Appointment of a new Deputy Provost

I am very pleased to report that the Board of Governors at its meeting of 23 May, 2013, has approved the appointment of Prof. Ollivier Dyens as McGill’s second Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) for a five-year term beginning 1 September, 2013 and ending 31 July, 2018.

An award-winning author, artist and poet, Prof. Dyens comes to us from Concordia University, where he has served since 2008 as Vice-Provost (Teaching and Learning). He will also be appointed a full Professor of French language and literature at McGill.

Prof. Dyens replaces Prof. Morton J. Mendelson, McGill’s inaugural Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning), whose seven-year term (including a two-year extension) comes to an end 31 August, 2013. I would like to take this opportunity to again thank Prof. Mendelson for his outstanding service to McGill in this and other roles. He has served with distinction and accomplished a great deal in building a truly impressive Student Life and Learning team.

As Vice-Provost at Concordia, Prof. Dyens has overseen all aspects of curriculum development, and has been responsible for the promotion of teaching and learning. Concordia’s recent e.SCAPE conference on technology-integrated teaching one example of his many initiatives and he was also responsible for redesigning Concordia’s academic program-appraisal process.

At McGill, he will lead the Student Life and Learning team, which includes Student Services, Teaching and Learning Services, Athletics and Recreation, Residences and Housing, Food and Dining Services, Enrolment Services, the Dean of Students office and other services.

An authority on cyberculture, Prof. Dyens obtained his PhD from Université de Montréal in 1996, writing a thesis on the impact of technology on the representation of humanity. He is the founder and webmaster of Metal and Flesh (1998-2003), Continent X (http://www.continentx.uqam.ca/), and The Inhuman Condition (theinhumancondition.org) websites, which are dedicated to the study of cyberculture.

Prof. Dyens is the author of 11 books, including La Condition inhumaine, essai sur l’effroi technologique published in France by Flammarion, and Metal and Flesh, The Evolution of Man, Technology Takes Over, published by MIT Press whose French version (VLB Éditeur) was awarded Best Essay by the Société des Écrivains Canadiens.

He has been awarded more than $2.8 million in research funding as a principal investigator or collaborator over the course of his career and has lectured in Europe, the United States and Canada. His digital artwork has been exhibited in Brazil, Canada, France, Venezuela, Germany, Argentina and the United States.

Born in Rome, Italy, but a resident of Canada since the age of 3, Prof. Dyens has spent most of is adult life in Montreal. After completing his PhD, he taught for five years at Sainte-Anne University in Nova Scotia, before taking a position at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

Please join me in wishing Prof. Dyens all the best as he takes up his new duties.