I am pleased to announce that Dr. Lois Harder, chair and professor of Political Science, has been appointed as the next principal of the Peter Lougheed Leadership College, effective July 1, for a three-year term.
Since its launch, Founding Principal Kim Campbell, Vice-Principal Martin Ferguson-Pell, and their dedicated team have created an exceptional learning environment at the PLLC for both undergraduate students and graduate teaching fellows alike. Students have benefited from the college’s interdisciplinary approach, which brings them together with students from across our campuses to engage in programming in several faculties, in particular ALES, Arts, Augustana, Science and Business. Integral to the learning environment is the college’s extensive network of leaders from the public, private, and voluntary sectors, who Kim Campbell and Martin Ferguson-Pell have engaged to share their expertise and advice on a wide variety of topics and issues. Students have been challenged to define their own development as future leaders, and to test and expand their skills and knowledge in stretch experiences that take them out of the classroom and into organizations here in Edmonton and around the world. In the college’s short history, two PLLC scholars have been recent recipients of Rhodes Scholarships.
Under Kim Campbell and Martin Ferguson-Pell’s leadership, a strong foundation for the PLLC is now in place. Expanding PLLC programming to a broader range of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as to staff and faculty, at the University of Alberta will be part of Lois Harder’s mandate as principal.
To that role, she brings extensive administrative and teaching experience. She has served as associate chair (graduate) in the Department of Political Science from 2005–2010 and associate dean (research) in the Faculty of Arts from 2011–2014. She is currently chair of the Department of Political Science, a role she has filled for the last 3 years. Under her leadership, a new MA in Policy Studies is under development with a prospective launch in September 2019– a project that has required the cultivation of relationships both within and outside of the university, particularly among government officials, stakeholders in the public sector, and donors. While working with graduate students as both associate chair and associate dean responsible for graduate studies, Lois was involved in developing and providing professional development training for students, work which was recognized by the Graduate Students’ Association Academic Staff Award in 2010. A dedicated teacher and graduate supervisor, she looks forward to working with PLLC students as they formulate their goals and acquire the skills to achieve them.
Lois is also an award-winning researcher. Her work centres on citizenship and family law, examining the issue of citizenship through birth and familial relationships as the basis for membership in political democracies. Along with numerous articles and book chapters, she is the author, co-author or editor of four books: State of Struggle: Feminism and Politics in Alberta (2003); Women, Democracy and Globalization in North America (2006); The Chretien Legacy: Politics and Public Policy in Canada (2006) and Patriation and its Consequences: Constitution-making in Canada (2015) (the latter two edited with Dr. Steve Patten). She held a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Hawaii in 2007, was the Eccles Centre Visiting Canadian Fellow in North American Studies at the British Library in 2014, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Kent Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality in 2015.
I would like to extend my gratitude to the members of the search committee for their time, counsel, and commitment. Most of them also served for months prior to this search on the working group that developed recommendations for the next phase of the PLLC, and the roles and responsibilities of our new principal. As Kim Campbell and Martin Ferguson-Pell finish their terms leading PLLC, I would like to express my thanks for the foundations established by them that will now be extended and strengthened in the years to come.
Please join me in congratulating Lois Harder on her new appointment and welcoming her to the Peter Lougheed Leadership College.
David H. Turpin
President and Vice-Chancellor