From the Principal
The Principal's Perspective
Following are excerpts from “The Principal’s Perspective,” a Q&A with Principal and Vice-Chancellor Heather Munroe-Blum published in the Fall/Winter 2009 issue of McGill News:
What is your reaction to surpassing $500 million in Campaign McGill?
I’m delighted to be reaching this milestone. When we began the campaign, we had the highest launch goal of any public campaign for a university in Canada. That we’re at the $500-million mark with another three-and-a-half years to go in the campaign is terrific, especially when you think of the economic downturn and the challenges we all faced in the last year.
What impact has the international economic crisis had on the campaign?
People understand that when times are tough, public causes need support. We have many more people giving than we have seen in the past, and that was one of our goals. One expected consequence of the economic downturn was that overall dollar giving was down 20% compared to the previous year. Our hope is that this year will be different as things start to pick up again.
The crisis has hit university endowments, including McGill’s. Does that affect the campaign?
There’s no question that donors want to see that their investment is extremely well-stewarded. And while McGill, like all universities, had our endowment hurt, we haven’t been hurt as badly as many other universities. I want to take this opportunity to thank our investment committee. This extremely talented group of volunteers works with the senior administration on the management of our endowment. I know there were some who believed that our endowment was invested somewhat conservatively. Of course, we’re celebrating the investment committee members as heroes right now for having been so prudent.
How has McGill fared during the economic downturn compared to other universities?
Wealthier universities have long had the luxury of saying almost every good idea will be funded. We’ve never had that luxury at McGill. It’s not a matter of suddenly waking up in an economic downturn and saying, oh, we’ve got to make some hard choices. We have a long history of thinking very carefully about our programs and how to support our outstanding students and faculty. It’s in our DNA.
And we benefited enormously from being at the tail end of a massive faculty renewal phase, not at the beginning of it. We’ve recruited 900 new professors in the last eight years.
During your campaign tour, what questions have you been asked the most by alumni?
They are eager to learn about the renewal of the professoriate, and they’re thrilled about our efforts to bring undergraduate students into the research realm. They’re very interested in interdisciplinarity, because they see in their own lives how the world has changed.
Are there particular campaign priorities that remain to be addressed?
We still have a significant way to go to reach the level of student support that will allow us to say that every qualified student can come here, independent of financial means. That is an absolute commitment for me during my time as principal: that we reach that goal and sustain it.
Professor Heather Munroe-Blum
Principal and Vice-Chancellor