New dean for the Cumming School of Medicine to start in July
By Ramiro Bustamante Torres, May 27 2022—
On March 28, Dr. Todd Anderson was announced as the new dean for the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) at the University of Calgary starting July 1, 2022 — preceded by Dr. Jon Meddings.
Anderson is currently the vice dean of the CSM as a professor in the Department of Cardiac Sciences. He was formerly the head of the Department of Cardiac Sciences and director of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta.
The CSM is one the largest faculties of the university and responsible for 50 per cent of research revenue from the U of C, with 75 per cent coming from philanthropy work. Anderson has shared his thoughts on taking this new role and past experiences that he believes are key for his upcoming role.
“I am very excited to take on the role of the dean in July of 2022. I think the medical school has had a great trajectory over the past decade with respect to tri-council funding and funding of other initiatives, both in research and education,” he said. “I had the pleasure of working with a number of academic researchers and educators over the last fifteen years of leadership, while still carrying research myself.”
Anderson also expressed engaging with other faculties and the surrounding community asking for input on the new Strategic Plan, as well as engaging with colleagues from the University of Alberta and the University of Lethbridge in a collaborative fashion.
“The current vision of the medical school is creating the future of health,” said Anderson. “The components of the plan and things that are passionate for me are building a culture within the school that is focused on equity, diversity, inclusion and wellness, social accountability, Indigenous ways, and innovation and entrepreneurship. Those will be the four pillars for the culture that we want to build going forward.”
One of the dean’s responsibilities includes overseeing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and ii’ taa’poh’to’p (the Indigenous strategy). Anderson shared how traditional ways of implementing EDI have not worked well before. He explained the CSM’s Indigenous Health Dialogue parallels the Indigenous strategy framework. In his last few years as vice dean, Anderson has been working to promote the foundations of the EDI and the Indigenous offices from the main campus to the Foothills campus community.
“Universities are intrinsically, structurally racist and we need to break down those pillars,” said Anderson. “We have an initiative that we’re going to start with a cluster hire of individuals and equity deserving groups to start the process of increasing the diversity based on the census that we’ve just done, where we are behind particularly in Black and Indigenous scholars.”
The CSM is home to undergraduate students in Bachelor of Health Sciences, Bachelor in Community Rehab and the undergraduate medical education group including the graduate, postdocs and medical residents. With such a large faculty, Anderson shared how he wants to be there for students and faculty, and that his goal is to meet regularly with the leadership of each program.
“My usual leadership strategy is an open-door policy,” said Anderson. “Anyone who ever emails me or reaches out to me, I will respond if I need to see them to hear what the concerns are. My policy always is to make time and to be available, meet with groups proactively to encourage their wellness because there are a lot of wellness concerns coming out of COVID.”
Anderson’s closing remarks repeated his dedication to making the most of his term as the new CSM dean. He expressed that he has remained 27 years as a member of the U of C due to the great community support in Calgary.
“I am absolutely thrilled to lead a spectacular group of medical schools — almost 8500 different people — to be able to work with that leadership team from a school that I graduated from,” he said.
To learn more about the CSM’s Strategic Plan and other frameworks, visit their website.