Senior University Administrators Course lecture

SUAC Winter 2025

Hybrid delivery from January 23 to April 11, 2025

Fees: $4,200 plus GST
Pricing subject to change without notice.

Apply to SUAC now

In-person session schedule

Participants will be responsible for their own travel and accommodations as well as meals on their own time. Refreshments and meals will be provided during scheduled sessions.

  • Thursday, January 23, 2025
    Fort Garry Hotel – 222 Broadway, Winnipeg MB
    2:00 pm to 9:00 pm 
    Full session schedule to be provided.
     
  • Friday, January 24, 2025
    Room 160 Extended Education Complex, University of Manitoba
    Transportation will be provided.
    8:00 am to 4:00 pm 
    A comprehensive full day schedule will be provided to all registered participants.
    Refreshments, breakfast and lunch included.

Virtual session schedule

Virtual sessions will be two hours in length with the facilitators reserving an additional 30 minutes for further questions or discussion.

Sessions will be delivered synchronously online from 10 am to 12 pm CST. 

FridayFeb. 7Championing EDIA and Indigenization in the Academy
FridayFeb. 28Strategic Thinking and Change Leadership
FridayMarch 7Free Speech and Civil Discourse
FridayMarch 28Budgeting and Finance in Canadian Higher Education
FridayApril 11Open topic TBD by participants

Key topic areas

  • Trends and Challenges in Canadian Higher Education
  • Self-Awareness and Personal Values
  • Networking
  • EDIA and Indigenization of the Academy
  • Strategic Thinking and Change Leadership
  • Free Speech and Civil Discourse
  • Budgeting and Finance in Higher Education

Course description

  • CHERD’s Senior University Administrators Course (SUAC) has been a staple course offering at the University of Manitoba since 1987. The course has trained over 1,000 senior administrators who have gone on to executive positions such as provost and president. 

    Our 2025 programming will be offered in a hybrid format. Our new model delivers highly relevant content with one in-person and several synchronous online components. This format allows for more flexibility, respecting time and budget constraints. SUAC 2025 builds on the feedback from previous cohorts and our advisory group of senior leaders from Canadian universities.

  • Women-taking-online-course

Facilitation team

Dru Marshall

Dru Marshall, Leadership consultant

Dru Marshall completed a 10-year term as the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at the University of Calgary in 2021. She recently started a leadership consulting company, working with post-secondary institutions in North America.

A nationally recognized academic leader with over 30 years post-secondary sector experience, Dru previously served as the chair of the U-15 Group of Canadian Research Universities Provosts, and as the only non-American executive committee member on the Council of Academic Affairs of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. In addition to her academic career, she also had a significant career in high performance sport, coaching both the junior and senior Canadian women’s national field hockey teams. She has been recognized as one of Canada’s WXN Top 100 most powerful women and as one of the most influential women in sport and physical activity in Canada by the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women in Sport and Physical Activity. For her work in high performance sport in Canada, she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Dru holds a BPE with distinction from the University of Manitoba, and an MSc and PhD in Exercise Physiology from the University of Alberta.

Dru credits her coaching experience for helping shape in part her executive leadership style, where she earned a reputation as a strong team leader, team builder and mentor.

Florentine Strzelczyk

Florentine Strzelczyk, Provost and Vice-President (Academic), Western University  

Florentine Strzelczyk joined Western University in May 2022 as Provost & Vice-President (Academic). A CHERD alum, she also teaches and mentors in CHERD’s Women in Academic Leadership.

Florentine says, “I am a first-generation immigrant to Canada. Of mixed German and Eastern European heritage and as a Canadian newcomer, I am deeply grateful to the Indigenous peoples who have shared their land for centuries with newcomers like me to build a life here.”

Before joining Western University, Florentine served at Memorial University as Provost, Vice President (Academic) and Pro-Vice Chancellor in 2021-2022. During her tenure, she launched a new campus in Labrador, completed a reorganization of the Registrar’s Office, oversaw the Strategic Plan Implementation and Metrics design and approval, and began the groundwork for a new budget model. From 2018 to 2021, she served as Deputy Provost of the University of Calgary. Highlights of her work there include successful negotiation of several collective agreements; oversight of the renewal of the university’s Internationalization Strategy; new policies for academic appointments, tenure, promotion, and merit; membership on the university’s budget team; streamlining of quality assurance processes; chairing of the tri-council-sponsored national Dimensions EDI Pilot; and chairing of the university’s academic crisis management team.

Guest presenters

Opening keynote


TBA

Guest presenters


Randy Boyagoda

Randy Boyagoda

Randy Boyagoda, Novelist and Professor of English, University of Toronto

Randy Boyagoda is the author of seven books including four novels and, most recently, a novel for young adults, Little Sanctuary. Randy contributes reviews, essays, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Financial Times, and the Globe and Mail. A frequent contributor to CBC Radio and podcaster for the Toronto Public Library, he also serves as an advisor on civil discourse, the first such position in Canada, at the U of T, and is a past president of PEN Canada.

Nomination process

Participants are nominated by their home institutions. Universities and colleges can nominate individuals who have records of achievement in their academic or professional work, people who are motivated to enhance their leadership skills and/or those who are interested in the benefits to be obtained from attending a specialized leadership development program. Nominees can apply directly to SUAC via the online application form.

Request more information

If you have questions about this or any other programs and courses we offer, please use this form to let us know.

Where did you hear about this?
Social media
Online Ads

Contact us

Extended Education
185 Extended Education Complex
University of Manitoba (Fort Garry campus)
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada

204-474-8800
Toll free: 1-888-216-7011