Although many students are currently out-of-town for reading week, Stuart H. (Kip) Cobbett, chair of McGill’s Board of Governors, announced on Tuesday Mar. 5 that Dr. Suzanne Fortier has been selected as McGill’s new principal.
Fortier will be leaving her post as president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), a position she has held for seven years, to join the McGill community. Before serving as president of NSERC, Fortier worked as a professor of chemistry and assumed several senior administrator positions at Queen’s University. In that time, she served as an associate dean of graduate studies and research, vice-principal (research), and vice-principal (academic).
Fortier is a graduate of McGill, and received both her Bachelor’s of Science in 1972 and her PhD in 1976 from the university. She will start her five-year term as principal in Sept. 2013.
McGill Tribune: Why did you apply for the job?
Suzanne Fortier: Actually, I was asked to apply for the job. I have to tell you that I was very happy in my previous job in NSERC … In fact, I have never applied for a job in the seven years I have been here, but McGill [is] a pretty special place for me. It’s a fantastic university. It’s one of the best in the world. And it is my alma mater, so there is a real sense for me of a strong link with McGill, with Montreal, with Quebec. It’s a place that has given me so many opportunities [and has been] a launching pad in my career, so I am profoundly attached to these places.
MT: Who asked you to apply?
SF: The [Advisory Committee for Nomination of a Principal].
MT: What will you bring to McGill?
SF: Of course, I have a lot of experience. I have been in senior administrative positions at Queen’s University and at NSERC. I hope that what I [will] bring is my commitment, my energy, [and] my enthusiasm. I will work hard and give it my best. [I] really want to work with the community in building on this incredible asset that McGill is. … We are so lucky to have it, and we need to continue to build on that.
MT: What do you see as the biggest challenges of your new position, and how will you deal with them?
SF: I think the biggest challenge facing … all universities is that around the world now, people [are realizing] that the biggest asset we have is in our people of talent. Education [and] research innovation has a very important place in our world, in a world that is very open without borders, and a world that is also very competitive for people of talent. I think that the challenge that universities around the world have to face is to look at their role and their mission in this world, where so much of what we need to do … is based on knowledge, talent, and creativity.
MT: What are your views on tuition increases and the student movement in general?
SF: That’s an important topic, of course. I know I will have a lot of discussions with students and student leadership on these issues. For me, I think I would like to start the conversation with more fundamental topics such as quality of education, the kind of education students need nowadays to be a very active member of this incredible global environment, and also the question of accessibility. … How [do] we ensure accessibility, in particular, to students who [are] of less advantage? It’s a broader question. I’m sure you know as a student that the bigger stuff of attending a university is not your tuition, but your lodging, your food, and all of these other expenditures that you have to make in order to attend university, so it’s a broader question … but I think it’s an important question to see how can we make sure that students have the opportunity to come to such a great university regardless of their financial needs.
MT: What are one or two things that you would like to improve most at McGill?
SF: It’s hard for me at this point to say or to narrow it down to one or two things because, as you know, I’ve left Quebec and McGill for quite a long time, so one of the first things I want to do is, in fact, be there to learn and to listen to … people from the community. And from there, as a community, to find what are those one or two things we need to focus on as priorities, so I don’t want to establish that ahead of having that opportunity to really be connected to people in the community at McGill.
MT: How do you see McGill as being different from Queen’s, and what will you adjust in your administrative managing while at McGill?
SF: McGill shares a lot with Queen’s in that they are both institutions that are highly committed to the experience of their students being [one of] very high quality. Queen’s is a university—and I truly think that McGill would be a university of the same type—where building the student leadership is very important, and so there is a lot in common between these two institutions. [But they are] in different contexts. One is [in] a small town in Ontario, [and] the other one is [in] a big city in Montreal with two cultures living side by side, and of course a lot of other cultures, it being a very cosmopolitan city.
MT: Are you a Montreal native?
SF: No, but I was born in a very small village in Quebec, close to Montreal … so I come from the rural part of Quebec.
MT: So you do, indeed, speak French?
SF: Oui, bien sûr.
MT: Given the tensions between universities in Quebec and the Parti Québécois, how do you see yourself interacting with the provincial government going forward in the next year?
SF: Of course, I will make it a priority to build good links with the government. But [based on] my experience … in areas of education and research innovation, we start from a very solid base of common goals and common values, and that is where the discussion has to start. And then from there, define what we want to do, what we are prepared to do, the kinds of investment both of our time and energy and money that we are prepared to make in order to build on these great assets.
MT: Could you comment on the budget cuts and how you plan on handling that situation?
SF: That situation has been changing weekly, so I know what the situation is as it evolves, but I am not there— so I will talk to you in some general terms because I am not at McGill yet, and I do not have the responsibility [to take care of them] yet. I have certainly, both when I was at Queen’s and in my current job … had to deal with cuts in budgets and the exercise that one must engage in defining … the values, the principles, and the goals that will drive the exercise, [while] making sure that you protect the core, the essential part of your organization. and maybe tightening the belt in other areas where you know that doing so will not create a long-term negative impact, and that you continue to build on once financial situations get better. So I will bring that discipline that I have learned at my previous job to this exercise that [is] not pleasant, but often necessary.
