Dr. McEwen began her term as President and Vice-Chancellor of Victoria University on July 1, 2022. She spoke with The Strand about her plans for her term as President, and her take on important issues at Vic.
The Strand: What are some of your main goals for the next five years as President?
President McEwen: I think my goals are built into the Strategic Framework. It was beautifully done, there was a lot of consultation to get voices from students, faculty, staff, and from Indigenous communities around us. It’s rooted in equity and inclusion. I really encourage every single student to even glimpse it, it’s not long, and it’s online. The four pillars are just spectacular, but it also gives me a lot of flexibility to fill those buckets with exciting opportunities. So, my goal in the next few years is to bring to life those pillars of belonging, transforming the space, and bringing signature academic experience and content, in ways that will be meaningful to current and future students.
How do you hope to foster students’ curiosity, and how are you driven by curiosity?
I love that question. I left a very good and fun career in business and technology consulting, which is also a place where curiosity thrives, because I didn’t have room to investigate the kinds of questions I saw, like, how do people make use of technology? Who does it serve? Are there ways to design this more inclusively? I’m always curious about the people we’re not necessarily thinking about, so curiosity is [at] the heart of who I am as a researcher. I think if you design for people who are not your typical user, you actually serve everyone.
We’re working on new academic programs at Victoria College that foster creativity and curiosity, because when you’re at your best in your curiosity, you are in a creation mode. I’m also bringing my digital media lab on campus. I love sandboxing things, so we have a lot of equipment, and a place for people to just play with tech. That’s part of curiosity too, to play in a tech sandbox, to generate, and feed that curiosity. It encourages students to engage with things they normally wouldn’t.
Last year, UofT announced its plan to divest from fossil fuels, but some financially independent colleges haven’t followed suit yet. Do you think that divestment is a priority for Vic, and do you have plans to make it happen?
It’s in all our interests as people on this planet to do everything we can. We have to be focused on this. It’s a big issue for me, but what’s very encouraging is that it’s a top priority for the Board of Regents. The new chairperson of the board has already spoken with me about this in my first week here. We’ve had the first meeting of one of our subcommittees. I’m reaching out to UofT, to understand some of the steps that they took. The amount of power I have on divestment isn’t as high as people think, it’s really the Board of Regents. But it is a core priority, so my job is to work as closely as I can, to keep the pressure on, and to work with the students. I’ve read the student plan, and I think it’s rational. I know a lot of people here thought that it was very well done. So now it’s a matter of getting it executed.
How do you feel about the role of student voices, and how do you intend to incorporate student voices in the future?
I couldn’t do the job I’m doing without student voices. It’s part of my fundamental belief that I am not just leading the university, but I am bringing together those voices and making sure they are being heard. Students write me and come see me all the time, but not everyone will know that. We’re trying to create ways for me to meet more students and for it to be more visible to everyone, but also to be transparent about how it’s translating into action. The biggest part is making sure students understand that they didn’t just talk at me, but that I incorporated it, and they can see the output of that. I think that’s really important.
Equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives have clearly been an important focus for you. How do you hope to promote these at Vic?
It’s so cool how much was already being done here. We give more bursaries at Vic for people who come from lower socioeconomic conditions or those who are first-generation university students, than many places at UofT. What I can do is build off that foundation. There was a previous dean who said, it had gotten to a point where everybody wanted ‘one’—one Black professor, one queer theorist, and it started becoming tokenizing. That’s not the goal; if we truly believe in inclusion and diversity, we should broaden the question and say, how can we ensure these people will thrive here? I want to create environments where individuals know they’re among people who believe in the value they bring. The students are behind that already. I think we have work to do in some other areas.
Since the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, there’s been conflicting responses from UofT administration, students, and faculty. What do you feel should be the response from the University, and how should we deal with our colonial history moving forward?
So, I come from a former colony, Trinidad and Tobago, one that ha[s] histories of racism that built economies [and] powerful wealth extraction out of people and places. I don’t think we’re fully post-colonial. I think when we say things like, “we shouldn’t recognise the monarch,” I know what’s behind that is “let’s not reify and make it seem like all was great.” Because there’s some really horrible genocides that were part of what made that royal family.
At the same time, I am very conscious of the fact that you can’t take away history. We were created by a royal charter, there’s nothing I can do, or say to change that. What we can change is how we speak about it, how we learn from it. I’m never one for taking the issue off the table, because then no one talks about it, and we lose as a thinking community. We need to make sure all voices are heard.
I think UofT can recognise the passing and there can be mourning, but if people in my community here say, “I will not mourn the passing of the Queen,” I think you should feel that that’s justifiable and right, and there’s room for you here, too. We’re at a university to have difficult conversations and to see and hear each other. I want to be respectful, and I want to keep dialogues open.
You mentioned disability-related work earlier, could you talk more about that?
So I have two children, and my daughter is on the autism spectrum. I was already working on technology, but I started thinking more about cognition and the brain, and the more hidden disabilities. Here in my office, I have Julia, my Muppet, that I helped create with Sesame Workshop, the research arm of Sesame Street. Julia is the first character they introduced in decades, and Julia is on the autism spectrum.
I’m still on the advisory board for the workshop, and what we wanted to do is bring autism out of houses, hospitals, and classrooms, [and] into the world. We made Julia phenotypically look like a girl, because it’s disproportionately diagnosed in boys, so we can change some stereotypes around that. I’m on the board for Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab, and my focus on the board is to keep raising issues around disabilities and creating new pathways going forward. I hope to do more of that at Vic. Our buildings here are often not accessible, because they’re really old. That’s a big project for me, to make this campus more accessible.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
