It’s time. And it’s been time for a very long time.
Last week, Vianne Timmons was announced as the successful candidate to replace Memorial University president and vice-chancellor Gary Kachanoski.
Timmons, who will take over the post on March 31, 2020, will be the first woman to hold the role.
You might point to that as progress, but keep things in perspective.
One thing’s for sure — Timmons herself had that perspective on the tip of her tongue, saying she was pleased to be the first female president, “but I’m also a bit sad about being named first. I was the first dean of education at the university of Prince Edward Island. I was the first female university president in Saskatchewan and now I’m the first female president of a university in Newfoundland. I’m looking forward to the day when women can say, ‘I’m the fifth and sixth.’”
She’s right.
We’re long past the time when the appointment of a woman to run, well, anything, should be seen as a marker of significance beyond hiring the best person to do the job that needs to be done. The fact that we’re still not past that point in our outlook is disappointing.
As Timmons pointed out in an interview with the Regina Leader-Post in 2018, she saw that as president of the University of Regina: “You’d think that you get to this level and you wouldn’t experience challenges, but you still do,” Timmons said. “If I travel with a male vice-president, presidents in other countries talk to him rather than me.”
Are things changing?
We’re long past the time when the appointment of a woman to run, well, anything, should be seen as a marker of significance beyond hiring the best person to do the job that needs to be done.
Sure. If you look at the list of deans running MUN’s various schools and faculties, last updated in September, eight of the 15 were women. It no longer requires special recognition. And, frankly, that’s the way it should be by now.
Anyone who was in the workforce in the ’80s and even the ’90s knows full well that skilled, experienced, capable women were overlooked for senior management positions simply because they weren’t men. A huge amount of potential was lost — along with the gains that potential could have brought as a nation.
So we share both Timmons’ joy and disappointment.
Is it a benchmark appointment? Yes.
But now that we’re past it, maybe we could move on to the job at hand: seeing a new Memorial University president deal with what’s become a damaging government tuition freeze, crumbling university infrastructure, and a fiscal model that simply can’t work for much longer.
Memorial is a university in trouble, no matter how much the current provincial government wants to gloss over the issue.
Timmons turned around low enrolment numbers at the University of Regina and fought off a non-confidence vote over her leadership — winning by one vote — in the process.
She might just be the right person indeed.