Today@Dal

The governance review set out in Dalhousie's new strategic plan is now underway. The plan calls for “an independent external review of our governance and administrative structures,… commissioned early in the plan period to engage in broad-based consultation to provide clear recommendations for any adjustments or realignments required to facilitate the success of our strategic plan.”  Board Chair Bob Hanf is overseeing the process with assistance from an advisory group composed of two other Board members, the President and the interim Senate Chair.

An RFP process conducted over the summer led to the selection of a joint proposal from two independent external consultants: Julia Eastman (as lead consultant) and Cheryl Foy. Julia is an author and advisor on university governance and Adjunct Professor at the Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria. She was University Secretary at UVic from 2005 to 2018 and worked previously here at Dalhousie. Cheryl Foy is the author of An Introduction to University Governance (Irwin Law, 2021). She currently serves as General Counsel and University Secretary for Ontario Tech University.  Both are delighted to have the opportunity to assist us to review and refine our bicameral governance.

Julia and Cheryl are beginning to collect information through interviews, surveys of Board and Senate members, documentary review and other means and plan to complete their work by April 2022. Their report will be presented to the Board Chair in the first instance.  If the report is accepted by the Chair of the Board, their major findings and recommendations will subsequently be shared with the Board of Governors and the Senate.

In order to tap into the knowledge of people who have been involved in bicameral governance at Dalhousie, Julia and Cheryl are interviewing or surveying current members of the Board, Senate and administration. Some former members will also be interviewed as part of the process. Others who wish to contribute to the process can provide written submissions by email at cfoy@universitygovernance.ca.