Looking for a Leader
Concordia University is Hiring
After an unprecedented administrative shakeup, Concordia is searching for yet another president.
You can send nominations here.
Coinciding with the expiration of 32 of 40 of the Board of Governors’ members’ terms and with the Board membership structure being drastically reduced by the end of the year, filling holes in the university’s uppermost ranks is as important as ever.
Faced with the monumental task of cleaning up Concordia’s public image, our future president will also act as the chief executive officer of the university, and be expected to bridge the divide between academic and administrative vision. This future leader will also hopefully put an end to a governance crisis that is five years in the making.
This Friday will mark the last day students, faculty, staff and alumni can fill out an online nomination and give their recommendations. After this period, no public consultation about the process moving forward has been announced.
“At this point, it’s too early to tell what is going to happen with future presidential searches,” said Concordia spokesperson Chris Mota. “This particular [search] is following the process we’ve had in the past. […] Right now we’re at a consultation stage.”
Mota also told The Link that all input from the online nomination will remain confidential, including how many responses there have been and what kind suggestions have been made. “This information will only be shared with the search committee.”
Article 33 of the bylaws empowers the Board of Governors to appoint the president and establish the appropriate procedure for doing so. Currently, Board of Governors President Peter Kruyt chairs the 14-member Presidential Search Committee.
In the External Governance Review Committee report issued June 15, the 30th recommendation suggested that “it would be in the interest of Concordia, at a later stage, to develop a more permanent and, perhaps, more elegant solution, one that would allow for the participation and input of the University community while providing the Board with the level of confidence it needs.”
Longer-term recommendations included that the short-list of presidential candidates be abandoned.
At this time, the university is not required to implement the EGRC recommendations to the current Presidential search.
“Now, it’s a consultation stage. Then, [the Advisory Committee] has to knock together a profile, start advertising and see what kind of candidates come forward,” continued Mota. “It’s a long process. We anticipate that Dr. Lowy will be here until August 2012. And I don’t expect that we will have a new president before then.”
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Claude Lajeunesse
(2005-2007)
An engineer by trade, Lajeunesse is the President and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada.
He acted as President and Vice Chancellor of Ryerson University from 1995 to 2005, and reportedly gave himself a 50 per cent raise at the beginning of his term.
When he came to ConU in ’05, following on the heels of our current interim president Frederick Lowy, Lajeunesse negotiated a raise for himself and defended all $350,000 of it. His job perks included a monthly $1,200 car allowance, a $3,000 entertainment budget, and numerous club memberships.
Lajeunesse made headlines across the province after describing Quebec students as a “pampered minority” and calling for an end to the tuition freeze.
Had a reputation for being… difficult. Described as “no nonsense,” Lajeunesse was reportedly “not a people person,” cultivating a “personality conflict” with the Board of Governors. Under his tenure, the Provost also prematurely resigned.
Two years into his mandate, Lajeuness reportedly had a “meeting of the minds” with the Board in a closed-meeting session and reached an agreement to step away from his post with a $1.3 million severance package on Oct. 31, 2007.
An uproar and public relations blitz followed Lajeunesse’s resignation, along with wild speculation about what happened. The president of the Faculty Association sent a seething open letter to the Board demanding, “after all the concerted effort [to select a president], how can an incumbent be dismissed in a morning with no process, no discussion, no explanation? […]
“Such secrecy with regard to such a key announcement has, and will continue, to engender wild speculation about the true goals of the Board. This is certainly not conducive to the development of a leading Canadian university.”
Judy Woodsworth
(2008-2010)
Unanimously appointed by the Board in the wake of Lajeunesse’s departure, many hoped that Judith Woodsworth would bring stability and financial oversight to the university.
The Winnipeg-raised McGill grad got her Ph.D in French
literature from Concordia before sitting as VP Academic at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax and President of Laurentian University in Sudbury, ON from 2002 to 2008.
Coming into the Concordia fray after the university had incurred a $10 million deficit, Woodsworth managed to somewhat turn the financial books around. Her administration also saw the undertaking of Concordia’s first strategic framework, outlining our mission, vision and values.
Woodsworth began to wane in ConU popularity after a series of VP resignations and PR/HR gaffes. She also endorsed an “American model” of tuition budgeting, calling for Concordia’s tuition to increase to $5,000 a year, which swiftly pissed off students.
The Board of Governors announced on Dec. 22, 2010 that Woodsworth was “stepping down for personal reasons” with a $703,500 severance package, despite being only halfway into her mandate.
“I would have been happy to continue as president, but some board members said that they have lost confidence and felt I should step down,” Woodsworth told The Globe and Mail in January. “I was not given the reasons, so that’s all I can tell you.”
Frederick Lowy
(1995-2005 & 2011-Present)
Prior to his first stint as president, Lowy, who was born in 1933 in Gosspetersdorf, Austria, was the Chief of Psychiatry at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, and a professor at the University of Toronto from 1974 to 1995.
Lowy arrived at Concordia for his first term in 1995 following a difficult patch of severe government funding cuts and the fatal shootings of four engineering professors on campus, a time when university morale was reportedly low.
Lowy and the Concordia Student Union, which at the time was described as “radical” and “militant,” clashed during his first time ‘round over anti-establishment activities and the publishing of Uprising, an “activist” student agenda so provocative students eventually insisted the CSU resign.
After the Netanyahu Riot in 2002, one of Concordia’s most famous campus clashes, Lowy orchestrated a huge expansion of security on campus and expelled many student activists, putting a month-long moratorium on Mid-East related events. Lowy also created Concordia’s active “Risk Assessment Committee,” a highly elusive administrative body made up of an unknown number of unknown members that’s responsible for vetting all on-campus events for “security risks.”
The Board of Governors appointed Lowy Interim President of Concordia on Jan. 21, 2011, a few weeks after the dismissal of Judith Woodsworth.
In May, the Board of Governors provided an interest-free loan of $1.4 million to Lowy in good faith to cover his property expenses. The University has said that paying the $35,000 interest on the loan was “not prohibitive.”
A key element of Lowy’s mandate as interim president is to implement the “Strategic Framework.” He will also oversee the process leading up to the launch of a capital campaign.
