Arts & Science, DeGroote School of Business, Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Social Sciences

Dr. Patrick Deane graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa before earning his MA and PhD in English literature from Western University. With a focus on the relationship between cultural production and British politics in the first half of the twentieth century, Dr. Deane established himself as a formidable scholar in his field and was the first recipient of the John Charles Polanyi Prize for Literature in 1988.

Dr. Deane’s career in scholarship and teaching progressed, so too did his career in administration. He held progressively more senior appointments at Western University, the University of Winnipeg and Queen’s University before he came to McMaster University in 2010 as our president and vice-chancellor. Serving in that role until 2019, he began his leadership at McMaster by authoring Forward With Integrity, a document that advanced new guiding principles for the University’s strategic planning and identified areas of institutional focus, namely the student experience, community engagement, research and internationalization. These priorities led to initiatives including the creation of the Network for Community-Campus Partnerships which evolved into the Office of Community Engagement as well as the development of the Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching which was a key factor in McMaster winning the second-ever Global Teaching Excellence Award in 2018.

During his McMaster presidency, Dr. Deane acted as a staunch advocate for the societal value of research-intensive universities, and emphasized the importance of equipping McMaster’s students with the skills needed to engage thoughtfully and critically with the challenges facing our world.  Steadfast in his commitment to advancing the University’s leadership in key societal issues he initiated McMaster’s response to the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, re-imagined the Equity and Inclusion Office and appointed McMaster’s first associate vice-president of Equity and Inclusion. He also arranged for the University to serve as the host institution for Academics Without Borders, led McMaster’s signing of the Magna Charta Universitatum and oversaw the adoption of the Okanagan Charter, an international charter for health-promoting universities and colleges.

At the same time, McMaster also reclaimed its designation as the most research-intensive university in Canada and the University’s position in global university rankings rose significantly, highlighted by the inaugural Times Higher Education University Impact ranking which placed McMaster second in the world for its contributions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2019, Dr. Deane – a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal – returned to Queen’s University to become that institution’s principal and vice-chancellor. He is also president of the Governing Council of the Magna Charta Observatory and was a member of the group that developed the updated version of the Magna Charta Universitatum.

Professor Daniel Coleman is fascinated by the power of narrative arts to generate a sense of place and community, mindfulness, and especially wonder.  His books include Masculine Migrations (1998), The Scent of Eucalyptus (2003), White Civility (2006; best book in the Humanities in Canada), In Bed With the Word (2009), and Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place (2017, RBC Taylor Prize finalist). He has co-edited ten scholarly volumes on topics such as early Canadian culture, Caribbean Canadian writing, masculinities, postcoloniality, race, the retooling of the humanities, and displacement. He is co-director of McMaster’s Centre for Community Engaged Narrative Arts.