Ivan Joseph joins Wilfrid Laurier as Student Affairs VP
October 2, 2020
For four straight years, Wilfrid Laurier has been the top-ranked university for student satisfaction in the annual Maclean’s Rankings of Canadian Universities.
Dr. Ivan Joseph was paying careful attention.
With David McMurray retiring from the Vice-President, Student Affairs role in June 2020, the search firm approached Joseph.
“I have always been keeping my eyes open for this job, so I was happy to be considered,” he said. “This is one of those positions I went away for to prepare me for this job. I am really delighted.”
Since August 2018, Joseph has been the Student Affairs Vice-Provost at Dalhousie University.
“When I went there, it was my intention to stay at least three to five years before moving,” he noted. “The job at Laurier was always the one that I wanted, but I knew I couldn’t get it if I was the Director of Athletics. As the number one university in Canada for student experience, I knew they needed someone with experience in order for someone to trust me with this opportunity. So I went away to get the experience so I could be considered.”
At Dalhousie, Joseph provided strategic leadership to staff across 10 units and multiple campuses. He led strategic policy and prioritization development, program development, expansion of equity, diversity and inclusion supports and community engagement related to the student experience.
“To be a Vice-President is a very different experience,” he said. “Before this, I operated in my wheelhouse and skill of expertise. As a Vice-President, there is a lot of other areas that you are in charge of that aren’t in your technical areas of expertise, whether it’s sexual violence, academic accommodations or the medical health and wellness center. And so you rely on the expertise of the leaders that are in your shop to really lead those areas from a technical point of view. The job of a Vice-President is to remove obstacles, provide resources and leverage relationships and political capital across the institution to carry across your priorities. What I really learnt is the power of leveraging relationships and how to navigate complex organizations in order to move agendas and projects that require multiple stakeholders.”
Joseph’s role at Wilfrid Laurier is broader in scope.
He led a team of 200 and oversaw a budget of about $20 million at Dalhousie.
In Joseph’s new role, he will be in charge of about 400 staff and a budget approaching $70 million. His portfolio also includes Senate Learning & Teaching, Security and Food Services.
“It’s a more comprehensive portfolio and I think it’s organized and aligned in the perfect way,” he said. “There’s a reason that Wilfrid Laurier is ranked number one in Canada for the student experience and that’s because they have really integrated their model and structured it the right way.”
Deborah MacLatchy, Wilfrid Laurier’s President and Vice-Chancellor, said Joseph’s exceptional skills as a university leader, overseeing a broad portfolio of multi-faceted units and supports related to the student experience will significantly contribute to the university’s strategic focus on fostering the development of the whole student.
“Ivan is an outstanding coach and mentor and our sense of community and being number one in student satisfaction for which Laurier is so well known will thrive under his leadership,” she added.
There’s another reason that Joseph is excited be back in Ontario after serving as Ryerson University’s Athletics Director for 10 years.
“I didn’t realize how much I would miss my parents, other family members and my connections in Ontario,” said the accomplished public speaker who has produced TEDX Talks with over 18 million views to date. “You think you are 50 years old and you have outgrown being homesick or being connected to your family and your people. I realized there was something missing.”
His eldest daughter is at the University of Waterloo pursuing Accounting studies while his son is enrolled in Western University’s Engineering program.
Joseph began his new job on October 1. The appointment is for a five-year term.
Leaving Guyana with his family at age five, he attended King City Secondary School and Laurentian University before Graceland University recruited him as a student-athlete in 1993. He went on to become the first Black student president, Director of Soccer Operations, head coach of the men’s team that won its first National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) soccer title, the mastermind behind the creation of a premier multi-field soccer complex and the first Black professor at the Iowa university.
Joseph was honoured with the NAIA Coach of the Year Award in 2006 and every varsity player that competed at least one season graduated under him.
At Graceland, he also helped manage student leadership development and was a residence hall director and instructor in the student affairs portfolio.
Joining Ryerson in 2008 as the first Black athletic director at a Canadian university, Joseph led the revitalization of the iconic Maple Leaf Gardens into a new $60 million multi-functional athletic and recreational centre for Ryerson students and the community.
The university’s soccer program flourished with him at the helm.
The two-time Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East Coach of the Year spent six seasons coaching the men’s soccer team that qualified for the OUA Final Four championship three times and the U Sports (formerly Canadian Interuniversity Sport) national tournament for the first time in 2013. He took over the women’s program in 2015.
Joseph coached the Canadian’s women team at the 2011 Military World Games and is the Guyana women’s head coach.
