Jean-Paul Boudreau: Mount Allison University photo.

It’s official. Jean-Paul Boudreau is the new president of Mount Allison University.

“I am thrilled and deeply honoured to be named Mount Allison’s 15th President and Vice- Chancellor,” Boudreau says in a news release posted on the university’s website. “Mount Allison has earned a long-standing reputation as one of Canada’s best undergraduate universities.”

Ron Outerbridge, Chair of the Mount Allison Board of Regents, says the board appointed Boudreau to a five-year term during a meeting it held today.

When his appointment takes effect on July 1, Boudreau will replace Robert Campbell who has served as the Mt. A. president for the past 12 years.

New Brunswick roots

Boudreau, who teaches in the psychology department at Ryerson University in Toronto, grew up in Moncton.

His online biography says he served as chair of Ryerson’s Department of Psychology (2003 – 2011), and Dean of the Faculty of Arts (2011 – 2016) before his appointment in 2016 as Special Advisor and Executive Lead for Social Innovation at Ryerson University.

Boudreau’s psychological research focuses on the learning and development of infants. He is director of Ryerson’s Children, Health, Infancy, Learning and Development (CHILD) lab.

He holds a PhD from Tufts University in Boston.

Sole candidate

The Mount Allison presidential search committee invited Boudreau to a series of public meetings on the university’s campus in mid-January, where he talked to students, faculty and staff. (For earlier coverage, click here.)

At the time, the committee said it had whittled its list down to two candidates, but one of them withdrew leaving Boudreau as the sole remaining contender.

In an e-mail addressed to students, faculty and staff, Ron Outerbridge says Boudreau’s spouse is Dr. Irene Gammel, an English professor at Ryerson who directs its Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre.

Outerbridge adds that Boudreau plans to embark on a listening tour this summer to get to know people in both the Mount Allison community and the town of Sackville.

“I look forward to meeting with and listening to students, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders and working together, build upon the foundation of Mount Allison’s liberal arts and sciences tradition,” today’s news release quotes Boudreau as saying.