President's report - May Board meeting

Following a highly successful Board-Senate retreat, I am encouraged at the strength of SFU’s bicameral governance system and look forward to working with both SFU's Board of Governors and the SFU Senate to strengthen our governance models even further. As we look ahead to the summer months and several key milestones for SFU, including the start of our first School of Medicine cohort, the executive team continues to remain focused on advancing SFU’s vision, priorities and values through strategic and thoughtful work at all levels of the university.

Administrative updates

Leadership renewal

SFU has begun the search for the vice-president, finance and administration (VPFA) in accordance with the procedures set out in policy GP 29. The search committee has been formed and a community consultation is underway. The process, led by executive search firm Boyden, is expected to continue through fall 2026.

We announced the appointment of Kevin Oldknow as the principal, Surrey campus and senior advisor to the provost, for a three-year term starting September 1, 2026. This new role was developed to build on the Surrey campus’s strengths while putting a more academically integrated leadership structure into place, in alignment with the Academic Plan. 

In addition, we recently shared with the community that Elio Luongo will become SFU’s 13th chancellor, following the end of Tamara Vrooman’s term in June. Elio is a prominent alumnus and long-time supporter of SFU and we look forward to welcoming him to this critical role for the university. I also want to thank Tamara for her service on the board and support of SFU during her six years in the role.

Enrolments and recruitment

Following the board’s approval of the 2026-27 enrolment plan and review of 2025/26 enrolment results at the March meeting, there are no new enrolment updates to share. We look forward to providing an update on summer enrolment results at the June meeting.

Government relations

SFU’s Government Relations team advanced our advocacy program with strategic meetings in Victoria and Ottawa, including meetings with B.C. Premier David Eby, finance minister Brenda Bailey and several cabinet ministers and political staff in Health, Post-Secondary, Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation, and Transportation. We discussed priorities such as post-secondary sustainability, the SFU School of Medicine, the Cedar Supercomputing Centre expansion and the Burnaby Mountain Gondola. These productive discussions highlighted SFU’s role in supporting economic growth, innovation and healthcare. 

SFU also continues to closely monitor developments at the provincial and federal levels. Don Avison’s public post-secondary review report was due to the province on March 31, and the post-secondary minister has informed us that the government will need time to review the report before it is released publicly. 

Federally, there were two developments with direct implications for SFU. First, the Carney government secured a majority in the House of Commons following three by-election wins in Ontario and Quebec. A majority means the government's legislative and economic priorities will move faster, including the newly launched Building Communities Strong Fund, which is now in federal-provincial negotiations to set the terms and conditions of future agreements.

More immediately relevant to SFU: the federal AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program opened its application call on April 15. SFU and Queen’s University recently announced a partnership to design and build a national, sovereign, secure and sustainable high‑performance supercomputing system that will keep Canadian data and intellectual property in Canada; the VP Research and Innovation Office co-developed and submitted a joint application with Queens for the program. This is a critical funding opportunity that SFU has been actively positioning over the past year in Ottawa. 

Finally, SFU provided a pre-budget submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance in advance of Budget 2026. Our submission, along with all other submissions to the committee, will be posted publicly on the Government of Canada website.

Advancing strategic priorities

There is work occurring across the university to advance the What’s Next strategic priorities. Several key examples are highlighted below.

Uphold Truth & Reconciliation

• The 2025-26 academic year marks a milestone for SFU’s long-term commitment to Indigenize the university and ongoing implementation of SFU’s Aboriginal Reconciliation Council report, Pathways report and Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action. Three new, interconnected Indigenous governance circles are now up and running with regular semesterly meetings under the oversight of the Indigenous Executive Lead.
  • The Indigenous Caucus convenes all Indigenous students, faculty and staff to build community and connection university wide. The next convening will take place on June 19 to celebrate International Indigenous Peoples Day. 
  • The Internal Indigenous Council is made up of representatives from faculty, staff, students and other Indigenous advisory bodies within SFU. This council advises the Indigenous Executive Lead and SFU senior leadership and will oversee the development of the next Indigenous Strategic Plan.
  • The External Indigenous Council invites representatives from the nine host Nations of SFU’s three campuses as a space for consultation and guidance, building good relations and fostering partnership and collaboration to properly honour the territories and governments where we operate.  
• This September, we are very excited to be holding a Naming Ceremony at the Burnaby Campus. It is an honour to have earned the gift of names in Hənq̓əmín̓əm and Skwxwú7mesh Snichim from the Kwikwetlem, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Our team is working with the Nations to ensure SFU follows proper protocol to unveil signs and start using the new names for campus and four of its signature Indigenous spaces. 
  • One of the spaces receiving gifted names is the First Peoples’ Gathering House. The House has now been in operation for eight months and has quickly become a hub for SFU’s Indigenous community. We have hosted over 70 events so far and are increasingly seeing interest from host Nations and external organizations, and are looking forward to welcoming the annual summit of the National Indigenous University Senior Leaders’ Association to the House from November 3-4 as co-hosts with UBC. The conference will focus on university policies around anti-Indigenous racism and Indigenous identity.
    

Engage in Global Challenges

• On April 30, a representative group of Canadian youth presented AI policy recommendations to the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation, Evan Solomon and other decision-makers in Ottawa. The event is the culmination of Gen(Z)AI, a national youth-focused citizens’ assembly on AI and online harms led by SFU’s Dialogue on Technology Project (DoT) at the Centre for Dialogue, which engaged one hundred 17-23 year old participants over eight months through in-person forums in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax. This initiative reflects DoT’s broader work advancing participatory and inclusive AI governance, and supports SFU’s commitment under its AI Strategy to share knowledge and foster meaningful public dialogue on AI.
• Vice-President, Advancement and Alumni Engagement (VPAAE) Erin Morantz and members of the Alumni Relations team were recently in Asia, where they hosted an SFU 60th Anniversary Reception, a dinner in Hong Kong, an alumni reception with roundtable discussions and dinner in Singapore and various meetings with notable alumni and donors in the region. 
• SFU will host the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ Congress next year, welcoming scholars from across Canada and beyond to SFU campuses. Congress is a vital space for research exchange, teaching innovation and public scholarship, and SFU is proud to support this national gathering of the humanities and social sciences community.
• SFU celebrated remarkable success in the recent Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funding. The university received two major CFI Innovation Fund awards—one for more than $7 million to scale up clean energy projects at the SFU Clean Hydrogen Hub, and the other for $5.3 million to lead particle research at the ATLAS Tier-1 Data Centre. SFU is also partnered in another four awarded projects. 
• SFU has signed a new memorandum of understanding with Siemens Canada to advance research collaboration on clean hydrogen technologies and expand opportunities for innovation, training and industry-academic engagement. 
• SFU’s Sustainability and Climate Office has relaunched the food forest space next to the Applied Sciences Building. As one of the four signature projects outlined in the SFU Sustainability, Climate and Resilience Strategy, this space will act as a prototype and hub for SFU’s emerging land-based learning and research initiative. The space will be used by faculty and instructors for teaching and will strengthen land-based learning opportunities for students; it will also create research opportunities for faculty by providing a test site on the Burnaby campus. 

Make a Difference for B.C.

• We were proud to host Universities Canada’s annual membership meeting in Vancouver this year, bringing university presidents together to address ongoing challenges and opportunities in the Canadian post-secondary sector.
• The School of Medicine continues to advance key priorities ahead of the start of our first student cohort this August
  • Admissions: In March, the SFU School of Medicine welcomed 205 medical school applicants to the Burnaby campus for Multiple Mini-Interviews (MMIs) as part of the admissions process. MMIs assess competencies such as communication, ethics, problem-solving and professionalism through a series of structured interview stations. 77 assessors and more than 40 School of Medicine staff volunteers, alongside university partners, came together to create a thoughtful, welcoming and well-organized experience for applicants. Applications will now move forward to committee review ahead of final admissions decisions in mid-May.
  • Health partnerships: Health partnerships alongside our clinical site directors are performing in-person physician clinic site visits with possible preceptors who may be interested in supervising and mentoring students in a clinical setting. These visits are helping us confirm strong learning environments, and recommended sites will be shared with the program office for final decisions on where SoM learners will be placed. 
  • Donor relations: VPAAE Erin Morantz joined David Price, dean of the SoM, at an alumni-hosted Kelowna reception to introduce the School to a number of influential people in the community.
• This May, SFU participated in Web Summit, a technology conference attended by more than 35,000 global founders, investors and leaders. SFU hosted a booth in the Climate Innovation Zone and participated in several events with strategic partners including HTEC, Moment Energy, BC Hydro and Corix. Additional involvement included a panel with myself and Photonic Chief Product Officer Paul Terry, an SFU-hosted panel on clean power, sovereignty, quantum and AI moderated by Vice-President Research and Innovation Dugan O’Neil and participation in additional panels related to hydrogen and agritech. As part of the event, SFU and Invest Vancouver also hosted an event at the Surrey campus for foreign investors and senior trade delegates. The delegation toured SFU’s Smart Manufacturing Hub, WearTech Labs and Alternative Energy Conversion Lab, highlighting B.C. as a competitive place to invest, collaborate and scale. 
  • At the Web Summit, SFU was proud to announce the SFU Innovates Venture Fund: a collaboration between SFU and InBC, a provincial Crown agency and strategic investment fund. This new fund will support SFU researchers, students and alumni who are building early-stage companies in sectors with significant economic potential, including life sciences, deep technology and cleantech.
• We celebrated five SFU alumni who are making an impact in the world at this year’s Outstanding Alumni Awards on April 16. It was a lively and inspiring event where we celebrated the vision, creativity, generosity, and leadership of exceptional alumni who truly embody SFU’s bold spirit: Grace Chiu (BA ’11), Don Murray (MSc ’90, BSC ’88), Janie Chang, (Certificate in Creative Writing ’11, BA ’83), Igor Faletski (BSc ’07) and Dr. Janna M. Andronowski (BA ’09). Congratulations and thank you to all our alumni who continue to drive positive change in our communities.
• The Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia (CUFA BC) awarded the Paz Buttedahl Career Achievement Award to Mark Jaccard and the Ehor Boyanowsky Academic of the Year Award to Tammara Soma, both professors in SFU’s School of Resource and Environmental Management. CUFA BC’s Distinguished Academics Awards recognize faculty members whose research and scholarship have made significant contributions to the public interest. Congratulations!
• SFU and Thompson Rivers University (TRU) have established a partnership to advance innovation, research, graduate studies and workforce development across B.C. The new memorandum of understanding supports collaboration in strategic priority areas for B.C., including AI, cybersecurity, wildfire management and emergency response, health and Indigenous language revitalization.

Transform the SFU Experience

• SFU’s inaugural Giving Day fundraising campaign raised more than $376,000 over a 24-hour period. In a single day, 652 donors—including more than 90 dedicated faculty and staff—joined forces to make meaningful gifts toward all of SFU’s faculties and business units. Engagement included 730 total gifts made, 250+ new donors, 300+ alumni donors, 9 new payroll gifts, 18 retiree donors and 25 new monthly donors. Participation and engagement from across SFU’s campuses and social channels made a real impact.
• The Advancement and Alumni Engagement team closed another record-breaking fundraising year, exceeding its goal by more than 30 per cent. As of March 31, 2026, AAE raised $72,554,491 / 131.9% of its $55M goal for fiscal year 2025/26 (compared to $55.9M+ raised for the same period last fiscal). In all, 3,936 donors provided 20,512 gifts in support of SFU students and initiatives.
• As part of SFU’s ongoing commitment to equity, accountability and evidence-informed decision-making, the university will administer the Demographic & Diversity Data Survey in fall 2026 as part of the survey's biennial process. This will be the second administration of the survey, following its initial launch in fall 2024. This survey is part of SFU’s broader institutional equity data imperative and serves as a key tool to support regulatory requirements and national programs (e.g., Canada Research Chairs, GP 19, collective agreements), inform decision-making on equitable program and service delivery and measure progress on SFU’s strategic equity and inclusion priorities. The EDI Data Taskforce is currently leading the work to support the fall 2026 administration, including considerations related to governance, data use, privacy and institutional alignment.
• The Office of the Vice-President, People, Equity and Inclusion held SFU’s annual Faculty and Staff Awards in April, recognizing several categories of exceptional commitment to SFU. Thank you to staff, faculty, instructors and researchers who were recognized by their peers and colleagues for their incredible contributions to the university.
• Student Recruitment and Admissions, in collaboration with faculties and service units, hosted the annual “Know Your SFU” event in April. This event welcomed newly admitted domestic and international undergraduate students to the Burnaby campus, encouraging them to confirm their admissions offers while exploring campus and engaging with various service areas and faculty representatives. This year’s event achieved the highest attendance in recent years, with more than 1600 students RSVPing for themselves and their guests; it marks a pivotal milestone in our recruitment cycle, serving as a key conversion activity for students to accept their offers.
• SFU continues to advance initiatives that support student well-being and on-campus food security. In March, SFU hosted its Community Burger Day at Mackenzie Café on Burnaby campus, where 100% of proceeds from Triple O’s burger combos were donated to the SFSS Food Pantry. This all-day event reflected the successful return of Triple O’s to campus in late 2025 and raised $5,000 in support of the Food Pantry, contributing directly to efforts that address food insecurity within the student community.

Sincerely,

Joy Johnson
President & Vice-Chancellor
Simon Fraser University