EDMONTON — Universities need to make sure that studying Hemingway and Hume can actually help students land jobs, says David Atkinson, who will take over as president of Edmonotn's Grant MacEwan University in July.

“We put students through our universities and never actually give them a way of applying what they learn,” said Atkinson, who is also an English professor and the current president of Kwantlen Polytechnic University in lower mainland B.C.

“Conventional delivery of education is going to change in the next five years,” he said. “That is going to be the challenge of post-secondary education in the future.”

MacEwan officials announced Friday that Atkinson will replace retiring president Paul Byrne on July 1.

Atkinson became president of Kwantlen in 2008 and oversaw its change from university college to university. It got a new system of governance, joined the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada and developed several new degrees.

He was also president of Brock University in St. Catharines for eight years and of Carleton University in Ottawa for 15 months.

Universities need to change, Atkinson said, because the demographic profile of a typical student is changing rapidly. There are fewer and fewer 18- to 22-years-olds on campus, and more people trying to get second degrees or certificates to bridge them into second careers. They can’t afford to take years off work.

People need to get new credentials more easily, and universities must better prepare students for the job market, he said, pointing to the way the University of Waterloo makes a co-op semester mandatory for every degree.

If welders need a business degree, they should get university credit for having already earned their red seal. Someone with a one-year certificate from a community college should be able to transfer all their courses easily to another institution for a diploma or degree.

“I ran into an (unemployed) forestry worker the other day who is coming (to Kwantlen). He doesn’t have four years to come and go to school. He needs an education now. It’s got to be just-in-time education, and it’s got to be provided when it’s convenient for him, not for the faculty.”

Atkinson has spent most of his career focusing on undergraduate education.

He grew up in Calgary, earned a bachelors, masters and PhD in English all from the University of Calgary, then taught for 15 years at the University of Lethbridge.

From there he became dean of arts and sciences at the University of Saskatchewan, then-president of Brock University.

After eight years, it was a natural time to move on, he said, but his next appointment at Carleton University didn’t go well. He tenured a surprise resignation 15 months into a six-year contract.

At the time, neither he nor the board of governors would say why, but his successor told the Ottawa Citizen that Atkinson and the board clashed over a series of ambitious new academic programs favoured by the board.

“It was a mismatch from the beginning,” Atkinson said Friday. “It might be driven by Carleton’s ambition to be a major player, and I have long been an undergraduate guy (because) that’s where the really important work begins. It was a mismatch from the first day.

“If the Carleton experience has taught me anything, it’s that you need to think outside the box. That was the positive outcome of that, which allowed me to move to a place like Kwantlen.”

John Day, chairman of the MacEwan board of governors, said the board was impressed when Atkinson asked to teach a class every semester in addition to his regular duties as president. “He felt for him to really understand the student experience and to stay in touch with the students and the student body, he wanted to see them and talk with them on a consistent basis,” said Day. “As a board, we were a bit tickled by that.”

MacEwan became a university in September 2009. It now has a clear vision of the type of university it wants to be: focused on accessible education and high-quality learning experiences, said Day. “We felt David will be not just a steady hand, but a nurturing hand in that,” he said. “He’s been through institutions that have gone through transition. He understands the mandate.”

Atkinson’s 95-year-old father, his sister, and his son and daughter-in-law already live in Edmonton. His wife Terry grew up here.

“It was obvious David wants to be here,” said Day. “It’s quite a homecoming for him.”

estolte@edmontonjournal.com

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