McGill University reappoints Provost, four Deans, and names a new Dean of Law
Professor Heather Munroe-Blum, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, is delighted to announce that the Board of Governors has approved the reappointment of Prof. Anthony C. Masi as Provost for a second five-year term and the appointment of Prof. Daniel Jutras as Dean of the Faculty of Law for an initial six-year term.
In addition, Prof. Munroe-Blum is also enormously pleased to announce that the following Deans have also been given second mandates : Prof. Martin Grant (Faculty of Science), Prof. Chandra A. Madramootoo (Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences), and Prof. Christophe Pierre (Faculty of Engineering), each for a five-year term; and Prof. Peter Todd (Desautels Faculty of Management) for a six-year term. All renewals begin on 1 July 2010.
At McGill, the Provost is the Chief Academic Officer after the Principal. In that capacity, Prof. Masi oversees the strategies, planning, development, implementation and assessment of all academic priorities, policies and programs. He is also responsible for the development of the overall budget and for the allocation of funds and other resources in alignment with and support of the University's academic priorities. Prof. Masi's new five-year term begins on 1 July 2010. He reports directly to the Principal.
"Prof. Masi has done an outstanding job of enhancing McGill's commitment to academic excellence while adhering to a sound, disciplined budgetary framework," Prof. Munroe-Blum said. "He has helped reinforce McGill's place among the world's leading universities, guided by the priorities and goals set out in the 2006 White Paper that he authored following an extensive planning exercise conducted with the Deans and other academic leaders of the University."
Prof. Masi completed a PhD in sociology-demography at Brown University and was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at McGill in 1979. His administrative work at McGill began with the development of the Social Science Statistics Laboratory and its subsequent transformation into a faculty-wide information-technology support service of which he was the first Director. He also served the Faculty of Arts as an Associate Dean. In October 2000, he became McGill's Vice-Principal (Information Systems and Technology). Principal Munroe-Blum named Prof. Masi Deputy Provost and Chief Information Officer in April 2003, and he was appointed as Provost in December 2005 after having served as the Interim Provost since March 2005.
Prof. Jutras, has built a distinguished career as a legal scholar and teacher in civil and comparative law, and in the law of obligations from a trans-systemic perspective since joining McGill 25 years ago. "Daniel Jutras has been an exemplary member of the Faculty of Law as an esteemed educator, distinguished scholar and accomplished academic administrator since he joined McGill in 1985," Prof. Munroe-Blum said. "We know that the Faculty will continue to excel under his exceptional leadership."
Professor Jutras completed his LL.M. from Harvard University and LL.B. from Université de Montréal.
From 2002 to 2004, Prof. Jutras was on leave from the Faculty, and acted as Chief of Staff to the Chief Justice of Canada, the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, in the position of Executive Legal Officer of the Supreme Court of Canada. He is a former Director of the Institute of Comparative Law and has served as Associate Dean (Admissions and Placement), and Associate Dean (Academic) in the Faculty. He has recently served as interim Dean. He succeeds Nicholas Kasirer, who was appointed last summer to Quebec's Court of Appeal, the province's highest court. Prof. Jutras assumes his role as Dean on 1 March 2010.
Prof. Grant received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1982 and joined McGill in 1986. He later became a James McGill Professor, known for his research into the formation and properties of complex structures, such as crystals and flames. Before becoming Dean in June 2005, he served as Chair of the Department of Physics, Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science, and Director of the Centre for the Physics of Materials. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004. Under Martin Grant's leadership the Faculty of Science has made significant progress in its pedagogical programs, its research agenda, and in the provision of student services and integrated educational research experiences.
Prof. Madramootoo began his career at McGill's Macdonald Campus in 1984 as a lecturer in agricultural engineering, and went on to become a James McGill Professor and founding director of the Brace Centre for Water Resources Management. He earned his B.Sc.(Agr. Eng.), M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural engineering at McGill and worked for several years in agricultural water management in the Commonwealth Caribbean region and other parts of the world. He has served as Dean since August 2005. In that capacity, he has been the driving force behind the McGill Conference on Global Food Security, devoted to finding solutions to the issues contributing to malnutrition among nearly 1 billion people around the world.
Prof. Pierre joined the Faculty of Engineering as Dean in July 2005, after 20 years at the University of Michigan. In 2005, he received the N.O. Myklestad Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in recognition of his major, innovative contribution to vibration localization. A native of France, Dr. Pierre did his undergraduate training at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures de Paris, before going to the U.S., where he earned his M.Sc. degree at Princeton in 1984 and Ph.D. at Duke University in 1985. Dr. Pierre's discoveries are being applied to enhance performance and safety in products such as jet engines and automobile vehicle structures, where vibration and other stresses can cause material deformation and fatigue, potentially leading to catastrophic component failure. In addition to heading a number of research projects in his field, Dr. Pierre has served as project director of multi-million-dollar National Science Foundation programs to increase the participation of minorities and women in graduate programs and the professoriate in the engineering and science disciplines.
Under the leadership of Prof. Todd, the Desautels Faculty of Management has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past few years. It has introduced innovative new programs that push the boundaries of business education. The new integrated core curriculum for MBA students represents one of the first initiatives to fully integrate teaching, research and practical experience into student learning. The Faculty also launched a new bilingual Executive MBA program, offered jointly with HEC Montréal. Prof. Todd, who received his McGill B.Com. in 1983, was Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia before becoming a James McGill Professor and Dean of McGill's Faculty of Management in July 2005. In November of that year, the Faculty announced a $22-million gift from Marcel Desautels and his Canadian Credit Management Foundation.
Deans of Faculties report directly to the Provost.
About McGill
McGill University, founded in Montreal, Que., in 1821, is Canada's leading post-secondary institution. It has two campuses, 11 faculties, 10 professional schools, 300 programs of study and more than 34,000 students. McGill attracts students from more than 150 countries around the world. Almost half of McGill students claim a first language other than English - including 6,000 francophones - with more than 6,400 international students making up almost 20 per cent of the student body.