Update from President Lowy as he begins third month of mandate
As I head into the third month of my mandate as president, I am pleased to say that I see solid progress being made on the issues that are critical to Concordia’s future.
I have devoted much of the past nine weeks to meeting with faculty, students, staff and other important members of our broader community to hear their views on a range of topics. In those exchanges, I have been touched by the consistent goodwill and optimism expressed by so many Concordians who want to build on the qualities that make our university special.
Governance
A number of indicators for progress are falling into place. The three-person external governance review committee chaired by Bernard Shapiro has begun receiving submissions about key aspects and working relationships of our formally constituted governing bodies. Vital input from our community will help us determine the optimal roles of our Board of Governors, Senate, Faculty Councils and administration once we have evaluated this committee’s report.
Funding and Tuition
The Quebec government’s introduction of a six-year plan to provide increased and predictable funding for the province’s universities is an essential step forward in building on the investments Concordia itself has been making in its commitment to strive for excellence in higher education. Narrowing the funding gap between Quebec’s universities and those in the rest of Canada will allow us to increase investment in teaching and learning, strengthen our research efforts and better compete nationally for students and faculty.
All stakeholders, including students, are being asked to do their part in funding universities, and we only have to look at the growing fiscal and demographic challenges in post-secondary education around the world to understand that this is the right way forward. This cannot be done, however, without taking steps to protect the most financially disadvantaged students. I commend the Quebec government for emphasizing accessibility to university education by making major improvements to its loans and bursaries programs.
We will continue to build on the government’s decision to strengthen funding measures for students. Facilitating accessibility is an objective central to our own fundraising efforts at Concordia. The strong and steady support of Concordia’s donors has been of critical importance to the steps we have taken to broaden accessibility in recent years. Happily, despite misleading reports to the contrary, donations remained strong during the past three months.
Recruitment
I am particularly pleased with our decision to try to recruit top Canadian and international students entering PhD and MFA programs. The university has set aside $3 million in additional funding over the next three years to provide full tuition waivers. The plan, which was led by Vice-President Research and Graduate Studies Louise Dandurand and Graham Carr, Dean of Graduate Studies, in collaboration with the Senate Finance Committee, is expected to attract about 35 new international students a year, more than doubling the number of international tuition waivers at Concordia.
In the coming weeks, we will be finalizing the budget for 2011-12; the goal is to maintain our strategic priorities and remain diligent in our financial management. This will be the second year of a three-year budget planning cycle, which allows us to deal more effectively with a landscape of changes in government funding, enrolment and other factors.
Academic Planning
Consultations have also continued on Concordia’s new academic plan, as Provost David Graham fine-tunes the document in preparation for review and consultation by the Concordia community over the course of the next few months. Ongoing feedback from Concordians on the proposed plan to improve the quality of our teaching, research and services to students has been an integral part of the drafting process.
These developments reassure me that Concordia is on the right track to achieving its long-term objectives, and that concerted efforts to work together to surmount our current challenges will soon pay dividends for the university, its alumni and its friends.
Fred Lowy
President and Vice-Chancellor