Welcome to McGill

When I talk to students, meet with alumni, or learn of the latest McGill research, I feel enormous pride in the remarkable impact and reach of this university, far beyond the borders of our two campuses. And I’m also struck by the extent to which people worldwide associate the McGill name with the very highest standards of academic distinction and community contribution. It’s a hard-won reputation, built on the McGill community’s extraordinary dedication to quality.

Over some 188 years, McGill has become an elite university — by the highest international standards of excellence — but not a university for the elite. We attract the most internationally diverse student body in Canada, and we’re expanding our financial aid programs to ensure that one day soon, every qualified student — regardless of financial means — will be able to choose McGill. It is my dearest hope that we will achieve this goal within my tenure as Principal.

Spanning disciplines, spanning the globe

Over the past year, McGill’s professors and graduate students have expanded our knowledge of the world around us to benefit our Quebec, national and global communities — and to enrich the learning of our undergraduate as well as our professional and graduate students. Our faculty members bring research into the classroom, and inspire students to get hands-on with research. The contributions of McGill graduates are unquestioned — from Supreme Court justices to CEOs, from Nobel Prize-winners and a Stanley Cup-winning hockey coach to the two alumni who soared above the Earth aboard the International Space Station this summer.

As successful as we have been, our achievements have not blinded us to need to continue to press to achieve all that we can, consistent with our mission as a public research-intensive and student-centred university. With the privileges of serving in a great university, come special responsibilities, and ours are profound. In the year and years to come, we will strive to break new ground in fields that benefit humanity. We will work for social justice at home and abroad, and shrink the gap between the world’s “haves” and “have-nots.” And we will meet head-on the social, technological, health, environmental and economic challenges that we all face.

Get to know McGill

As I write this, I am looking out at students rushing to discover their new courses on a sunny day at the beginning of our fall term. These talented and energetic young adults from Quebec, across Canada, and virtually every country in the world remind me not just of our great present, but of our enormous potential. I invite you to explore this wonderful McGill community — visit us in person, contact us directly, and take the time to explore this website and discover our innovative academic programs, our outstanding services for students, our leading-edge research and scholarship, or the many McGill community initiatives at home and abroad that bring about real change in the world.

Thank you for your interest in McGill, and on behalf of the entire university community, I wish you a pleasant visit to our website.

Heather Munroe-Blum,
Principal and Vice-Chancellor