Trent University’s administration welcomes their new VP of Administration, Steven Pillar, as he leaves his position as VP of Finance and Administration at BrockU in February. Arthur sat down with Mr. Pillar and our special surprise guest, President Steven Franklin. “It’s good to know the prez has got my back”, quips Pillar.
Pillar spoke to his style of leadership as a “balance between the academic mission but being able to support it as well.” He could only speak to what he has done at Brock, but he feels that the goal of all universities in general should be “to provide a quality education for students, research opportunities for faculties and in general develop society in a positive way.”
He has been with Brock since July of 2002 and before that he was Saskatchewan’s Deputy Minister of Labour, so he’s used to dealing with unions. “Students are our priority,” said Pillar to The Brock Free Press. “Without the students, this place doesn’t matter. On the other hand, we have to be practical and business savvy. That’s the balance we’re trying to achieve.” He is referring to the near disaster that would have been a faculty strike at Brock. “The students are the ones who suffer the most” during labour negotiations, Pillar told Arthur. During labour negotiations at Brock though there is a an organization called BLAST (Brock Labour and Students Together) that has made it clear that students want a better deal for staff. Pillar though, says it’s a “legitimate effort” on the parts of students to get any settlement.
In a 2007 letter to The Brock Free Press editor, Professor Barry K. Grant, of the Brock University Faculty Association, refers to an article as exasperating the “increasingly strained relations between the administration and faculty at Brock.” Though Brock has not made any cuts to faculty in the past four years, according to Pillar, and in fact “typically we have not had across the board reduction exercises.” We have tried to target in a differentiated way, where we think we have more potential for reduction and quite frankly the higher percentages of reductions have been in administrative areas.”
Pillar tries to avoid cuts. He made a concerted effort at Brock to “increase revenue streams” instead of employing “reduction exercises.” This included some strategies he and the upper administration at Brock implemented in order to combat a potential 5% budget crunch across the board from declining provincial funding. These strategies were focused on retention, instead of enrollment. This meant an emphasis on improving student services and new programs in order to keep Brock students at Brock. He also mentioned food services and corporate research as alternative ways of increasing revenue without compromising academic integrity.
His vision, based on what he has seen at Brock, would be a “downtown” style set of food stations, including grocery stores, in order to provide food necessities and variety on campus. He stressed the importance of having grocery stores on campus so that students would not have to buy food downtown. This food station style of food services would also allow for multiple bidders for food services instead of one overarching food service provider.
When it comes to research opportunities for the sciences, Pillar admired Trent for the work it has already done. President Franklin reminded him that Trent has the most research grants per capita in Ontario. At Brock, companies would pay for research and students would start companies that “spinoff” the university and Brock would “share equity” in those companies. This represents a “huge potential to marry the money of industry and the research work of scientists that will ultimately produce products that will benefit society and the university can generate some extra equity and become less reliant on the government.” President Franklin made it very clear that this seems great “BUT with the appropriate safeguards, on our terms. So we can protect the integrity of the university. We believe in Academic Freedom, that is our highest value.”
When Arthur inquired into his guiding personal and professional ethical principles, he made it clear that “my background is not philosophy, but I have many colleagues at the University that instruct me in that discipline from time to time when they feel I need instruction. And it’s around ethics too!” It seems most of his ethical decisions are based on his experience as a public servant and trusts that public service in and of itself shapes an ethical character within its servants, “I’ve been a public servant my entire life and I think high ethical standards are absolutely crucial regardless of how you define them.” Steven Pillar seems excited to bring his own administrative style to Trent and, hopefully, become a Pillar of the community.
