York University President & Vice-Chancellor Mamdouh Shoukri has announced the appointment of Professor Kenneth McRoberts to serve a five-year term as principal, Glendon College, beginning on July 1, 2009.
"I am pleased to confirm the appointment of Kenneth McRoberts as the principal of Glendon College,” said Shoukri. “He is a first-class leader who has guided Glendon for the past 10 years and who will help lead Glendon – and York – into the future.”
Right: Kenneth McRoberts
Given that McRoberts has already served as principal of Glendon for two terms, Shoukri asked Vice-President Academic & Provost Sheila Embleton to chair a search committee for the principal for Glendon. The independent search committee was composed of members elected by the Glendon Faculty Council and one non-Glendon faculty member. The search was assisted by an external search firm, Morgan Leadership Search. McRoberts was selected unanimously by the committee after a rigorous and open competition for the position.
“I am delighted to have this opportunity to help Glendon continue to build on its unique mandate of a bilingual liberal arts faculty,” said McRoberts. “Plans are already in place for new graduate and undergraduate programming, support for research, modernization and expansion of facilities, and development of international linkages. I look forward to working with my Glendon colleagues and the York community to bring these plans to fruition.”
McRoberts became principal of Glendon College on July 1, 1999. He holds an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago and, before coming to Glendon, was professor of political science in the Faculty of Arts. He has served terms as director of the York Graduate Program in Political Science and director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies. He also served a six-year term as editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Canadian Studies and is a past president of the Canadian Political Science Association.
McRoberts has written journal articles and book chapters on a variety of topics including Quebec politics, Canadian federalism and constitutional questions. He is author of Quebec: Social Change and Political Crisis, which is in its third edition with Oxford University Press and has appeared in French translation with Les Éditions Boréal. In 1991, McRoberts gave the sixth annual Robarts Lecture at York University, entitled Avoiding the Issue: English Canada and Quebec. He has also edited Beyond Quebec: Taking Stock of Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press) and co-edited (with Patrick J. Monahan) The Charlottetown Accord, the Referendum and the Future of Canada (University of Toronto Press).
McRoberts authored Misconceiving Canada: The Struggle for National Unity, published by Oxford University Press in 1997 and in French translation by Les Éditions Boréal in 1999. Catalonia: Nation-building without a State, was published in 2001 by Oxford University Press; a Catalan edition was published in the same year.
In June 2004, the French government named McRoberts “Officier de l’Ordre des Palmes académiques”. He received an honorary doctorate from Laval University in September of the same year.