SACKVILLE, N.B. – Peter Mansbridge has been reappointed as Mount Allison University’s eighth chancellor. The reappointment was endorsed by the university’s board of regents at their meeting on Feb. 15, 2013.
“I am honoured to continue in this role at Canada’s #1 undergraduate university,” says Mansbridge. “One of the best parts about being Chancellor is theopportunity to meet and work with the extraordinary students of Mount Allison University. I am confident that they will continue to make significant contributions and be the leaders of tomorrow in their chosen fields.”
Mount Allison University president Robert Campbell says, “Since his initial appointment as Chancellor in 2009, Peter Mansbridge has served as an exceptional ambassador for Mount Allison.
“He has worked and met with the university’s students, faculty, staff, and alumni on a number of projects and events and helped communicate Mount Allison’s reputation and message of excellence to a wider audience. We are thrilled that he will continue in his role as Chancellor for another term.”
Suzanne Crawford, chair of the university’s board of regents, agrees.
“Peter Mansbridge’s commitment to Mount Allison as university chancellor is exemplary. Over the past four years he has reached out to the University community in many ways, working to improve the Mount Allison Experience for our students and community members. I am so pleased to continue working with him on Mount Allison’s board of regents.”
In addition to presiding over convocation ceremonies, conferring all degrees, and acting as an ambassador for the university, Mansbridge has made many significant contributions to Mount Allison.
In 2011 he established the Mansbridge internship program. Valued at $10,000 annually, the internship is a unique opportunity for third-year Mount Allison students, allowing them to develop attitudes, abilities, and skills essential to active participation in an increasingly globalized and interconnected society. Past recipients include Monica Jepson (’12), who travelled to Kenya with the organization Medics to Africa in 2011, and Lia D’Abate (’14), who carried out stem cell research at Stanford University during her internship.
He also established the Cynthia Dale Fine Arts Scholarship, and during the fall of 2012, with his support, Mount Allison launched the Mansbridge Summit, an annual exercise of immersion and discovery for students in a current topic.
Mansbridge’s association with Mount Allison spans over 20 years, when he first visited campus in the 1980s as part of the Students Administrative Council’s speakers series. He delivered the inaugural lecture in Canadian Studies in 1997 and received an honourary degree from Mount Allison in 1999. He has served on the university’s National Advisory Council and was first named chancellor in 2009.
Mansbridge will continue his role as chief correspondent and anchor of CBC’s The National, and host of CBC News Network’s Mansbridge One-on-One. His journalism career spans 45 years and has covered many significant stories in Canada and internationally. In addition to interviewing many of Canada’s leaders, Mansbridge remains the only Canadian journalist to have interviewed both U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron. He has received 12 Gemini awards, nine honourary degrees, and was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 2008.
A number of exceptional Canadian leaders, in addition to Mansbridge, have sat in the Mount Allison’s chancellor’s chair. Past Chancellors include Margaret Norrie McCain, the first female Lieutenant Governor in New Brunswick, Purdy Crawford, one of the country’s most respected business leaders and lawyers, and award-winning Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist John Bragg.
Mansbridge’s second term as chancellor will run from January 2014 to December 2017.
