Trent University’s New President, Dr. Cathy Bruce, Shares Vision for the Future

A Conversation with Chancellor Dr. Stephen Stohn ’66

Watch the full conversation here.

In an insightful and engaging conversation, Dr. Cathy Bruce, the newly appointed president and vice-chancellor of Trent University, reflects on her journey—from growing up as the youngest of four children to becoming a transformative leader in higher education.

Joining Chancellor Dr. Stephen Stohn ’66, President Bruce discusses her deep connection to Trent’s community, the University’s rich legacy in Indigenous and environmental studies, and the exciting projects shaping its future. With a focus on innovation, personalized education, and navigating challenges in an ever-evolving world, Cathy reveals how she plans to build on Trent’s reputation as a hub for interdisciplinary problem solving and lifelong learning.

Stephen Stohn: Tell us a little bit about early Cathy Bruce. You grew up in a household as the youngest of four kids, did that mean you had to reach out for attention?

Cathy Bruce: Absolutely, I had to speak loudly and fight for what I got. My parents were amazing, but with four children, and you’re the fourth … there are less photos, there’s less attention, so I developed some scrappiness and some persistence through that.

SS: Fast forward to about 20 years ago, when you first came to Trent University. What made you come to Trent?

CB: I’m an educator at heart, and there was an opening in the Faculty of Education. I pursued my graduate studies and along the way I thought, “this place feels good.” Just walking on the Symons Campus along the river was an incredible experience. I’m a water person, I get my energy from the water. To have the water nearby at all times is very important to me. But it’s the people, the people here are amazing. The faculty, the staff, the students and the alumni are just incredible. I describe it as collective effervescence. It’s this idea that there’s joy and energy, and in the end, a shared purpose. I just was so drawn to that.

SS: Why education? Were you drawn to education? Did you have a great teacher or something?

CB: I don’t think I was the best student. I was probably pretty trying. I remember my kindergarten report card said something quite negative about speaking out, which I had learned as the fourth child, but kept that spirit all through school. Sometimes that was well received and sometimes it wasn’t. As I grew up, I started to learn in a way that was more personalized to me and eventually really found my place. In the end, I wanted to teach. I’m really interested in mathematics, and I wanted to figure out how to teach math in ways that really gave all kids access to complex ideas and to problem solving. That’s my lifelong passion, and I’ve studied how to teach mathematics for a long time now.

SS: And written books.

CB: Yes, I’ve written books. I usually do these long studies with colleagues, for about 10 years. I did a study on linear algebra, another one on rational numbers, and then from that, I publish papers, but at the very end of that, I write a book for teachers that will help them do the work and spread the word.

SS: Over the past 20 years, you’ve been able to do that and to work at Trent University—amongst the effervescent at Trent—and now, after a nationwide search, you’ve been named the president. That’s something entirely new and different from being a dean, vice-president of Research, or a teacher. What’s the future going to hold?

CB: Yeah, absolutely different. It’s much more external facing. Great opportunities to connect with alumni, with supporters, with government officials, and so on. That part’s interesting. But Trent took a chance on me in 2003 and now it’s my turn to give back. Through my various roles, vice-president of Research, dean of Education, and now president, I’ve developed leadership skills and the innovation to really make this hum. When the opportunity came up, I thought, “This is something I must do.”

SS: These are interesting times. Stepping back from Trent for a moment, to be the president of a university is an extraordinary opportunity, but an extraordinary challenge. The world is going through such changes.

CB: There are so many geopolitical matters, financial matters, it’s a complex time, but I’m a problem solver. Coming back to the energy of this place, we are problem solvers together. The vice president team is amazing, the administrators are amazing, the deans are amazing. And frankly, our students are going to be facing these complex issues as they go forward. We need to be models so the next generations see how they might go about their work. It takes interdisciplinary work, it takes creative minds, critical thinking, and broader pictures.

SS: That’s very much Trent. You talked about when you were growing up how important a personalized experience was to you, and that’s something we really treasure here at Trent—the multidisciplinary approach, but a personalized, college-oriented approach.

CB: That personalized part of things is key. I think about alumni like yourself and alumni I’ve been talking to lately, and they talk about what happened to them as Trent students, and how it transformed them because it was personalized. How it led them to great things in their lives, both personally and professionally. I hear those stories every day. It’s incredible. We want to pick that up and take it forward to the needs of students today, which is a little bit different than when you were here. We need to evolve with that and support what personalized means for the students of tomorrow.

SS: I’m really convinced that over the next five to ten years, the world around us is going to change dramatically, but that Trent is uniquely positioned to address this new world where there could be unemployment, there could be disinformation, there could be all sorts of things going wrong. There could be a lot going right. Maybe we’ll cure cancer, maybe carbon will be solved, but it’s going to require thinking in new and different ways. And that’s always been a hallmark of Trent, and you’ve talked about that.

CB: We need to be THE university in Canada where bright minds gather and work on these innovative solutions to some complex problems. It doesn’t mean you have to always be a problem solver, but that’s part of the work ahead. Thinking in different ways, critical thinking, creative thinking, capturing that innovative spirit and pushing that forward to get to solutions. We haven’t even talked about environmental challenges ahead.

SS: If we could fast forward yet again to, let’s say, 10 years from now, what would you like your legacy at Trent to be?

CB: Legacy comes in a few different forms. One is physical, we have some major projects on the horizon. The largest build ever for our new college and residence building, Gidigaa Migizi, named after First Nation Elder and alumnus Gidigaa Migizi (Doug Williams) ’69, which will be on the East Bank. I’m hoping we’ll make progress, and maybe even work toward completion by 2028.

There’s the University-Integrated Seniors Village and the long-term care home—we’re moving ahead with shovels in the ground in the spring. The Seniors Village is critically important to the idea of the “Trent of tomorrow” being a space for lifelong learning. It starts with childcare or even sooner, and it moves all the way through life. One more physical example would be the Trent Research Farm—we have a new 30-acre research farm. There are two other parcels we can develop as well. The drive shed is going up right now, that’s the first building on that land. There’s so much interesting research on sustainable agriculture ahead of us. It just really fits with Trent.

Those are three examples of physical projects. But I think there’s another side to legacy. It’s about coherence and bringing coherence to the institution. One of the things I’ve been mandated to do by the Board of Governors is to crystallize the vision and mission of the University. It’s been over 10 years in development, and it’s time to ask, “What are we aiming for in the next 10 years?” This isn’t just about me. When I talk to people, I ask two key questions: “What is Trent at its best?” and, “What will Trent look like and feel like 10 years from now?” I’m taking detailed notes, and we’ll soon transition to a more formal process. The point is, this is a collective effort. I want to have a legacy. I want to make sure that we’re building together, but part of that is coherence, shared vision and community based. This University came from community. Where is that community base and where are we headed together?

SS: You talk about Trent being a city within a city, and the community is very important to you.

CB: Very important. Trent was built from community, and we need to pay attention to community at all times. We have First Nation communities, we have the city, we have the municipalities and the region, and then there’s a whole other community on the Trent University Durham GTA campus. We’re not just this thing in the north end of Peterborough, we are part and parcel of the community.

SS: Speaking about community, we’ve got the Symons campus. Traill, of course, is within Peterborough, and there’s the Durham GTA campus, which has been doing phenomenally.

CB: Yes, incredible growth at the Durham campus. It’s on the east side of the GTA, which really draws students from that region, and international students because it’s close to Toronto. That campus has grown dramatically. One of the most exciting things about Trent Durham is the communitybased research. Community members, government officials, or agencies will share an issue that they have with the University, and then students will work on that problem with supervision from a faculty member.

SS: Now, when I first came to Trent back in the ’60s, just shortly after Harvey McCue (Waubegeshig) CM ’66 and Tom Symons started, I believe it was the very first Indigenous Studies program, at least in Canada, and Trent has been known for Indigenous Studies since.

CB: Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants. I had dinner with Harvey McCue just the other day, he is just a phenomenon, and Tom Symons, who showed incredible leadership as the first president of the University. Indigenous education is extremely important here. You’re right, we had the first Indigenous Studies program in Canada, and the first Ph.D. program in Canada, and we have First Peoples in our faculty. I’m committed to launching the next response to truth and reconciliation and Indigenous education now. With support from the vice-president of External Relations & Development, who oversees our relationships with the First Nations communities, we’re going to build the next Indigenous strategy. In the previous action plan, one of the things we included was a course in Indigenous education for every undergraduate student. Going forward, what’s next? It will probably be a 10-year plan. But there’s more we can do. One of the things I was so fortunate to do as the dean of Education was to launch the Indigenous Bachelor of Education program. That program started with six students and it has over 40 students now. It’s important for people to see themselves in their teachers. This is another way to connect all of those pieces for the long term.

SS: Indigenous Studies has been a hallmark of Trent University from the very beginning. The other courses that were really part of Trent from the very beginning are the environmental courses. Trent was focused on Indigenous Studies and the environment long before other universities.

CB: It’s so true, the School of the Environment has been punching well above its weight since its beginning. The research, grant applications, publications, and kinds of research they’re doing—locally and internationally—is quite remarkable. But it’s also the wide range of programs that students can take from undergraduate to post graduate, and we want to stay in the forefront there. Those are not dichotomous; Indigenous Studies and studies of the environment are very much interconnected.

SS: One of the challenges that is very much in the news is international students and caps on visas. Trent has been doing well in the international area, but a lot of universities are suffering. Tell me about that.

CB: There have been a lot of announcements reducing the number of international students that can come to Canada and get a visa to study, and Trent is no exception. We’ve had some major revisions in the way that we’re able to do our work. I’m worried about the reputation of Canada, to be honest with you. Students won’t be interested in coming to Canada if we’re turning them away at such a rapid rate, or if they get the impression that we don’t want them here, because we do. We will be working very hard to work with and attract international students. I feel very confident that what we offer is a high-quality education, whether the student is domestic or international.

Now, the impact of the reductions to international visas is going to have an impact on Trent, as it does everywhere else, and we’re going to have to navigate that together. It’s not going to be easy and it’s an interesting way to start a presidency.

SS: Everything we’ve been talking about really requires funding, and we’re in the midst of a very ambitious Momentous Campaign raising $100 million. We’re more than halfway there, momentous things are happening.

CB: Yes, inside the word momentous is the word moment, and the moments matter. It’s the moments that help people know that they should give to this University. You’re right, it is the largest campaign we have ever had. It is very ambitious, and we are over halfway, but I am the chief asker. That’s one of my jobs as the president, and I’m so happy to do that because Trent deserves people’s support. Trent deserves that energy and that push for our students. Our students deserve it, and our faculty deserve it. I am excited to be on the road and talking to potential supporters, and I feel very confident about it.

SS: I want to get back to Cathy Bruce the person. If there was a book you have not read but you would like to be reading now, what would that book be?

CB: Oh, so many choices. I have a stack beside my bed that is ridiculous. I love to read fiction when I can, because I’m almost always reading non-fiction. I think I want to read Louise Penny’s new novel, The Grey Wolf. I love her and her novels. I went to school in French, and her novels take place in Three Pines, a sort of French-English town. Inspector Gamache is the mastermind behind solving every crime. I just get so drawn in. But Louise Penny is an amazing writer at the same time. So, there’s poetry in there, and it’s just beautifully put together. So that would be my next book.

SS: A question I like to ask everyone is, if you could have dinner with anyone in the world whom you have not already had dinner with, who would they be?

CB: It would be the Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci. I’d like to sit with him for dinner because he went around the world and learned about number systems and mathematical systems. He introduced the Hindu-Arabic numeral system to the Western world, and that includes place value. Before that, there were all kinds of ways of doing the mathematics, but that was a major contribution. And somehow a real genius can take something really complicated and explain it in a way that makes sense to lots of people. That’s what he did. So, I’d love to hear about his travels. I’d love to hear about how he was synthesizing across math systems and number systems and how he, in the end, determined how to introduce place value to the world. That’s my math geek side coming out.

SS: How about a living person?

CB: Malcolm Gladwell. He wrote The Tipping Point. He’s just come out with a new book, and I heard him interviewed the other day on CBC, and I thought, yeah—I want to meet him and I want to talk to him and ask him lots of questions. I love the way he is interested in education, especially higher education, and picks examples from that sector. Now he is a storyteller, and he builds story from evidence. I like that combination very much. Don’t you think he’d be fun at dinner?

SS: He makes things so accessible.

CB: Yes, once again, maybe the same theme. Somebody who’s extremely bright, who can take some pretty complex ideas and bring them to people in accessible ways and fun ways.

SS: That sounds like a description of Dr. Catherine Bruce at Trent University. Thank you, Cathy, it’s been such a pleasure.

CB: My pleasure. Thanks, Stephen.

To learn more about Cathy’s vision for the “Trent of Tomorrow,“ visit trentu.ca/president