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.

On Feb. 28, Pope Benedict XVI retired from his position as the leader of the Catholic Church, becoming the first pontiff since 1294 to resign from the papacy. As the Catholic Church prepares for the conclave that will elect the next pope, the Tribune sat down with leading theologian Professor Tracey Rowland, Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne, Australia, and author of the 2008 biography of Benedict XVI, “ Ratzinger’s Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI,” to discuss Benedict’s legacy, the challenges facing the next pope, and candidates for the position, including Quebec’s own Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

MT: What was Pope Benedict’s contribution to the papacy?

TR: I think he’s [made] a number of contributions. The ones that stand out, I suppose, his work for Christian unity. He has a deep understanding of the Orthodox churches, and that’s because he has such a great knowledge of church history, and knowledge of what are called the Greek fathers…. He was all the time sending messages to the Orthodox leaders that he was trying to include … as part of the great patrimony of Christianity. And he did [an] enormous amount of diplomatic work with the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. He established the Anglican Ordinariate, and I think that in the future that will be seen as a watershed moment in the history of the return of Anglicans to full communion with the Catholic Church.… He’s also worked on bringing the Lefebvrists back, the people who went into schism in 1988 over interpretations of the Second Vatican Council…. I think in the future, one of his major legacies will be his writing, both as pope and as Cardinal Ratzinger. He’s published over 60 books, and I don’t know how many articles and how many homilies. I think people will be reading him for a very long time.

MT: It’s clear that one of the bigger legacies is his effort for Christian unity. How would you say he has handled some of the scandals that have come up during his papacy?

TR: I think he’s done the only thing he can do, and that is look humble, and say he feels so deeply sad about these things. The pope has a lot of authority, but the Church is a huge structure, and if people are making imprudent decisions at other levels, even if you have an enormous amount of authority, you can’t, on a day-to-day basis, be on [top of] everything that’s happening in every diocese in the world. That’s not humanly possible…. When terrible things happen, a reaction in the contemporary world is to think, well, what bureaucratic protocols should have been in place to stop this? And in some ways it’s valid to think about it like that. But there are much deeper issues. There’s no number of protocols or procedures that can stop evil. We’ve had evil in the world since the Fall [of Adam and Eve]. It’s like this problem is on a much deeper spiritual level. And I think he understands that. I think that with the resignation, he is saying, “Whoever has to deal with all of this needs to be a very strong person. And I don’t have the physical strength to deal with this and everything else the pope has to do. We need a younger man, a stronger man, but I’m not going to go into a room and watch television. I’m going to go and spend whatever days I have remaining in my life doing penance and praying.” And so it’s like he’s saying, “when things are this bad, we’re in an intense spiritual battle, and we know from the scripture that there’s some evil that’s so bad that the only thing that can get rid of it is prayer and fasting,” and that’s what he’s going to do.

… Sometimes lay people say, “Well, we don’t think we should be doing prayer and penance because we haven’t created these problems, we’ve been the victims, our families have been the victims, our children have been the victims. We shouldn’t be doing the penance, the bishops should be doing the prayer and penance.” And I think Pope Benedict is leading by example by saying, “Well, I am the chief bishop, and I’m going to do prayer and penance.” I think that’s the spiritual witness that he’s giving.

MT: What does the resignation mean to the Catholic Church?

TR: I think it could be something very providential. Imagine if the young pope finds himself in a position where he can go and talk to Pope Benedict like a son to a father. And to have the consolation that while he’s dealing with all the things he has to deal with, that there’s another man who has shouldered these responsibilities, who is living in the same precinct, praying, to whom he can go and share what is ever troubling him. I think that could be something really wonderful that, for 600 years, no pope has had.

… [Pope Benedict is] also admitting, “Well, my ability to deal with the problems of the church as an ecclesial administrator is severely limited by my age.” One bishop said to me that he has been told that Pope Benedict is only capable of doing four hours of work a day. His doctors have said, “If you do more than four hours of work a day, you’ll be dead within a couple of weeks.” That’s hearsay, but he’s an 85- year-old man, it’s probably true.

What are the main challenges facing the next pope?

He’s following two great popes, blessed John Paul II, who was just loved by so many people [due to] the incredible depth of his humanity. And [he] was followed by this brilliant theologian. It’s an extraordinary job description, but I think ideally we would like to have someone who has the theological gifts of Pope Benedict, the personal charisma of blessed John Paul II, and quite a strong skill for administration. Because we know that in the final years of the papacy of John Paul II, he was so unwell that the administration was starting to break down and become chaotic—and that doesn’t seem to have been fixed under the papacy of Benedict. So we’ve had pretty much a decade of poor ecclesial governance. The next pope will need to be able to get on top of the administration.

Would you comment on the candidates for the papacy?

Well, one of the most interesting things in terms of the frontrunner is that a lot of people think that the number one frontrunner is Cardinal Marc Ouellet. Cardinal Ouellet has had experience working in Latin America, he’s highly regarded by North Americans, he’s also had experience working in Rome in the Curia, [and] so he has some understanding of how the bureaucracy operates. He [knows] a number of languages. Some people think that after a Pole and a German, it’s about time that someone with a francophone background was pope, but mostly I think it’s because he’s seen to be someone who has had a very broad range of experiences in a number of different areas of the world. He’s also a very strong theologian.

You wrote two books on Benedict. What did you learn through the process of writing about him?

One of the things people say about Ratzinger is that he is so easy to understand, that when he writes about theological topics, one doesn’t need to have a degree in theology in order to follow what he’s saying. I think that has made him immensely popular with a lot of people. One also discovers that he has an incredible knowledge of Church history and the writings of the early Church fathers.

… Another thing I like about him, which is of no great theological significance, is he likes cats. I think that’s lovely. One of the stories about him is that when he was a cardinal, at lunch time he would often go to one of the parks in Rome. He liked to go for a stroll in the park near his office, and he always would take scraps to give the stray cats. I think that shows something of the emotional side of him. Apparently he does, or did [own a cat]. The cat was called Chico … a really good question is, will he get a cat now that he’s no longer pope? I think he should.