Elizabeth Cannon: How can universities go from good to great?

President Cannon delivered an exceptional presentation; she is passionate, dynamic, enthusiastic, involved and an entrepreneur.  She was fabulous!

From her presentation, I think we need to:

• Know who we are and where we want to be in ### of years
• What is our vision
• What Concordia University stands for in this great  Metropole City ( Montreal has more universities)
• How do we want to compare to other universities here and external
• What are our strengths and what drives us (ex: research; innovation, etc)
• What are the niche markets that we want to appeal to for donations to support our researches, etc..
• Get the right people involved from the get-go and the right resources working on the strategic plan
• Set up steering committees and work with an external consultant
• Have a realistic strategic plan which is attainable; have internal stakeholders input and not lose sight of the plan
• Be aware of how administrative issues (dealing with when managing a research grant) can stall the process
• Create a sense of “urgency”, and determination to get to where we want to be
• Be transparent; get people involved and excited about the plan
• Don’t forget about the branding
• Communicate, communicate, communicate through the plan; people want to know what is being done and where we are

A few main points I took away from Ms. Cannon's presentation are the following:

• Set goals that are strategically attainable, although it doesn't hurt to set the bar a bit higher. 
• Work towards building the organization culture which yields a positive work environment with employees who care and feel passionate about the work they perform.
• Allow students, professors and the community to voice their thoughts and concerns, taking largely into consideration their feedback.
• Be honest and transparent in the goals and action plan, and make this information accessible to all.

I would have liked to hear more about the plans for academic success and the process of how the university will deliver the curriculum, and build student culture on campus. 

I appreciate these presentation series, I find them to be very interesting and informative.

I enjoyed this talk as well. It was very relevant since we are moving toward a new academic plan and they are 5 years in. It was most interesting to hear about their effort. I take her emphasis on marketing and having a clear identity to the campaign to heart, this is very much a marketing of Concordia exercise. She seems to be a very determined lady; I wouldn't want to get between her and her goals!

I thought that a detail of interest in their experience was that the central planning committee first identified relative strengths given the resources (existing faculty, facilities etc) on hand at Calgary. We have done similar things in our two previous AP's. Their next step they took was to take each identified subject and gather all the people with expertise in that subject. Those people were then charged with coming up with specific topics in that field to put forward for priorities under the plan. This wide consultation process almost guarantees significant `buy in' to the final AP product by the existing faculty. I don't believe such a wide consultation process has been done here in the past two efforts, but it certainly should be strongly considered whether such a process would be beneficial here at Concordia. Though your visiting speaker series is certainly widely consultative; all are invited to attend, and all are invited to comment. 

Jason Camlot brought up an interesting point, I thought. He asked her whether all of the AP related hiring was in the identified priorities, or whether there was other hiring as well. She said that AP related hiring was much of the hiring but not all. I think its important to include regular hiring as well as strategic hiring. I have no objection to the strategic identified priorities getting more of the hires, but not all. We must protect our core academic mission of being a comprehensive university. We should also hire in non-priority areas where a solid case can be made based on unit need and performance.

On the more negative side I was struck by the different urban contexts. Calgary is the only university in their city. Plus Calgary is a fairly large market with a strong and thriving business community. They painlessly raised 40 million from the private sector to put up a building. We are one of 4 universities in our own city and its not clear that our local business community is thriving. So it seems that the fundamentals are more favourable to their success. This may limit our possibilities. It also highlights that the marketing element must strongly differentiate us from McGill, U de M and UQAM.

Much work ahead!

Dr. Elizabeth Cannon is the eighth president and vice-chancellor of the University of Calgary. She is a passionate advocate for the importance of higher education in driving discovery and innovation, finding solutions for the world’s greatest challenges, and fostering the talents of the young women and men who will become our future leaders.

Prior to her appointment as president, Dr. Cannon was dean of the Schulich School of Engineering, propelling it into the top ranks of Canadian engineering schools. She is a professional engineer, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and an elected foreign associate of the National Academy of Engineering. Currently, she serves as the chair of the Canada Research Knowledge Network, vice-chair of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) and of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities, as well as a member of the federal Minister of Industry’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council.

An expert in geomatics engineering, Dr. Cannon’s research has been on the forefront of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) since 1984 in both industrial and academic environments, and she has commercialized technology to over 200 agencies worldwide. Her work has been recognized with many honours, including the Johannes Kepler Award from the U.S. Institute of Navigation, APEGA’s Centennial Leadership Award and the Gold Medal Award from Engineers Canada in 2013. From 1997 to 2002 she held the NSERC / Petro-Canada Chair for Women in Science and Engineering.

Dr. Cannon holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in mathematics from Acadia University as well as a BSc, MSc and PhD in geomatics engineering from the University of Calgary, and has received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Ottawa and Acadia University.