over three per cent of current PEF assets.

    Principal and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane noted the recommendations also complement many of the other initiatives undertaken by the university, including the commitments expressed in Investing to Address Climate Change: A Charter for Canadian Universities, to which Queen’s was one of 15 founding signatories in June 2020.

    “This work undertaken by our former Board Chair and the subcommittee will be a lasting legacy,” says Principal Deane. “The recommendations signify real action to address our ongoing commitment to combat climate change and have placed Queen’s at the forefront of investment transparency.”

    More information on Queen’s Responsible Investing can be found online.

    Today’s decisions are just one of the ways Queen’s is advancing sustainability and responding to the world’s most urgent challenges. For more details on Queen’s contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals are available here

    Review of Queen’s budget model

    Following the release of Queen’s new Strategy, Principal and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane has initiated a review of Queen’s budget model to ensure that resource allocation is aligned with and advances the university’s new strategic goals. The aim of the review is to assess critically the strengths and weakness of the current model and to identify potential modifications.

    A steering committee has been formed to oversee the review, chaired by the Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Mark Green. Huron Consulting Group has also been engaged to assist in the review of the budget model. 

    Huron Consulting Group is conducting a series of interviews and focus groups with various members of the Queen’s community, including department heads, staff representatives, members of Senate committees, senior administration, and deans.

    While the review will consider the input received during the consultation process that formed the basis of the Report on the Conversation and the development of Queen’s Strategy, members of the Queen’s community are also encouraged to provide additional feedback to provost@queensu.ca by Monday, Feb. 28.

    The steering committee is expected to complete its work and deliver its recommendations by Spring 2022. An overview of any suggested enhancements to the current model will be communicated broadly to the Queen’s community.

    Further information is available on the Office of the Provost website.

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