Alan Shepard

Alan Shepard was president and vice-chancellor of Concordia from 2012 to 2019 and steered Concordia into a period of extraordinary growth.

In 2015, he led the university community through broad consultations that resulted in nine Strategic Directions, the institution’s roadmap guiding its development.

From those Directions flowed many initiatives that have distinguished Concordia as a next-generation university, including: the Public Scholars Program, the Horizon Postdoctoral Fellows Program, Concordia University Press, the Indigenous Directions Leadership Group, 4TH SPACE research hub, the university’s comprehensive Digital Strategy, and the largest fundraising effort in the institution’s history, the Campaign for Concordia: Next-Gen. Now.

Under his leadership, Concordia is now in a very strong position. Both Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Times Higher Education currently rate it the top university in Canada under 50 years old. The university is earning record research funding and applications and enrolment have grown steadily; it now counts some 9,000 international students among a total of more than 50,000, making it one of Canada’s largest comprehensive universities.

Before joining Concordia, Alan Shepard served as provost of Ryerson University. He has also held leadership roles in Virginia and Texas and at the University of Guelph.

In 2019 he left Concordia to take up the reins as president at Western University in London, Ont.

Read more about Alan Shepard

• President takes his leave with Concordia on the rise
• Concordia’s Board of Governors names Alan Shepard as president emeritus
• District 3 Innovation Hub renames its summer residency after former university president Alan Shepard