It’s been a tumultuous year in the Mount Allison president’s office. In March, Board of Regents chair George Cooper announced that Dr. Jean Paul Boudreau would not be staying on for a second term. Boudreau took on the top job in 2018 and saw the school through the pandemic.
Then at the end of June, then-Provost Jeff Hennessey took on the position of interim president for a few weeks before announcing that he was heading back to Acadia University in Wolfville, where he was taking over as newly-appointed president. The board then hired a search consultant to help them find another interim appointee while a search committee took on the task of hiring a permanent president.
Then at the end of August, Mount Allison announced it had found someone -- Dr. Robert MacKinnon, with a long academic career at UNB Saint John serving as a geography professor, dean of arts, and vice president, agreed to take on the job.
MacKinnon started his one year term on September 1, and recently dropped by CHMA studios for a chat
This is not Robert MacKinnon’s first extended stay in Sackville. The new interim president of Mount Allison actually graduated from the university back in 1978. “We’ve been enjoying rediscovering Sackville,” says MacKinnon. The town “still has the same feel” as he recalls from his student days, although he’s noted the changes. “Mel’s is closed, of course… and the sub shop that I used to go to is no longer there… But the town is still a beautiful town.”
MacKinnon has had a long academic and administrative career, serving as Dean of Arts and vice-president at UNB Saint John. His academic background is in geography, specializing in “historical, cultural kind of regional geography.” He has an article being reviewed now looking at the work of a researcher from India who “ended up writing her doctoral dissertation on Nova Scotia, and what Nova Scotia agriculture was like in 1948.”
MacKinnon says he’s not expecting to have much time to devote to his academic work this year, given his new duties as interim president. “My main goal is to really prepare for the transition to permanent president,” says MacKinnon, “and to get to know the programs, get to know the faculty, get to know the students.” It could be a tall order for just one year, but MacKinnon says “it’s not, let’s stop and just keep the rudder in the water. I really want to try to hear what challenges are out there.”
MacKinnon says both the major renovation of the Ralph Pickard Bell Library, and also the upcoming negotiations for a new faculty contract are both on his radar.
As for the library project, which received a pledge of $36 million in federal and provincial funding last year, MacKinnon is anxious to find out what the committee working on the project has come up with. “I’d really like to get this project rolling so that it will be on the road to completion when the when the permanent president arrives,” says MacKinnon.
“During my term as vice president at UNB Saint John, we designed what’s called the Hans W. Klohn Learning Commons, which is really the state of the library for the future. It involves high density storage for books and collections. It involves learning common space. It involves quiet study space, private reading rooms… a real variety of spaces that were required for different types of users,” says MacKinnon.
As for the faculty collective agreement which expires June 30, 2024, MacKinnon says he’s working on establishing a bargaining committee. He likely won’t be directly involved, he says, “but I certainly am looking forward to getting to know the Faculty Association executive members, and I’d really like to hear what concerns they have.”
“I would hope that I would be perceived as the kind of person who could pass that information along,” says MacKinnon, “not only to our bargaining team once it’s established, but to our board,” and the new permanent president.