New Grad Studies dean working to support students

Bernie Boudreau is in for a busy year, but the newly appointed dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies is up to the challenge.

Dr. Boudreau, who comes to Graduate Studies from the Department of Oceanography, has had a long and successful career in academia. He has three masters degrees (one from Texas A&M University and two from Yale), a PhD from Yale and is an expert in ocean sediments. (“I study, ‘the bottom,’” he explains.)

His career began in the private sector before ending up at Dalhousie in 1988. He served most recently as chair of the Department of Oceanography and has been in his new position as dean of Graduate Studies since July.

The role puts Dr. Boudreau in charge of a faculty that deals with approximately 3,500 graduate students each year. While this number has increased substantially in recent times—up from 2,500 ten years ago—Dr. Boudreau would like to see even more attention paid to graduate students in the coming years.  

Grad students, crucial to Dal's success

Not everyone realizes the importance of graduate students to a university, he says. Grad students not only provide significant amounts of support to faculty members, but also tend to carry out much of the research conducted within departments. Quality and quantity of research, in turn, is a big part of Dalhousie’s reputation; Dr. Boudreau points out that Dalhousie is currently ranked 193 on the Time Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, placing Dalhousie in the top one per cent of schools in the world.

“I think we can do even better,” he says, adding that given the comparable size of Dalhousie’s financial endowments, he could easily see us climbing that list.

One way to do so, he says, is to provide the financial support needed to recruit top-tier graduate students from around Canada and the world. The challenge is that government funding for graduate research is not always as strong in Nova Scotia as it is in other provinces.

“I have this feeling that if we’re going to make ourselves better, we have to find the resources within ourselves,” says Dr. Boudreau, who was recently elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Attracting and keeping the best

One method for achieving that, he says, is by using Faculty resources to top up fellowships for graduate students to give them the support they need to pursue their research at Dalhousie.

“I want to make sure we realize that we have to increase our internal economy to fund graduate students to stay on the list of top universities,” says Dr. Boudreau.

So as the new academic year arrives, Dr. Boudreau will be keeping busy, with an eye to the daily workings of the faculty as well as to the future of graduate studies at Dalhousie. In addition, he will continue to teach and conduct his own research on the side.
Not that he’s complaining.

“The university has been very kind to the Department of Oceanography,” he explains, “so I thought it was time to give some back.”