Prior to joining McGill, Dr. Tavenas was Dean of Engineering at Laval University. The quality of teaching and research in a university is largely dependent on initiatives taken by individuals at the department level. The role of central university administration is to create administrative and budgetary processes which support these initiatives and reward quality of performance. Such processes have been in operation for many years at McGill. The McGill experience will be described to derive general principles of quality management in universities.
Faculties are in full control of the internal distribution and use of their budgets.
In particular, staff positions are fully controlled by the Deans, who can open, close, reallocate positions as required, provided they conform to university-wide employment policies. Most faculties operate internally their own version of a discretionary budget reallocation. The combination of these processes has created an environment in which limited financial resources are used in optimal fashion to support quality at the level of the individuals, the departments, the faculties and the university, while promoting the development of new initiatives. As Deputy Minister, Mr. Mullins led the Access for All initiative, and was instrumental in establishing the University of Northern British Columbia and the Task Force on Employment and Training.