New president revealed

Even outgoing Lakehead University president Fred Gilbert didn’t know who his replacement was going to be.

One of the tightest kept secrets in Thunder Bay, on Wednesday LU officials revealed that Brian Stevenson, the provost and vice-president academic at the University of Winnipeg, will take over the reins of the school when Gilbert steps down at the end of July.

The 52-year-old Stevenson, who promised to keep Gilbert’s fight for a law school alive, said first and foremost he wants to focus on academic excellence, promoting research that will attract the best teachers available.

"I will be doing everything I can to have the best student experience that students can have," said Stevenson. "I’m terribly excited. I just can’t wait. Although I still have a day job between now and July, I’m going to start working right away."

Stevenson comes to Thunder Bay with an extensive background that includes time in both academia and government. His resume includes a stint as a senior policy advisor for the federal ministers of trade and foreign affairs. He was also a business professor at the University of Alberta and later vice-provost and associate vice-president before leaving for Washington, where he was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars.

A graduate of the University of Victoria, he received his PhD in political studies at Queen’s University.

He said he’s well aware that he’s entering a challenging time as universities face the same tough financial crunch that all government-funded institutions must deal with in a time of budget deficits.

"I come from the University of Winnipeg, where we have been having probably four or five years of budget deficits. I’m well experienced with dealing with those, while maintaining the quality of the institution. So I think that’s going to be my first challenge, which is finding financial sustainability," he said.

First and foremost is familiarizing himself with the school, its faculty and staff, and the students.

When pressed if he plans to reverse Gilbert’s policy of not allowing wi-fi access on campus, Stevenson said he plans to spend his first three months meeting with various stakeholders to forge a plan of attack going forward on a variety of issues.

"The first 100 days are going to be a consultative process, and I’m going to sit down with all the groups and understand what all the issues are, and then try to address them soon thereafter."

Gilbert, who appeared reluctantly, preferring instead to let Stevenson have his moment in the spotlight, called it an emotional day, despite knowing he’ll still be at the helm for the next five-and-a-half months.

"You never anticipate how deep those emotions are. They’re real, but they’re offset by the knowledge that my successor is someone that I’m confident is going to do well by this institution," said Gilbert, the school’s fifth president, who was appointed to the position in July 1998.

Stevenson was one of four candidates in a yearlong search for the position, said Kevin Cleghorn, chairman of Lakehead’s board of governors and head of the search committee.

In the end, Stevenson best met the profile developed by an extensive consultation process that involved the entire university community.

"The committee’s work was difficult and it was lengthy … but at the end of the day we thought that Dr. Stevenson had the attributes that best fit our profile. He comes to us from a background of government, business, university administration and also had a noteworthy academic career. From that stand point, the committee had very little difficulty making him our choice," Cleghorn said.

Stevenson is married to Judy Davies, a lawyer. The couple has two daughters, Cecilia and Isabel.