MacEwan U’s new president promises ‘equity, diversion and inclusion’
New university presidents are prepared to face a few hurdles when they begin their tenure, but for MacEwan University’s new president Deborah Saucier, the baptism of fire was unprecedented.
A little over a month into her fiveyear term, Saucier was informed in mid-August that the university had been fleeced of $11.8 million in one of Canada’s largest individual phishing scams.
“It was absolutely shocking to me that it happened,” she said last week.
After internal processes were fixed to prevent a repeat and an investigation launched into the exact circumstances, Saucier’s attention turned to staff members who were targeted by fraudsters.
“One of the first things we did, we knew this would impact people in our services area, we made sure that the people were OK,” she said, adding that the university offered counselling to those affected staff.
“This is a tremendous misfortune. That’s the only way I can frame this. This impacts every single one of us every single day.”
It was a rough start for the university’s first female Indigenous president, but, as Saucier points out, “there’s nothing like a crisis to coalesce a team.”
Born in Saskatoon and raised in Regina, Saucier fled the frigid prairies for Victoria, B.C., after high school to complete an International Baccalaureate at Pearson College. Briefly forgetting just how cold Saskatchewan can be, Saucier began a bachelor degree in psychology — back before neuroscience was its own discipline — at the University of Saskatchewan. Again realizing her mistake when the mercury plummeted, she returned to Vancouver Island to complete her undergraduate and master degrees at the University of Victoria. A PhD from Western University followed.
Drawn back to the prairies, but this time as a faculty member, Saucier skipped between the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, where she spent seven years working in the field of neuroscience.
In 2006, she accepted a Canada Research Chair at the University of Lethbridge, where she spent five years before briefly moving to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology as dean of science. Within two years, Saucier was made provost and vice-president, academic.
Then Saucier, now 51, was asked to apply for the job at MacEwan to replace outgoing president David Atkinson.
“There is lots of positive momentum going in here ... Edmonton is a hidden gem,” she said.
Unsure just yet as to her own vision for the university and its future — “I’ve been somewhat reluctant to crystallize that yet,” she admits — Saucier plans on sitting down with every unit and department over the next six months to better understand the education ecosystem.
Saucier is, however, certain on three core principles that should be at the heart of what MacEwan University represents.
“A downtown university needs to exemplify Canada’s vision for equity, diversity and inclusion,” she said.
“It needs to be a safe place for people regardless of their gender, sexuality, language of first learning, colour of skin, religion. It’s got to be the example of the diversity we see around us all the time.”
Furthermore, being Métis, the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will form an underlying large part of her focus over the next five years.
“For me this is a very personal thing ... (because) I really do believe in the transformational value of education,” she said.
Already the university is experiencing changes, Saucier said.
At Saucier’s very first board meeting, with the support of board chair Ione Challborn, a smudge and Plains Cree prayer were offered. Saucier also appointed a director of Indigenous initiatives who will collate and coordinate all Indigenous initiatives on campus and, come Oct. 18, the university will permanently raise the flag of Treaty 6 and Métis Nation.
Any new Indigenous programming will go through the regular academic governance process.
“It will take time to develop those in a thoughtful fashion, but these are just the simple things that we can do to really indicate to the people that they are really welcome here,” Saucier said.
“If you look out this window, one way you see one Edmonton, but when look the other way north, you see a very and a very diverse Edmonton, and MacEwan can either be a wall between 104 and 105 (avenues), or it can be a bridge.”