Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic) Benoit-Antoine Bacon will be leaving Queen’s to serve as the 15^th president and vice-chancellor of Carleton University, in Ottawa, effective July 1, 2018.

Dr. Bacon will step down as provost of Queen’s as of June 30, 2018.

“This is an exciting opportunity for Benoit, and I look forward to continuing to work with him, in my capacity as chair of the Council of Ontario Universities, in his new role as president of Carleton University,” says Principal and Vice-Chancellor Daniel Woolf. “He has demonstrated strong leadership and has made significant contributions to Queen’s; I wish him success, and thank him for all he has done to advance our university’s academic mission, promote research, strengthen our international presence, and enrich the student experience. Queen’s has a long tradition of recruiting and training leaders, and I am sure that Benoit’s experiences here, and in his prior roles, will stand him in good stead at Carleton." 

Dr. Bacon joined Queen’s in 2016 from Concordia University where he was also provost. During his time as Queen’s provost, he has worked with the deans to design and implement an ambitious five-year faculty renewal plan aiming to hire 200 outstanding new full-time professors, worked to enhance indigeneity, diversity and inclusion on campus, and accelerated the implementation of Queen’s International Strategy. He also led the negotiations towards Queen’s highly successful second Strategic Mandate Agreement with the government of Ontario.

Committed to research and innovation at Queen’s, he made important modifications to the budget model to better support research, contributed to the naming and expansion of the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre, and oversaw the construction of the $100-million Innovation and Wellness Centre which will open in the fall of 2018. With an eye on the digital future, Dr. Bacon also set in motion the development of a digital strategy for Queen’s that aims to holistically integrate new technologies towards enhancing research, teaching, the student experience, and university operations.

Principal Woolf plans, following consultation with the Board of Trustees, to appoint an interim provost and vice-principal (Academic) pending the recruitment of a successor. More details will follow shortly.