All NSCAD campuses closed at noon, February 24, 2024 due to freezing rain. All campuses will reopen at 9 a.m. on February 25.

NSCAD Senior Administration

President

Dr. Peggy Shannon

Aaron McKenzie Fraser - photographer - http://www.amfraser.com

Dr. Shannon holds a PhD in drama from Royal Holloway, University of London; an MFA in Theatre from the University of Washington, Seattle; and a BA with Honours in Theatre from the University of California, Riverside.

Over the past two and a half decades, Dr. Shannon has served as a tenured professor of perormance and as a university administrator. Her administrative appointments have included Associate Vice Provost at the University of California, Davis; Dean of the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts at San Diego State University; Chair of the School of Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University; and currently, President of NSCAD University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

From 2011- 2013, Dr. Shannon served as the Principal Investigator of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Development Grant to study gender and war. This study, “Women and War: A Comparison Between Canada and Greece”, involved partners in Canada, the USA, and Greece. From 2014 – 2017, this research grew into to a global initiative, The Women & War Project, with participating universities and arts centres in Australia, Canada, England, Greece, Israel, Japan, Scotland, and the USA and engaged 60 researchers and artists globally who participated on varying levels. Intended to build knowledge through a distinctly multidisciplinary and international research team and offer a unique approach to trauma and gender research, humanities and social science researchers worked alongside practicing artists as well as media (film and television) producers, military mental health researchers, and civilian neurologists treating brain trauma to interrogate and address the artistic, scientific, and therapeutic aspects of gendered trauma and its release through a theatrical ‘performance’ of pain.

Beginning in 2017 and continuing today, Dr. Shannon has served as the Principal Investigator and Producer of The Crossing Borders Project, a highly funded arts and humanities initiative that utilizes theatre, music, dance, spoken word, mixed media, panel discussions, and post-performance Q&As to explore identity, diversity, and trans-nationalism. The Crossing Borders Project includes three theatrical segments: Part 1 (Fragments: Where Shadow Chases Light) explores Japanese immigration into Canada and Iranian immigration into England; Part 2 (So Speaks the Land) examines the immigrant-kindred challenges faced by indigenous Australians and multiethnic North Americans, as they strive to carve a place for themselves in society; and Part 3 (The Weight of Dreams) addresses immigration challenges faced by those crossing the Mexican-American border.  This trilogy dramatizes the life struggles, hopes and dreams of people who have crossed borders and have faced new frontiers and describes challenging and heroic paths to citizenship that have included external threats (class, gender, sexuality, age, sexual orientation, and colorism) as well as potential threats faced in their “new homes.” The work has been performed in Australia, Canada, Greece, the United Kingdom, USA, and Vietnam.

Dr. Shannon has served as a tenured full professor for over two decades. She has led Summer Abroad programs to Greece for North American undergraduate and graduate students for the past twenty-two years, has presented research in partnership with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Fulbright Foundation in Greece, and has been recognized by the Greek Ministers of Education and of Culture. She has been honoured by the Mayors of Poros, Hydra, and Delphi,  the former United States Ambassador to Greece (Daniel Speckhard), and the former Canadian Ambassador to Greece (Robert Peck).

Dr. Shannon’s service has included sitting on juries, grant and abstract selection committees for The Global Undergraduate Awards (Ireland), California Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, the USA Government’s Fund for Improving Postsecondary Education, and serving as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Canadian Military and Veteran Health. She has served on, and reported to, numerous boards. She has worked closely with consuls general, mayors, ambassadors, state senators, government ministers, and business and arts leaders to facilitate and maintain international alliances in Australia, Canada, China, England, Greece, India, Ireland, Japan, Scotland, Spain, Taiwan, the USA, and Vietnam. She offers decades of experience serving as an international ambassador representing universities on trade and educational missions and has participated in Canadian (Ottawa) and USA (Washington, D.C.) lobbying trips to represent education, arts and culture.

Awards include her selection as a Fulbright Senior Specialist; an Arts Leadership Award from the Arts & Business Council of Northern California; Outstanding Artist and Arts Education Leader from the California Educators for Theatre Alliance (CETA); and Top 50 Most Important People (Comstocks Business Magazine).

Dr. Shannon has directed plays and musicals at numerous professional theatres across the United States including Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, the Seattle Repertory Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Center, L.A. Theatre Works, Mixed Blood Theatre, the New Jersey, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, California, Orlando and Oregon Shakespearean Festivals, the Portland Repertory Theatre, Long Beach Civic Light Opera, the International City Theatre and the Sacramento Theatre Company. Internationally, she has worked at the Old Vic National Youth Theatre in London, and has directed plays at Hydrama Theatre in Greece, and at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth . In Canada, she has directed major musical concerts at Koerner Hall, and theatre performances at the Toronto Metropolitan Theatre in downtown Toronto.

She has served as the Artistic Director of two major American theatres: A Contemporary Theatre (Seattle) and the Sacramento Theatre Company (Northern California.) She also served as the Associate Producing Director of L.A. Theatre Works where she directed and produced over thirty plays for national public radio.

Email: president@nscad.ca

Interim Vice-President (Academics and Research) and Provost

Jana Macalik

Jana_Macalik_2

Jana Macalik was appointed Interim Vice-President (Academics and Research) and Provost for a one-year term on June 1, 2023. Jana is currently acting Dean, Faculty of Art at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. As part of the Faculty leadership teams, she plays a central role in guiding aspects of the academic and administrative agendas within the institution. 

Over the 20 years as an academic, her teaching explores how society is continuously challenged to break down barriers, barriers that stand to separate individuals and ideas. Art and design in their most authentic forms are created to fracture barriers and initiate dialogue with individuals, internally and socially. In her design practice, Jana explores discursive spaces as a link between the tangible and the intangible, representing an extension of society and its identities.

Since 1994, she has been involved in cultural exhibition design and branding applications in communications and architecture. She has over 25 years of experience working as a designer for cultural institutions in Toronto and for multi-disciplinary firms, including Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership in New York, Perennial Inc. in Toronto and Aldrich Pears Associates in Vancouver. She sits on the editorial board of Curator: The Museum Journal.

Presently, Jana is also a doctoral candidate in Higher Education at OISE/University of Toronto, investigating de-differentiation in the context of specialized art & design universities in Canada, particularly the differentiation frameworks that have posed a challenge to the unique model of art and design schools in higher education; among them, the economics of higher education being unfavourable to the studio-based approach. As an Associate Professor, she holds a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, and is  registered NCIDQ and LEED ID+C. Before joining OCAD University, she was a tenured faculty member at the School of Interior Design, Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Canada.

Email: provost@nscad.ca

Interim Academic dean

JAcqueline Warwick

jacqueline warwick, academic dean

Professor Jacqueline Warwick was appointed interim Academic Dean, effective August 24, 2023. Dr. Warwick is a Canadian musicologist (PhD UCLA, 2002) who came to Halifax for a position at Dalhousie University in 2003. She has served in leadership roles for more than half of her years at Dal, in the interdisciplinary Gender & Women’s Studies program, the MA program in Musicology, and as the inaugural Director of the Fountain School of Performing Arts.

In this last position, she oversaw the merging of Dal’s departments of Music and Theatre, the development of new curriculum, and fundraising for the Strug Concert Hall and Costume Studies suite in the newly opened Arts Centre expansion. She continues to be an active researcher and writer and is currently working on a book about child prodigies in music for Oxford University Press.

Email: dean@nscad.ca

Chief Financial Officer

Leanne Dowe, CPA, CA

Leanne_Dowe

NSCAD appointed Leanne Dowe to Chief Financial Officer after serving as the university’s controller since 2016. She is a chartered professional accountant (CPA, CA) and has more than 30 years of experience as a finance professional including serving as CFO for Gammon Gold and director of finance for both the Arts Club Theatre Society and Forefront Entertainment Group.

As CFO, Leanne provides strategic financial and risk management of the university and serves as an executive resource to NSCAD’s Board of Governors including the Finance and Physical Resources Committee, and Audit and Risk Committee. She is also a board member and executive committee member of Atlantic Universities’ Interuniversity Services Incorporated.

Leanne holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, NS.

Email: finance@nscad.ca

Interim Associate Vice-President, Operations

Owen Gottschalk

Owen_Gottschalk

Owen Gottschalk was appointed Interim Associate Vice-President, Operations on June 1 for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Owen started at NSCAD in 2007 as Assistant Director of Computer Services where he was heavily involved in implementing our Colleague program. He was Manager of Computer Services from 2012-2013, at which time he left NSCAD to work as a consultant on ERP systems. He returned to the fold in 2019 and became Director of Computer Services in 2021.

As Interim AVP, Operations, he will continue to oversee Computer Services, as well as the Facilities Management team. 

Email: facilities@nscad.ca