Patrick Deane | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Deane in 2018 | |
| 21st Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University | |
| Assumed office 1 July 2019[1] | |
| Preceded by | Daniel Woolf |
| 7th President and Vice-Chancellor of McMaster University | |
| In office 1 July 2010[2] – 30 June 2019[3] | |
| Preceded by | Peter George |
| Succeeded by | David H. Farrar |
| Acting President of the University of Winnipeg | |
| In office 2002[4] – 2 May 2004[5] | |
| Preceded by | Constance Rooke |
| Succeeded by | Lloyd Axworthy |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 9 December 1956 South Africa |
| Nationality | Canadian South African |
| Education | University of the Witwatersrand (BA) University of Western Ontario (MA, PhD)[1][6] |
Patrick Deane (born 9 December 1956) is a Canadian scholar and university administrator, currently serving as the 21st Principal of Queen's University. He was previously the acting president of the University of Winnipeg (2003-2004), the Vice-principal (Academic) at Queen's University (2005-2010) and the 7th President of McMaster University (2010-2019).[7]
Deane was born in 1956[8][9] in South Africa.[10] His father, whose ancestors emigrated from Liverpool to South Africa in the 1820s, joined the British Royal Navy during World War II.[11] After the war, Deane's mother met his father in Canada, when he went there on a business trip; they got married in 1947.[12] When Deane was 15, his elder brother, who was 5 years his senior and was on conscription service, died of testicular cancer, after being misdiagnosed and denied treatment by a civilian doctor.[11]
Deane went to King Edward VII School in Johannesburg,[12] and then studied English and law at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was a vocal and active opponent of apartheid.[2] He graduated in 1978 and moved to Canada, to study English literature at the University of Western Ontario, obtaining a Master of Arts in 1980 and a PhD in 1985.[2][13]
Deane's professional career began in 1986, when he was appointed an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, teaching English literature.[7][14] He was invited back to the University of Western Ontario in 1988, when he was awarded the John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature,[15] becoming an assistant professor in the Department of English and teaching 21-century British literature,[10] and was promoted to associate professor in 1994.[7]; he was also Vice-Chair (1993-1995) and Chair (1997-2001) of the Department.[7]
In 2001, Deane moved to the University of Winnipeg to take up the position of Vice-President (Academic),[10] concurrently serving as a Professor of English.[7] When the university's president, Constance Rooke, resigned in 2002, following a dispute with the board of regents over the university's finance,[16] he became the Acting President and Vice-Chancellor in 2003. During this period, Deane oversaw the elimination of the university's accumulated debt, the first surplus budget in a decade, and the creation of the University of Winnipeg Foundation, a new fundraising arm for the university.[4][17] Deane handed over the presidency to Lloyd Axworthy in 2004, returning to the role of Vice-President (Academic) and taking the newly established position of Provost.[7] In 2005, Deane accepted the appointment of Vice-Principal (Academic) at Queen's University and serving as a Professor of English Language and Literature in parallel. He held these positions until 2010, when he assumed the role of President and Vice-Chancellor of McMaster University.[7]
In November 2018, Queen's announced the return of Deane to succeed Daniel Woolf as the 21st Principal and Vice-Chancellor.[18] Deane formally stepped down as McMaster's president on 30 June 2019, having served nearly 2 full terms in that capacity.[19] He assumed the new role as the following day, on 1 July 2019.[1]
Deane met his wife, Sheila, during his MA years at the University of Western Ontario, where she was undertaking her PhD in Women's Studies and was a Virginia Woolf scholar.[20] They have a daughter, Petra, and a son, Colin,[11] who, as of 2020, were respectively a genetics researcher in Vermont, US, and an instructor in education at the University of Winnipeg.[12]
Deane and his family now live on a hobby farm called New Leaf Farm 20 km north of Kingston.[21][12] They have been living on farms for 20 years,[21] including during his tenure as McMaster President and Vice-Chancellor.[20]
