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Sam Scully was educated at the University of Bristol, in England, and at the University of Toronto, where he received his Ph.D. in Classics in 1973. He held academic appointments at the University of Victoria and, from 1998, at Dalhousie University, and he served both universities as Provost and Vice-President Academic, in each case for eight-year periods. Upon retiring from Dalhousie in 2007, he and his wife returned to Toronto, and he is now enjoying a very active post-retirement consulting career that is strongly focused on postsecondary education, and includes working with universities and hospitals on searches to fill senior positions. 

Dr. Scully has been deeply interested and engaged in quality assurance work since the mid 1980s, including policy development and conducting unit reviews. From 2006 to 2009, he chaired the joint Association of Atlantic Universities-Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC) Quality Assurance Monitoring Committee, which reviews the quality assurance policies and practices of Maritime Universities, and he has recently done reviews and assessments for both MPHEC and the Post-Secondary Education Quality Assessment Board in Ontario.

Now a consultant, Ronald Bond is experienced in all levels of academic administration: head, associate dean, dean, vice-president [academic] and provost. He served as provost from 1997-2006 at the University of Calgary, where he led the development of the institution’s Academic Plan, supervised the work of 16 Deans and several Associate Vice-Presidents, and initiated the internal unit review process designed to enhance the quality of academic programs. He was named Provost Emeritus by the Board of Governors and has been invested as a member of the Order of the University of Calgary.

He is in his second term as Chair of the Campus Alberta Quality Council, an 11-person expert panel responsible for advising Alberta’s Minister of Advanced Education and Technology on the academic acceptability of degrees proposed by colleges, technical institutes, universities and non-resident institutions. In that role, he has given presentations and workshops on quality assurance in tertiary education. Dr. Bond has completed two terms as chair of the Campus Alberta Quality Council and is currently the Interim Chair of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network and Vice-Chair of the newly created Saskatchewan Higher Education Quality Assurance Board. He welcomes the opportunity to serve on the COU’s new Quality Assurance Council as an external member. 

Sue Horton is Associate Provost, Graduate Studies, at the University of Waterloo. She has also served as Vice-President, Academic at Wilfrid Laurier University, Interim Dean at University of Toronto, Scarborough, and Associate Dean in Arts and Science, at the University of Toronto. She has served on the one of the selection panels for the Premier's Discovery Awards, as Chair of the CIDA Tier 2 selection committee, as Vice-Chair of the Board of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C., and as Treasurer of the Board of the African Economic Research Consortium.

Dr. Horton has a BA from Cambridge, and an MA and Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is CIGI Chair in Global Health Economics in the Balsillie School of International Affairs. Her research is on nutrition, health and labour markets in developing countries. She has worked in over 20 developing countries, and served as a consultant to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, FAO, UNICEF, WHO, Planning Institute of Jamaica, and other organizations.

Mme Maureen Lacroix’s experience in Northern health care spans three decades in a variety of roles, ranging from front-line nursing to positions of senior leadership and administration. Mme Lacroix holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, and a Diploma in Nursing Administration from the University of Ottawa.

She has been a member of the Laurentian University Board of Governors since 1996 and was Chair of the Board of Governors from 2001 to 2003. Mme Lacroix was nominated to the Laurentian Board of Governors by the Université de Sudbury in October 1996, and was renewed in 1997, 2003 and 2006, with her term ending in 2009. She was a key advocate for the creation of the Northeastern Ontario Regional Cancer Centre, and she remains Chair of the Centre’s Foundation. In September 2007, Mme Lacroix had a Northern Ontario School of Medicine Bursary named in her honour for her dedication to the Francophone Reference Group at the school. In May 2008, she received the Paul Harris Fellowship Award from the Sudbury Rotary Club. 

Dr. McPherson graduated from the University of Alberta with a Ph.D. specializing in applied biomechanics. She served as Director of the School of Kinesiology and Chair of the Senate Teaching and Learning Committee for seven years and was elected for two terms as a Senate representative on the Board of Governors. She has been invited to share her scholarly and professional expertise in kinematic analysis, injury prevention, and program evaluation with national and international organizations. As part of the NSERC PromoScience program, she also develops and delivers interactive outreach modules that are designed to enhance the elementary science curricula.

Dr. Moira McPherson is the Deputy Provost at Lakehead University. Her responsibilities include leading the development of a new academic plan, program review and the transition to the new Quality Assurance Framework. She serves as Vice-Chair of Senate and represents the Office of the Vice-President Academic on Senate Standing Committees, including Undergraduate Studies, Budget, Senate Academic, Teaching and Learning, Continuing Education and Distributed Learning, and is a member of the Aboriginal Management and Graduate Studies Councils. Most recently, she has led initiatives to revise the process associated with the student evaluation of teaching, and chaired the Presidential Committee to review the Code of Student Behaviour and Disciplinary Procedures.

Eric Nay was educated at the University of Kentucky and Cornell University, and has a Master’s degree in Architecture. He is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Associate Dean at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at OCAD University. He also teaches Design History and Theory in the Faculty of Design at OCADU, and has published and/or presented numerous papers on sustainable design practices, sustainability in education and contemporary design theory. His background also includes postgraduate studies in Law (Hamline University), and his research interests and administrative responsibilities demonstrate a keen interest in policy development and implementation. He has taught in the United States, Canada, Asia and the Middle East, across numerous faculties and fields, and has practiced architecture in New York City, Chicago and California.

Mr. Nay has been a COU Academic Colleague since 2008 and has been a member of OCADU’s administrative team since 2006. Along the way, he has helped establish and maintain quality standards and practices for new programs, minors and graduate programs. Mr. Nay’s previous academic appointments include being one of the founding members of the School of Art and Design’s Faculty of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah, as well as Director of a Design Department at a college on the coast in California. Mr. Nay welcomes the opportunity to serve on the COU’s Quality Council and as a new Canadian, is honoured to be given such an opportunity.

Patrick Oosthuizen, a professional engineer, was born and educated in South Africa.  He received his BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cape Town, and an MASc degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto. After teaching for several years in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Cape Town, Dr. Oosthuizen joined what is now the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Queen’s University in 1968. 

Dr. Oosthuizen teaches mainly in Compressible Fluid Flow, Aerospace Engineering, Heat Transfer and Energy Systems, and has received a number of teaching awards. His primary research interests are in Convective Heat Transfer and its applications in Energy Systems. He has received a number of awards for his research and has published more than 600 technical papers. He has also published textbooks on Compressible Fluid Flow and Convective Heat Transfer Analysis. He was greatly involved with the CDIO initiative in engineering education in its earlier stages. This work involved investigation of the criteria that define a high-quality engineering program.

Cheryl Regehr is the Vice-Provost of Academic Programs for the University of Toronto. Former Dean of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, she is a Professor in the Faculty of Social Work, the Faculty of Law and the Institute for Medical Sciences at University of Toronto.

Dr. Regehr’s practice background includes over 20 years of direct service in forensic social work and emergency mental health, and in the administration of mental health programs, specializing in civil litigation and criminal court assessments of trauma victims and violent offenders, and organizationally based trauma interventions. She was the director of the Crisis Response Team at Pearson International Airport, and is presently on the mental health advisory for the Department of National Defence and Veteran’s Affairs Canada. In 2004, she was awarded the Amicus Award by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law for her contributions to forensic mental health. Dr. Regehr has three books with Oxford University Press, and is presently on the editorial boards of the Journal for Social Work Education, Children and Youth Services Review, and Research in Social Work Practice. 

Bruce Tucker is Professor of History and Associate Vice-President, Academic at the University of Windsor.  He is co-author with Zane Miller of Changing Plans for American Cities (1998) and co-editor of Appalachian Odyssey: Historical Perspectives on the Great Migration (2001).

He has published widely in both Canada and the United States on American intellectual and cultural history, the religious history of early New England, American urban history and Appalachian migration. He is currently working on a study of post 9/11 American political culture.

Dr. Woolcott holds a B.H.Sc. from the University of Guelph, an M.Sc. in Nutrition from the University of Manitoba, and a PhD in Applied Human Nutrition from the University of Guelph. She brings a distinguished record of achievement to COU. Most recently she served as Vice-President (Academic) for seven years at Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Prior to joining MSVU, she was the Assistant Vice-President (Academic) at the University of Guelph for three years, where she had oversight for the university’s internal quality review processes. She was also Chair of the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition for seven years and a faculty member in Applied Human Nutrition for more than twenty years. She has held visiting scholar/research appointments at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and the Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands.

Dr. Woolcott's accomplishments have garnered much attention from professional organizations outside the academic community, leading her to serve on a number of boards and organizations and act as an advisor to federal and provincial governments. She was appointed to the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission, which has responsibility for new programs approvals and for monitoring quality assurance at the universities in the three Maritime provinces. In 2003, Dr. Woolcott received the Centenary Award from the University of Guelph, in recognition for her contributions to the university.