On Friday, June 27, NSCAD University’s Jana Macalik completed her two-year term as the university’s interim vice-president (academic and research) as well as the unexpected role of interim president, stepping in after President Peggy Shannon’s departure in January.
For the last six months, Macalik worked two senior roles concurrently: as interim president, and as the university’s interim vice-president (academic and research) and provost. While the herculean task of juggling two senior administrative roles was demanding, Macalik describes the experience as “deeply clarifying” giving her a deep understanding of the rhythm and resilience of the university.
“I’ve witnessed first-hand how staff, faculty, and students rally together when the path forward is unclear, and how leadership often emerges from every corner of the institution, not just the top,” Macalik wrote in a farewell message to staff and faculty on June 27.
“I love this place, and I’ll miss it deeply.”
In an outgoing interview, Macalik reflects on her time at NSCAD and shares her thoughts on the university’s path forward.
Q: You have worked in the two top administrative positions at NSCAD over the last two years. What have you learned about those roles here?
Jana Macalik: The roles here are unique compared to the other art and design universities in Canada. Because of the scale of the university, it means there’s far more hands-on work for those roles. There are far fewer people to delegate to. You must be a highly engaged and active leader in these roles. You cannot be passive. You cannot be cherry picking the jewels from each of those roles; you must be in the weeds too. I think that is unique from other institutions where there may be a different hierarchy.
I also find at an institution like NSCAD, a hierarchy doesn’t work well. I think everybody here is part of the solution. Everybody is in it, trying to solve the problems. Your best asset is the people here, because they have a lot of institutional memory, and especially with where there have been leadership changes, you need to utilize that institutional memory in supporting forward-thinking ideas.
Q: When you came in, Peggy Shannon and yourself both really looked at the Provost and President’s roles and the relationship between the two.
JM: Yes, I greatly appreciate Peggy’s confidence in me, in joining her here, to reshape the relationships between the two roles and to potentially flatten out the leadership a little bit. She brought me in with an idea of removing the pyramid of power that I think had been developed over years. I think there were enough people in roles here who were at a point in their careers where you could give them more agency, give them more responsibility and accountability, to alleviate some of that weightiness of the provost role, and to allow for the institution and the people within it to grow.
Q: That’s a good segue into the next question. Over the last two years, what have been the achievements you are proudest of?
JM: Part of it is supporting staff, administrators, and managers, to grow their roles. I think we’ve done quite a bit of rejigging of people’s job descriptions, because they’ve dedicated many years to their roles, and they needed a change—wanting more responsibility, because they had been in those roles for a significant amount of time and were ready to take the change needed for our future growth.
My proudest piece has been supporting our researchers, specifically the CRC (Canada Research Chair) program. I am pleased we’ve been able to show success in the nominees that we’ve put forward, being able to advocate for them and for other researchers at the institution. I think what came out in conversations with the UAD4 was, for a small institution, we have a higher success rate per capita compared to Emily Carr and OCAD U in some areas. That is because we’ve been able to support the faculty who want to take on those heavier pursuits in research and advocate for them as well.
Q: We have a new provost starting in July, and then we will have a new president within a year. What advice do you have for future leaders? What challenges will they face?
JM: It’s the scale of NSCAD. That is the biggest challenge. If you’re coming in from a larger institution that had a stronger infrastructure, or a more defined infrastructure, it’ll be a bit of a learning curve. At NSCAD, I feel we’re still in a caterpillar stage. We haven’t hit the new butterfly stage of the institution for us to scale up with some of our visions within the Seriously Creative Plan or any sort of future planning. We need to still take the time to develop a NSCAD solution, because we don’t have the same infrastructure or budget.
I think there some assumptions made when we added “university” to our identity. We are not structured like a comprehensive university, even though, sadly, we are evaluated like that within the sector. That’s just the nature of where we are with funding, we’re always going to be judged against a sector that is comprehensive. So, we need to figure out how to solve those problems and move those problems forward in a NSCAD way, with a unique NSCAD solution.
Q: Your research investigates the role of independent art and design schools, what makes them similar and what makes them different. Can you talk a bit about that and NSCAD’s place or role within that community of schools?
JM: I think what’s unique to art and design universities is that we have a mode of pedagogy and studio-based learning that is very conducive to community-based work. And what is unique to us within the UAD4 is the number of researchers who almost all do community-based research. And so that opportunity to be part of the community—NSCAD being part of Nova Scotia and one of the oldest art and design schools in Canada—that is something different from the other three.
It could be because we are not in a major urban centre. We are obviously a major urban centre for Nova Scotia, but not in the same context as Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver. We’ve had to spread our tentacles further into the province, into the country than those universities have had to. So, it’s immediately a different way of working. Equally, our context is global. As an artist, there’s not going to be the same sort of galleries here within the city that I think those other universities can access, we’re going to have to go beyond. So why would you just go beyond within Canada? Go far, far beyond. Go to Europe, go down into the States, go to Asia.
I think the opportunities are greater in this sense. And that was why NSCAD was such a hotbed of activity in the 70s. It was a unique place. I think that’s part of the strategic planning forward, it’s regaining that relevance within a global context. It makes a lot of sense for us.
Q: All independent art design schools are facing challenges about their future. We’re not alone in this, but where does NSCAD have to go in the future?
JM: What comes up if you look at art and design schools, say in the U.K., where I think we are far more aligned in our government relationship and structure compared to the U.S. All those institutions really bring forward art-and-design-thinking into other sectors.
There’s an acknowledgement that we will still produce more conventional artists and designers within certain sectors; but there’s a larger opportunity for our students who may not follow that traditional path to bring the critical thinking that they gain here into other sectors and other career paths.
That is where I think the future does lie for NSCAD. We have always been leaders in conceptual art, conceptual thinking, speculative thinking, disciplinary thinking; those opportunities, if we double down on them, is where we can grow down the road and gain further relevance.
An art and design degree can be a wonderful liberal undergraduate path to a career of whatever you want to make it. Sure, there’s always this top 10 per cent of students in any art or design program, who are going to be amazing artists, designers. They’ll have amazing careers. Then there’s another 90 per cent where art or design might be a part of their career but not their primary career.
As Joan Jonas said, “Do it because you love it, because you might not get the recognition you desire.” But they will bring that method of thinking and critique—that global way of looking at things, of being participatory in a collegial and collaborative way of problem solving—they will bring that to a career in healthcare, business, politics or whatever they are interested in.
How do we support those kinds of students? Those are individuals that we very much want in the institution, because they’re going to be bringing vastly different perspectives into the classroom.
Q: What are you going to miss? What was the best part of working at NSCAD?
JM: Ultimately, it is the people. I said this to my team in the Office of Academic Affairs and Research, if I could go back to Toronto and bring everyone with me, that would be ideal.
It has been an amazing two years here. It has been an opportunity to see how to support an institution, support people who want to grow. Hopefully I’ve been a small part of some of that growth. The part that I will miss is this kind of immeasurable optimism, even in the face of many challenges—government responses, financial hurdles, physical limitations—everyone is very solution driven. Even when the numbers look bad, there’s still an optimism that there’s a way of finding a solution to get it right. I love this place, and I’ll miss it deeply.
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As of Tuesday, July 1, NSCAD’s Chief Financial Officer, Leanne Dowe, has assumed the role of interim president. Find out more about our ongoing presidential search on our Presidential Search Committee webpage.