Heather Munroe-Blum

Heather Anne Elyse Lilian Munroe-Blum, OC (born 1950) is the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

Academic life and early career

Munroe-Blum was born in Montreal and raised in Ontario. She received her B.A. and B.S.W. from McMaster University, M.S.W. from Wilfrid Laurier University, and Ph.D from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to her appointment as Principal of McGill, she was a professor at York University, McMaster University, and the University of Toronto, where she later served as the Vice-President of Research and International Relations) between 1994 and 2002. In January 2003, Munroe-Blum replaced outgoing Principal Bernard Shapiro as McGill's Principal, the first woman to occupy the position. Shapiro later served as the federal ethics commissioner in Canada.

Trained as an epidemiologist, Professor Munroe-Blum has led large-scale epidemiological investigations related to psychiatric disorders. She is the author or co-author of over 60 scholarly publications, including four books. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Medical Research Council of Canada (now the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) as well as on international reviews of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Mental Health (USA).

Munroe-Blum is a member of the Faculty of Medicine at McGill and a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Principal of McGill

As Principal, Munroe-Blum has demonstrated a number of priorities. Chief among these is rectifying what she often cites as systemic underfunding of McGill, which is currently running a minor budget deficit, expected to be eliminated by 2011. Examples of this can be seen in her attracting of Canadian philanthropists such as Marcel Desautels and Seymour Schulich to make notably large donations to the University, resulting in the renaming of the faculties of Management and Music respectively. She has campaigned publicly for significant increases in the tuition fees paid by McGill Students, arguing that the current, heavily subsidized fees, amounted to a "dollar store" policy on tuition and claiming that students should rein in their personal spending habits so as to be able to pay for the increase. Her interventions have generally received a very positive reception from the media, the business community, and government, but have been received negatively by many McGill student organizations and media outlets, leading to frequent protests and motions condemning proposed tuition increases in the general assemblies of SSMU, the McGill Student Union. Since beginning her role as principal at McGill, Munroe-Blum has introduced by-annual Town Hall Meetings in which students and faculty can openly ask questions of concern and raise issues of interest.

Awards and recognition

Munroe-Blum has received many accolades from the Academic community including honorary degrees from the Université de Montréal, University of Edinburgh, the University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University, and École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. She is also an Officer of the Order of Canada and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She is married to screenwriter Len Blum. They have a daughter, Sydney Blum.

In 2005, she attended the elite international Bilderberg conference. See List of Bilderberg attendees.

ources

* [http://www.mcgill.ca/principal/munroe-blum/ Biography from the McGill University Administration and Governance site]
* [http://www.olympic.ca/EN/organization/news/2004/files/flame_bios4.shtml#3 Brief biography from the Canadian Olympic Committee]
* [http://www.utpress.utoronto.ca/cgi-bin/cw2w3.cgi?p=munn&t=11458&d=2707 Canadian Who's Who 1997 entry]