“Convocation is an absolute joy,” wrote Rahilly on his LinkedIn page last spring. “Seeing our students and their families celebrate together is a highlight of the academic year.”
Tim Rahilly, BA 89, has helped Mount Royal University to navigate challenges such as provincial budget cuts and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, Rahilly thinks it’s an area where higher learning has made great strides in recent decades. “My partner’s a doctor, and he tells me about his experience in medical school, where ‘breaking people down’ was seen as an essential part of the student experience,” he says. “It was as if you were doing a good job if you saw students weeping in the hallways.”
Even though that attitude is no longer prevalent anymore, Rahilly emphasizes that the age range of many undergraduates, 18 to 25 or so, is a critical time of maturation — and a stage of life when mental-health challenges often make their first appearance. For some students, these challenges are severe enough to qualify as mental illness, but even when they’re subclinical, they’re still worth addressing.
“You can make the argument that if we support people during this time — helping them learn to cope with challenges, solve problems and care for themselves — then we can have an incredible impact on the trajectory of their lives,” Rahilly says.
A good start
Rahilly’s own first university experience, at Concordia, was a positive one. “I made a connection with a number of the professors,” he recalls. “And I think that’s so important.”
In fact, before enrolling, Rahilly snuck into a classroom to get a feel for what the teaching would be like. It wasn’t a tiny class, but it was clear that the professor knew his regular students. “He was like, ‘Who are you? I haven’t seen you here before,’” Rahilly recalls. “That’s how I knew Concordia would be a good match for me.”
The level of attention Rahilly received as an undergraduate at Concordia prepared him well for the master’s and doctorate studies that followed. “When I got to McGill for my next degree, there were students from all kinds of schools, and those of us from Concordia did really well,” he says.
Now that he’s at the helm of a large school, Rahilly wants to see as many students thrive and excel as possible.
“When someone chooses your institution, you have an obligation to help them achieve their goals,” he argues. “Maybe their goals will change, but we should do our level best to help them through.”