Indo-Canadian gets top post in Canada’s top university

TORONTO - Indo-Canadian Hargurdeep Saini was appointed vice president of the University of Toronto, Canada’s biggest university, Thursday.

Prof Saini, who is currently the dean at the University of Waterloo in Hamilton near here, will also be the principal of the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus.

An alumnus of Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana, Saini joins many Indian-origin educationists holding high positions in Canadian universities.

“I am delighted that Prof Deep (Hargurdeep) Saini is joining us as vice president and principal of the University of Toronto (Mississauga),” university president David Naylor said.

“A fine scholar and generous mentor, Deep Saini has a very strong record of innovative leadership at the Universit de Montreal and more recently the University of Waterloo.

“I am confident that Prof Saini will provide outstanding leadership for our dynamic west campus,” the statement said.

Thanking the university for his appointment, Saini said, “I am thrilled to be joining the leadership team of an institution I have always held in the highest esteem.

“As Canada’s largest university and a preeminent research institution, the University of Toronto has a unique responsibility of nurturing the brightest minds of our nation - indeed the world.

“I am particularly excited to be taking on a leadership role at University of Toronto (Mississauga campus), a truly dynamic and innovative campus.”

Saini, who began his academic career in Canada in 1982 when he joined the University of Alberta as a post-doctoral fellow, has been the dean at the University of Waterloo since 2006.

A past president of the Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists and the Federation of Canadian Plant Science Societies, Saini was in India recently as part of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s ‘Clean Tech Mission to India’.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)