Leonard Foster and Mark Mac Lean have been elected to the Board of Governors as UBC Vancouver’s faculty representatives.
Foster received 23.2 per cent of the votes and Mac Lean received 22.2 per cent, beating out four other candidates. 785 voters cast votes in this election, for a turnout of 27.5 per cent.
Because voters could vote for up to two candidates, 42.3 per cent and 40.4 per cent of voters supported Foster and Mac Lean, respectively.
Foster, a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology, has served as the director of the Life Sciences Institute since 2024. He cited his various administrative roles at UBC in shaping the holistic view he hoped to bring to the board during his campaign, while focusing on research opportunities across campus.
As an incoming governor, Foster told The Ubyssey that he “must first listen, to understand how this level of governance functions,” before acting. When he assumes his position, he has two priorities: the university’s environmental footprint and research.
“I would like to see UBC taking some more explicit actions to tap into what I feel is a very strong grassroots support to ‘act local’ to reduce our environmental footprint,” he stated.
“I also hope to bring the perspective of a researcher to the relevant decisions that the BoG makes.”
Mac Lean, a mathematics professor and vice-president of the UBC Faculty Association, formerly served on the Board of Governors from 2020 to 2023. He was also the Faculty Association’s president from 2014 to 2017.
He ran a campaign on the depth of his UBC governance experience, pledging to lead the university in a time of transition while maintaining a focus on academia.
Now elected, Mac Lean is concerned about the university’s financial and social challenges going forward.
“UBC is in a challenging financial situation that seems likely to transform the University substantially in spite of our relatively strong financial position going into the present period of uncertainty,” he told The Ubyssey in an email statement.
“These constraints are also emerging at a time when broader cultural devaluing of academic expertise and reason is reshaping the environment in which we teach, conduct research, and govern our institution.”
Mac Lean believes that the voice of elected faculty governors will be “essential” in ensuring that the university’s academic mission remains central “as the Board supports the Administration in responding to these challenges.”
However, he remains “grateful for the support of my faculty colleagues in this election. I look forward to serving with newly elected faculty representative Professor Leonard Foster and the other Governors as stewards of UBC’s future.”
Official results will be presented to UBCV’s Senate on Dec. 17. Foster and Mac Lean’s terms will end in 2029.
Updated 12:34 p.m. on December 2 to add figures on the percentage of voters who supported either successful candidate.
First online
Share this article
