It's a familiar medley of tunes being sung at universities across the country: How to maintain quality in higher education? How to retain faculty being lured away by big U.S. dollars, fancy research labs or private sector contracts? How to deal with a multitude of formidable challenges - outdated facilities, the demands of industry, the impact of a global economy and the high-tech revolution - all in the face of crippling funding cuts from provincial governments and, if opinion polls are to be believed, a lack of sympathy on the part of an exacting public?

The answers being proposed are at least as numerous as the questions. Universities have launched aggressive national and international student recruiting missions (and for McGill, it seems the missionaries are succeeding as international enrolment among this fall's entering class is close to 20%). Meanwhile, management buzzwords like "branding" and "integrated marketing" are suddenly on the lips of the bow-tied professoriate and other university staff. There are innovative and sometimes contentious solutions cropping up across the country - everything from tuition fee hikes, to self-funded (i.e., private) programs, to what not many years ago would likely have been dubbed a deal with the devil: more private sector funding, more partnerships with industry.

Despite its ongoing struggles with deficit budgets and funding crises, McGill continues to reinvent itself in remarkable ways. For example, in the past several years we've seen new curricula in arts, education, law, medicine and management, the launch of the McGill School of Environment, the inauguration of a new law library built entirely by private donations, and the construction of a new Student Services building. A complete overhaul of the University's information systems is also under way.

There is now an established consensus about the direction McGill should take, and there are some significant new faces to help with the tasks at hand. In this special section, we will learn how their jobs and their expertise will help shape the University as it moves into the new century.

Encouraging creative tension

"I don't need a lot of people who think the way I think: I think the way I think. What I need around me are interesting people who think lots of other things, who have different points of view. So that in the tension that's created between different ideas or perspectives, you're likely to have a more creative outcome."

A third of the way through his second term as Principal of McGill, Bernard Shapiro has a number of new colleagues to help him work towards the creative outcome of which he speaks. They include one who fills a new executive position - Bruce Pennycook, who began as Vice-Principal, Information Systems and Technology, a little over a year ago - and another who is a francophone enticed away from the Université de Montréal - Luc Vinet, who took on the role of Vice-Principal, Academic, in July. There are several other new high-level appointments as well, which amount to, if not a complete changing of the guard, at least a string of fresh horses. Richard Pound of International Olympic Committee fame has just begun work as Chancellor of the University, replacing the much-admired Gretta Chambers. Robert Rabinovitch, the leading candidate for the job of top gun at the CBC, has taken over Pound's previous position as Chair of the Board of Governors. McGill also has new deans of law, engineering, and education. And while it all happened very much in the way of the natural order of things - terms end, new people come on board - it seems clear that the Principal has assembled a crew who both share his vision and bring their own substantial strengths, ideas and worldly connections to a university that continues to adapt in creative ways to harsh fiscal realities.

Raising Revenues... Real revenue per weighted student unit declined from $12,280 in 1992-1993 to an estimated $10,069 in 1997-1998, an 18% drop. Beginning in 1996, the University began to charge international students in selected programs the prevailing international rate and remove them from government funding. So far, MBA, BCom and DDS international students fall into this category. We have also implemented a few fully self-funded programs which require no government support. In 1997 McGill began to levy two additional student charges of about $160/year to cover some of the costs of education. Even so, the difference in what Queen's or the University of Toronto charge their students is substantial - approximately $2000/year when fees and charges are included. We should make every effort to convince the government to allow us to reduce this gap (approximately $35 million/year) by raising fees so that we can continue to provide our students with a high-quality education. This will, if successful, also require a redesign and expansion of our and the government's programs for assisting students in need. Within the University, we will expand the work-study program. We will also explore the possibilities of more paid internships wherever these are possible. In 1998-99 self-funded programs will generate about $3 million in income, [which] will be used to support the activities of all faculties and service units so that all students can benefit. It is unlikely, for many reasons, that this model will be extended fully for McGill, but we can, perhaps, expand this effort with the aim that income generated from these activities will account for up to 5% of our operating budget in five years' time. Through the Office of Technology Transfer, the University is beginning to generate royalty income via the licensing of inventions. While the income to be generated from this effort is difficult to estimate, it seems that - in terms of other Canadian comparisons - we should aim toward $2 million per year. Bernard Shapiro Thinking About McGill: A Planning Framework for the Future, Summer 1998

Setting a new course

Back in 1995, Shapiro caused a small uproar with a discussion paper called Towards a New McGill that outlined four possible futures for the University in light of enormous government funding reductions (a 25% drop in provincial operating grants from 1994 to 1999). One choice was to cut: programs, people, resources. Another option was growth: open enrolments, enlarge class sizes, increase revenue with more students. The "radical" option - and the one immediately seized upon in the press - was for McGill to become a much smaller and privately funded institution. All the above futures were roundly rejected in favour of a "quality-driven" strategy that would see McGill remain a "relatively large, relatively comprehensive, research-intensive university with a range of professional programs built around the core programs in Arts and Science.

"One would start," wrote Shapiro, "from the quality end by stipulating that we do not wish to increase the student/faculty ratio or decrease the resources available per student." He later pointed out in another discussion paper called Thinking About McGill that a mere preference for a quality-driven option did not necessarily "create the possibility for its realization." But what it did do was settle the direction in which the University was headed.

How McGill will get there is another story. All Quebec universities have been hobbled by the funding cuts. Huge deficits are being racked up at the francophone universities, which until 1992 received grants based on a formula more favourable than that applied to McGill. While shrinking faster than expected, McGill's accumulated deficit (now known as a "fund balance" and calculated using broader revenue sources) still stands at more than $15 million, and represents a major dilemma for the University.

Although there seems to be no immediate relief for the government cuts which Shapiro has previously called "draconian," all of the players are cautiously optimistic. The new provincial Minister of Education, François Legault, is asking for help from the universities in convincing the cabinet to reinvest in higher education. Chair of the Board of Governors Robert Rabinovitch is a strong proponent of continuous lobbying and contact with government, keeping post-secondary education high on the agenda. And Shapiro is looking forward to heated debate within his own cabinet of vice-principals as the University continues on its delicate course: "The idea is to have a group of vice-principals, each of whom has something rather different to offer, so that no one takes anything for granted, and everybody has to argue, in a sense, in order to make a point. That way I think you're more likely to have a positive outcome."

The world view

It's no coincidence that most of the new appointees have an acute understanding of McGill as an international university and are keen to promote it as such, some bringing a rather international flavour to the University themselves. Dick Pound's worldwide profile with the Olympic movement can't hurt the University's international stature; new Dean of Law Peter Leuprecht is a highly respected international law and human rights expert who served on the Council of Europe for over 30 years.

"The more I think about it," says Shapiro, "the more I think of McGill - to put it in a kind of odd way - as the Bombardier of Quebec higher education: we're its great export. We're a very international player. Now I think we could overstate this, and I don't want to, because we have a huge obligation to Quebec citizens to provide places for them at McGill. But we've got this interesting double mission: we've got to be both a place where Quebecers come to study and the place which, more than any other in Canada, is an international meeting place. "That's important not only in terms of the faculty, staff and students who are here, but the way in which they think. It's one thing to have come from somewhere else; it's another thing to say that what we want to do is think about the international dimension of whatever it is we're studying, because the world is becoming increasingly interconnected. In order to do that, you have to bring people who are sensitive to that challenge. If you sustain that over time you will transform the culture of the institution. Of course, McGill is internationally sensitive to begin with: it didn't need me to arrive to create international connections - they've been going on for generations. It's just a question of upping the ante."

The ante is being upped at McGill in a number of ways already: Bruce Pennycook is busy at work changing the technological face of the University. And Luc Vinet, just months into his new job, brings an expertise in building ties with industry and creating unusual partnerships that will no doubt prove both fascinating and controversial for McGill.

Spinning a new web

In the mid-'70s, while most people were plugging away on typewriters, when carbon paper was an integral part of working life, and a videoconference over personal computers was the stuff of science fiction, Bruce Pennycook was already wired. As a graduate student at Stanford, he was composing computer-generated music, printing on laser printers, and sending e-mail through the ARPANet, precursor to today's Internet. So it seems apropos that the McGill music professor be the University's very first Vice-Principal, Information Systems and Technology.

He doesn't have many role models for the job in Canada.

"I'm it," he says in his office down the hall from Principal Bernard Shapiro in the James Administration building. "Laval rector François Tavenas introduced me as Quebec's one and only academic CIO (Chief Information Officer) recently. We don't actually like the term CIO because it sounds like a corporate, heavy-handed approach. The position is really predicated on an academic background."

It's also a university computer geek's dream job. While times are still tight for universities, there's money for information technology (IT), as institutions struggle to keep up with the digital universe and upgrade obsolete computer networks and systems. In fact, the $8-million, University-wide network upgrade McGill and Pennycook are embarking on is funded in part by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which is pumping $1 billion into renewing the country's research infrastructure. McGill's success in securing the funding is partly due to the fact that Pennycook is in place and the University has demonstrated a commitment to an aspect of academia that is not always obvious beyond the computer science and engineering labs.

Integrating information

Shapiro believes there was no choice but to create the VP position - which Pennycook stepped into just over a year ago - and is very pleased with the man at the IT helm.

"The whole question of information technology is going to be much more central to our future than we were previously organized to either admit or to make happen," the Principal says. "And it's going to change in many areas the way in which we operate. We couldn't continue having unintegrated - and therefore, from a systems point of view, incoherent - activities all around the University. So something was needed to bring these activities together to make sure we get the biggest result for the dollars we invest, and that we benefit from this technology rather than be the victim of it. For example, as the web becomes one of our prime ways of communicating with anybody, that can't be left to the anarchy of the Internet. It's got to be consolidated if the University is going to reap the communications benefits from it."

"I think the biggest change," says Pennycook of the new attitude at McGill towards information technology, "is really the shift toward a customer service view of what IT means. Computers should be as available and as easy to use as a telephone. And they will be as essential as a telephone. Personally, I find the telephone a supplement to my computer. It's less essential than the machine."

Pennycook's responsibilities touch every aspect of University life, from student registration to faculty research labs to the future of McGill e-commerce. Under his administrative and electronic gaze fall the libraries, the computing and phone networks, the audio-visual, communications and design departments in the Instructional Communications Centre, and Information Systems Resources, which handles all the administrative computing needs. "I've added to that the educational technology portfolio," he says, "so that means everything related to media-based courseware, computer-based distance learning, all of that part of our role as deliverer of academic services."

Nothing but net

One of the most substantial and visible parts of McGill's high-tech future is the Web Information System, which will soon encompass almost anything that's done at McGill on a computer.

"Most computing in the next decade will be delivered through the web," asserts Pennycook. "That may also mean even word-processing: what you do will be an application you get through websites.

"McGill is investing very heavily in the web as the interface for students and employees. The new library system, Ex Libris, which will be running by springtime, is purely a web interface. For the Banner System (the software that will run everything from student records to staff payroll at McGill), almost everybody except specialized workers will interface to Banner through the web: students, faculty working on their research grants or entering student data and marks, even course evaluations currently done manually in class are going to be converted to web forms. Over the next five years, the web won't be simply the place where you go to find some stuff that you need in addition to other material: it will be the place where you do everything. Your calendar, e-mail, document viewing and editing, access to all kinds of electronic information, everything.

"So we'll move away from print. Not entirely - some things are better done in print: magazines, books. But all the day-to-day information of people's working lives at McGill will be on the web."

Even entire degree programs are moving onto the web. "There are some exciting projects, including one in the Caribbean where our Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences is developing and delivering courses to third world agricultural agencies and farmers, and we're going to be extending that into Mexico and South America. Another project is the Master's in Occupational Health, which comes online in September - our first graduate degree online. It has an on-campus version and now an online version so that students in Saudi Arabia can take the course from there, in English or French. And we have another project in Dentistry we're hoping to start soon for teaching a specialized kind of orthodontics to remote dentists who couldn't come to McGill to take the courses."

The focus for this type of high-tech distance education will doubtless remain on similarly specialized programs. "It's highly unlikely that McGill will engage in the online BA market. We don't see it as consistent with our image, for one, and we don't see it as a viable strategic plan right now."

McGill.com

The University will also soon be moving into the hot new cyberworld of e-commerce, processing transactions of all kinds through the Internet, including shopping for that McGill t-shirt you've always wanted but were never close enough to buy in person, but also more legal transactions like student registration.

"E-commerce should be thought of more in the IBM phrase, e-business. It's a better name for it, where all of the formal transactions can occur through the Internet, including buying stuff. Yes, people will be paying their tuition, library fines, squash court fees online, or buying things from the Bookstore, and we should have our first online transactions up and running by January. But e-commerce means more than just paying for things online," Pennycook points out. "It means conducting legal transactions of all kinds. Can we accept a registration for a course solely electronically? Well, we're going to. But somewhere in there, current legislation says we need signatures." Indeed, the proposed Bill C-54 that sought to change that legislation was shot down in Parliament last spring. "It won't stay down," Pennycook says with a laugh. "But right at the moment, it's a bit of a hurdle."

Yet another project for the Vice-Principal is the Centre for New Media and Technology. "It's not really off the ground yet," he notes, "but its intent is to bring together new thinking in educational methodology in the realm of technology: things like software development, instructional design, new media, videoconferencing, delivery of material over long distances via Internet and satellite, all of these things will be in this new centre. And there are some interested outside parties: Bell is probably going to be one of the players, and quite a few others are curious."

All of these responsibilities cut deeply into Pennycook's own musical and research interests, but the saxophone player and contemporary music composer is finding ways to keep up. "I've given up performing because it requires more time than I have. I'm still composing - although that's very difficult, finding extended time to compose. I have some concert presentations of my music coming up, and I'm still investigating new technologies for audio on the Internet, which is my other research interest."

It's a tricky job that Pennycook has taken on. Not only are the huge changes he's introducing to the University infrastructure enough to drive your average administrator mad, but before his first term is even completed, who knows what new hurdles developing technology has in store for him. He remains unfazed by it all. "I think it's tremendously exciting that McGill has chosen to put somebody - not just me - at an executive level to address technology in the workforce, the teaching and research communities, really in advance of what a lot of schools have done. It's a great job."

The heart of the matter

So, you made it in," says a McGill administrator, poking his head in the door to greet Luc Vinet on one of his first days as McGill's new Vice-Principal, Academic. "Well, it's all downhill from here." A joke both men chuckle over. Still, Vinet may indeed be wondering what he's got himself into.

His boss and principal, Bernard Shapiro, had this to say about the job Vinet started in mid-July: "It's probably the most important single position in the University, including my own, since it represents the real core around which the rest of us circle. If that doesn't work right, then nothing else we do makes any difference."

A tall order, but Vinet's enthusiasm about his new post is written all over his face in frequent and broad smiles, and in animated hand gestures that suggest he's dying to grab hold of the big issues - of which there are many - and wrestle them into submission. "I'm just discovering by the minute what the job is about, and I find it extremely exciting so far. It's a tremendous challenge to have a role in shaping one of the greatest institutions that we have in Quebec."

Vinet will be overseeing 12 faculties, including graduate studies and research, as well as the libraries, student services, admissions and the registrar, and a number of other administrative and research areas. The scope of the day-to-day responsibilities is substantial, and Vinet will also be the key player in many other University objectives, including dealing with thorny issues like recruiting and retaining faculty, lobbying the government, and partnering with industry for alternative sources of funding.

Before joining McGill, the physics professor was at Université de Montréal for 17 years. Part of his duties there involved the directorship of the Centre de recherches mathématiques (CRM), a national institute centred around mathematical sciences like theoretical physics and computer science, and through which a thousand scientists circulated every year. Out of the CRM grew the Network for Computer and Mathematical Modelling (ncm2), a university-industry consortium that brought together five Montreal research institutes under a program that "focused on mathematical modeling in computing, but with a bearing on transportation, telecommunications and risk management," says Vinet. "It was very interesting for industry in that it offered one-stop access to an extremely diversified expertise. Also, for research it was enriching and initiated a number of collaborations that might otherwise not have taken place." Vinet's work with ncm2 in turn led to the newly created Bell Emergis University Laboratory in Montreal, another university-private sector project that carries out research in multimedia.

Making connections

The snowballing of such endeavours and Vinet's collaborative background are attractive characteristics for Shapiro and McGill. "He brings some very interesting experience in how to bring people together from different departments, different universities, or different knowledge-rich enterprises outside the University," says the principal.

Examples of unusual collaborations do exist at McGill, in the inter-faculty School of Environment, for instance, or the co-op Mining Engineering program with the École Polytechnique. But, says Vinet, "McGill is maybe not active enough in initiatives like these and should often take a bigger leadership role. We need to get involved, otherwise we'll just be sitting on the sidelines and not be part of the game."

By bringing people from diverse backgrounds together, Vinet says, surprising connections can be made. "You can connect management with physics, music with computer science, library and Asian studies. We can't follow every possible lead - we have to optimize. So we'll start with a few things and create a frame of mind where people are looking at enhancing their own research programs and interests through such connections. The idea is not to divert McGill from its core mission, but to use new programs to help McGill in its traditional role."

Still, one of the more controversial issues being bandied about universities across North America is more collaborative projects with the private sector, with opposing argument focused on those very diversions from the true academic path. "It's a very delicate subject," acknowledges Vinet. "You don't want to be at the service of industry. It should be, as the buzzword goes, win-win. Universities should be secure in the fact that it's not deterring them from their academic mission, but enhancing it. And for industry, they are getting manpower, well-trained people, research. The problem is that this takes time to establish. You don't produce manpower overnight, and the timeline on which industry works is very short: they want results immediately. So there's a certain clash.

"There's basically no tradition of private sector involvement in universities, so this has to be developed. We have to learn about them: sometimes we don't quite understand how they operate. They also have to learn about universities, and they know very little. But when there's will, you'll succeed in the long run, and I sense that in many cases there is real will."

Jobs, jobs, jobs

In the related public discourse on universities and their relevance to the job market, there are often disparaging comments about the usefulness of, say, classics departments, or a degree in philosophy. How does a university strike a balance between being "relevant" in an economic and industrial sense, and continuing its mission as an intellectual centre for less obviously relevant disciplines - at least when measured through utilitarian-tinted glasses - in the liberal arts and the humanities?

"There are many facets to a university," explains Vinet. "We have different clients with different interests. Some want to get more practical knowledge sooner, and others are interested first in a broad education. But I think it's our responsibility to prepare students for the job market. Liberal arts 'prepare you to get prepared,' in a sense, for professional endeavours. They can also lead directly to the job market, and sometimes it would not take much to counsel the students on how they could use this general education. In the current market, employers are looking first of all for these qualifications.

"But in some instances, the preparation is more directed to the job you want, so if a student wants to become a dentist, we have to teach that with state-of-the-art techniques. This is where contact with industry is important. If we're teaching dentistry with techniques that are ten years old, we should get out of that business. It's a similar thing in engineering. We need these connections with industry. In computer science, we have to train our students on state-of-the-art equipment, otherwise they don't get training for the real world."

The big issues

Ultimately, says Vinet, the greatest priority for McGill now is "to keep improving the excellence of the institution. It's remarkable that McGill could have maintained its level of excellence the way it has, in spite of all the cuts and adversity it's faced in the past. But there is a limit to the miracles. And I think we're really reaching that limit.

"As a community (in Quebec), we're in serious danger of seeing our universities lowering their level of excellence. There's a simple measurement of the quality of a university: basically, the ratio of the resources - faculty, infrastructure - to the number of students you have, and then the research. So the challenge is to stay among the top international universities in a context of increasing competition. We have to explore all possible ways to increase revenues, because this is really at the heart of the problem.

"To do that, we're deeply involved with the government right now. The new minister has launched a process and we have to work in good faith. He's talking about changing the funding formulas for universities, and this would be a step in the right direction as far as McGill is concerned. And he's talking about reinvesting in universities and asking them to help him convince the cabinet to do so." University administrators have been working on this over the summer and will submit a report to the minister in September.

Another key issue for Vinet and Shapiro is the competition for new faculty, and making sure the University keeps those who may be tempted away. Says Shapiro, "I don't believe that in a knowledge-rich society, in which the University is in competition with other agencies for very sophisticated knowledge workers who should be our faculty, that we can win the competition unless we do something on that ground."

"That's one of the big aspects of my job," says Vinet. "We need to increase our revenues, otherwise we won't be able to be competitive. But we still have cards to play. Montreal and McGill are fantastic places to live and work, and people are realizing it. We have to demonstrate the excellence of the University, the quality of the environment in which research can be done. This is important for academics: people are not just interested in salary; they have a passion for their work and research. And developing first-rate conditions to work in is extremely important.

"If we can just overcome slightly some of these financial difficulties, I think we'll be in great shape."

Defining the job

Dick Pound, BCom'62, BCL'67, just rolls his eyes at the mention of the Olympics. However, the five-ring logo is all over his 40th-floor law office, and every shelf is cluttered with what he calls his "international junk," souvenirs presented to him over the years in his capacity as Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee. Among them there's a bottle of "Mr. Clean," where the face of the bald, barrel-chested cleaning whiz has been replaced by that of McGill's new chancellor. Pound has spent a good part of the last year investigating charges of corruption on the part of IOC members and says strict new regulations will be introduced this fall.

But we're here to talk of more local issues. Pound has just handed over the role of Chair of the Board of Governors to Robert Rabinovitch and is taking over as chancellor from Gretta Chambers. Perhaps of all the senior positions at McGill, this one is the least well defined. "Each chancellor really invents his or her own job description. Gretta has been a remarkable chancellor for the last eight years. She has been omnipresent as well as omni-interested and that has made the position, according to her model, a lot more human. You don't try to compete with somebody like Gretta on that basis - it's just a very special role that she has carved out. On the other hand, I'm not a captain of industry as Jean de Grandpré was. So I think each chancellor figures out the best way to represent the University."

To describe his new role within McGill's administration, Pound draws an analogy with government. "The chancellor would be the head of state and the chair of the board would be the prime minister, with the political responsibility for how the University is governed. The academic side is the business of Senate." Pound says that McGill's bi-cameral system may be unusual among universities but it works very well.

"There are not a lot of chippy debates about whose primary responsibility this or that may be. Certainly the Board, in all the time I've been involved, is very comfortable with the academic quality and direction, and I think Senate, for its part, has been very understanding of the economic and other facts of life for which the Board has been responsible."

Advise and convince

Pound served as head of the Board for five years and says the job of running a Quebec university in that time has been "a perpetual loaves and fishes exercise." One thing he hopes to do as chancellor is help convince the government of the importance of well-funded universities to Quebec society. "We can't afford to have second-class universities," he says, although he isn't sure how receptive the province will be to that message.

"I think the mentality is somewhere between ostrich and bunker. This government has a tendency to confuse access to the system with excellence, and they have opted for access because it's politically easier to sell. But not everyone has to go to university. Not everyone will benefit on a personal level from a university education. However, if you don't have first-class universities, your society will suffer. You either say we'll do whatever it takes to be first class and we'll split up the cost between students, parents and government in some way we can agree upon, or we'll let the market determine what excellence is and how much you pay for it."

Pound has a reputation for getting through prodigious amounts of work. Does he have a secret? "Not really. It's that '90% perspiration and 10% inspiration' thing. I start early and finish late. I write reasonably well, so I don't have to keep rewriting, and I have an ability to decide things when they need to be decided." He thinks a moment and adds, "I guess it's not inspiration, it's organization." Thanks to that work ethic, he has just completed a 400-page biography of W.R. Jackett, first chief justice of the Federal Court of Canada, and been named Tax Lawyer of the Year by Le monde juridique magazine.

He says that while the principal, the Board chair and the chancellor work closely together, his role will be higher profile and more hands-off than the others. "There's more of a visible, representational component to the chancellor vis-à-vis the chair of the Board. Normally, the chancellor has 'been around' to some degree and is in a position to offer advice to the principal, to the Board or to any other part of the University that may need it."

Long history

His Olympic experience has certainly taken him all over the world (first as a competitor in swimming and then as an IOC administrator), but he has also put in a lot of time at McGill since his arrival on campus in 1958. "I was here in the latter years of the Cyril James era. Convocations were held outdoors on lower campus. I remember going up on stage and kneeling in front of Cyril, who gave me a thorough whack on the head with the mortar board. I was not quite concussed," laughs Pound, "but I wondered whether he remembered me for something."

Pound went on to earn a McGill law degree and the active student became an active graduate, serving over the years with the McGill Society of Montreal, the Graduates' Society (as the Alumnni Association was formerly known), the McGill Fund Council, the Board of Governors and the McGill Athletics Board, which he still chairs.

He'd like other alumni to encourage prospective students to apply to McGill. "We mustn't give the impression that a particular candidate will get in, but if students are smart enough to get into McGill, they should at least come and experience this city. We should be telling them 'You can't understand this country if you don't understand Montreal and Quebec. When you get here you find it's a terrific place and you are going to be well educated. Somebody is going to take your already fine brain and stretch it even more.'"

Pound has never looked back since he left a small town in B.C. to come here. "I washed dishes when I was a student and it took me a gazillion years to pay off my loan, but on the other hand, I got to go to McGill. It's hard to ever have imagined that 40 years later I'd be up on a convocation stage as chancellor. It's an enormous honour."

He has seen his alma mater weather a number of storms and says if he has learned anything it's that "McGill will persevere. It will have its ups and downs, expansions and contractions, but it will always be here as part of Canadian society - and I certainly hope as part of Quebec and Montreal society as well."

Man in demand

Shortly after Robert Rabinovitch, BCom'64, began his term as the new chair of McGill's Board of Governors, there was speculation in the press that he was in line for a considerably bigger job - president of Canada's national broadcasting network, the CBC. In fact, on the day of his interview with the McGill News, an article in The Globe and Mail said there were three names on the shortlist - and they were all Robert Rabinovitch.

Although touted as the leading candidate, Rabinovitch says no one had approached him lately with an offer. He's turned down the CBC presidency in the past, but even if he considers accepting the job now, McGill will not lose its head governor. "I really want to help this institution," says Rabinovitch firmly. "It is one of my life priorities."

Despite his commitment and his two-and-a-half years of service as a McGill governor, Rabinovitch has made a certain leap of faith in taking over from Dick Pound as Board chair. "Nobody will tell me the truth about how much time it will take," he laughs, "so I'm learning on the run. And I'm following in the footsteps of somebody who was a master at the job."

Like his predecessor, Rabinovitch brings a wide range of professional and volunteer experience to the post. Currently Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer of Claridge Inc., a Montreal-based management and holding company, he has also held several positions with the federal government, including Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet for Planning. He serves on the Nunavut Trust Investment Advisory Committee, chairs the Executive Committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress, is on the board of the Canadian Film Centre, and is treasurer of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation and the Charles R. Bronfman Family Foundation.

Arriving at consensus

As Rabinovitch sees it, his newest job can be described as McGill's "non-executive" chairman. "You don't run the University, rather you help implement the vision that comes from the principal and his immediate management team. That, in turn, comes from consultation with faculty, students, the Board, everybody in the family.

"What Principal Shapiro has done over the last four or five years is, through a series of papers and discussions, provoke a debate about where the University should go and what its future should be. From what I understand, the debate was at first relatively fractious. People didn't want to have to confront the realities that he was presenting. But there seems now to be a very real consensus in the University that we want a school which is research and academically oriented, which strives to have a first-class student body and a first-class academic body, and which is not necessarily interested in growth for the sake of growth. We are more interested in the quality of the work that we turn out. We have said clearly that we accept our responsibilities within Quebec to provide a quality education but we also want to be a well-developed international institution."

Nothing revolutionary there. In fact, it all seems fairly obvious. So why go through this whole exercise? "With its 25% cut and fee freeze, the government made it necessary to have this debate," says Rabinovitch. "There are other realities and other alternatives we could have tried for and we had to consider them. We could have gone for being much larger and solved part of our funding problem by numbers. Get more kids in, get more money from the government. We said no. We are not going to lower standards to attract more students. Or we could have gone in the opposite direction. We could have tried to become a small, elite institution and say we will figure out a way to charge what the market will bear and narrow ourselves down, even become a private university. I personally am extremely satisfied with how the debate has come out. That's one of the reasons I accepted the job."

On Going Global... McGill is the most international of all Canadian universities. Currently, over 14% of the student body come from outside of Canada - the highest proportion of international students among Canadian universities. (Note: Most are under 5%.) It is also comparable to other major U.S. institutions such as Columbia (19%), Cornell (15%), Pennsylvania (13%), and Michigan (9%). Knowledge and information, much like business and finance, recognize no national boundaries. McGill should not only adapt to globalization but also move toward becoming a global university. It is a role we can play particularly well for the benefit of Quebec and Canada. Because of the multicultural diversity of McGill's students and staff, and our particular history, we can serve as a window on the world for both Quebec and Canada. With the advances in computer and communication technologyƒa university is no longer as campus-bound as in the past. For McGill, the challenge is not whether we should do distance education in general. Rather it is to define a niche in which we can excel by offering technology-mediated learning of the highest standard. We believe that it is at the professional development and post-graduate level that we should direct this effort. We should build on such initiatives as our current Master's programs in Occupational Health, Social Work, and International Management to claim a place in the international arena in a selected number of programs. McGill must extend its global reach as a truly international university. At the same time, it should also deepen its links and its relationships with its more immediate environment in Montreal, in Quebec and in Canada. This implies not only a special obligation to Quebec students but also a commitment to special linkages with other Quebec and Canadian universities, Quebec and Canadian institutions (both in the public and private sectors), and, of course, the University's alumni. Bernard Shapiro Thinking About McGill: A Planning Framework for the Future, Summer 1998

Quality control

The task is to make sure that the quality-driven option is implemented - and maintained. Some positive changes are already under way, according to Rabinovitch. "I'm really excited about Bruce Pennycook and his position because we're going to have to look at different ways to deliver the goods." While technology isn't a solution in itself, it will be a tremendous help, he says. McGill has come a long way in terms of using electronic transfer systems and information systems to enhance quality of education.

But we risk "death by a thousand cuts," he adds. In an era of unprecedented budget reductions, "it's only because of the loyalty of our faculty and staff that we have been able to maintain the standards that we have." Like it or not, a lot of the solution comes down to dollars, says Rabinovitch. "Our base budget is what's in trouble. We can go out and get money for special programs from different people, but it's the core that has to be protected."

From his time spent in government ministries, Rabinovitch knows that McGill - and all universities - have much to learn from industry about lobbying. "You have to go and see government when you want to tell them what you're trying to accomplish and not just say 'We need money.' The AUCC (Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada) did a superb job of keeping on top of certain files, but they didn't bring in administrators to talk about the role of post-secondary education. Companies like Bell and Nortel come and see you when they have nothing to tell you other than 'Here are our great dreams.' The good organizations know that lobbying is a full-time occupation."

Another group that needs to be well informed is the University's alumni. "We have to reach out to our graduates and make them feel part of the family. We have to answer frankly the concerns of some of our alumni. They read the papers, they know about the cutbacks. They sometimes come onto campus and see buildings that aren't in the shape that they should be. You judge a book by its cover, and the cover bothers you."

But not all solutions involve money, he says. "What's very important is that first contact students and families have with the University, whether it's the person who answers the phone, the computer access provided, or the tour guide who takes you around. That's something we can solve without spending a single dollar. It's a question of how we train our ambassadors. We lose some students because of the initial contact."

Rabinovitch says his greatest contribution may be in providing a link between the Board and the administration as McGill develops a strategy for convincing the government of the importance of proper funding for universities. "We have to develop more of a relationship with government. But we also have to be sure that if the government is slowly loosening the purse strings, the money won't be tied - to turning out software engineers, for example."

Rabinovitch has his own vision for McGill and is ready to defend it. "We're a hard school to get into and we're a good school. Not on my watch do I want to see this University lose its mandate or its reputation for providing a quality education."