UCalgary Pride Week

has served as the University of Calgary’s ninth president and vice-chancellor since January 2019 and has subsequently been re-appointed to a second term, ending in December 2028. He was previously engaged as the Vice-President (Research), a professor in Biological Sciences, and a NSERC Tier I Canada Research Chair in Population Ecology at the University of Calgary. His academic record also includes two separate periods working at the University of California, Santa Barbara—first as a postdoctoral fellow, and later in his career as a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, and as the Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis.

Dr. McCauley completed a B.Sc. (Biological Sciences) in 1976 and a M.Sc. (Ecology) in 1978 at the University of Ottawa. He later earned a Ph.D. (Ecology) in 1983 at McGill University. A highly regarded scholar in ecology, population biology and aquatic ecosystems, Dr. McCauley has attracted significant external funding for his multidisciplinary research in population dynamics and ecological processes. His notable impact in Biological Sciences and reputation as a champion of research has offered Dr. McCauley even more professional opportunities: as a member of Research Committees for Universities Canada and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, as a panel member for the Canada Research Chairs Program, on NSERC grant selection committees, and a board member of Mitacs, TRIUMF, Genome Alberta, Compute Canada, Universities Canada and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada.

Since first appointed as president and vice-chancellor, Dr. McCauley has engaged extensively with students, faculty, staff, alumni and community leaders, to explore what they needed from the University of Calgary. This consultation has since evolved into Ahead of Tomorrow, a strategic plan that shapes an ambitious future for the university. Its foundational commitments have buoyed UCalgary into the top ranks of research intensive universities in Canada and the number one post-secondary start-up creator in the country.

Canadian Football Hall of Famer and community leader Jon Cornish was elected the 15th chancellor of the University of Calgary, effective July 1, 2022.

Cornish is most known for his legendary nine years as a member of the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League where he was selected as the top Canadian player for three years consecutively, Most Outstanding Player in 2013, and led his team to two Grey Cup championships. In recognition of his Kansas University football career, where he still holds numerous records, the Jon Cornish Trophy is awarded annually to the best Canadian NCAA Football player.

During and after this unmatched Canadian Football Hall of Fame career, where he was only the second football player to win the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s top athlete, Cornish spent the last nine years in various wealth management roles, working as a consultant and was a part of a top-ranked private investment counsel wealth team. He is now an investment advisor and team lead at RBC Dominion Securities, where he is responsible for building relationships, providing wealth management guidance, and holistic, goal-oriented financial planning so his clients can realize their best lives.

Cornish works with various non-profits and charities around Calgary, including many events as an emcee for the Alberta Children's Hospital, working directly with at-risk youth for Wood's Homes, and at the Calgary Foundation, where he serves on Doc Seaman Hockey Fund. He also continues to work with the Calgary Stampeders as their gameday ambassador. Cornish is president and founder of the Calgary Black Chambers, a non-profit working to make Calgary the best place to live and work for BIPOC people. The Calgary Black Chambers provided over $60,000 in scholarships to help university students and supported 300 high school students with skill training to aid in their careers and life journeys over the last two years.

Vice-Provost, Associate Vice-President Research (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion), and a professor of political science at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Smith holds a PhD in political science from the University of Alberta, an MA, MDA, and a BA magna cum laude in political science and criminal justice, from Western Michigan University. 

Dr. Smith serves on several national bodies, including SSHRC Council and Executive, Statistics Canada’s Immigration and Ethnocultural Statistics Advisory Committee, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) External EDI Advisory Board.

Dr. Smith is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from Simon Fraser University (2021), Compelling Calgarians (2021), Susan S. Northcutt Award from the International Studies Association (2020), 100 Accomplished Black Women Honouree (2020), Rosalind Smith Professional Award (2020), Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship (2018), ISA-Canada Distinguished Scholar Award (2018-19), HSBC Community Contributor of the Year Award (2016); and the Equity Award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers (2015).

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a is a member of the Blood Tribe/Blackfoot Confederacy in StandOff, Alberta. He is also a member of the Sacred Horn Society and Brave Horse/Crazy Dog societies. He has received his Master’s designation in Plains Archaeology.

Mr. First Rider’s work experiences include Traditional Land Use (TEK), Archaeologist, Blackfoot Cultural Interpreter, Tribal Cultural Resource Management, and Aboriginal Law/Constitutional Law. He currently works as a senior interpreter at Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump with Blackfoot antiquity and patrimony. 

is a Professor with the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education. Their second monograph, Homophobia in the Hallways: Heterosexism and Transphobia in Canadian Catholic Schools (University of Toronto Press) has been highly impactful. The overarching goal of their award-winning research is to integrate theory and practice so that educational stakeholders become motivated to act as allies to members of gender and sexual minority groups in resisting religiously inspired heterosexist oppression. They specialize in critical social justice theories, anti-oppression education, and anti-homophobia education. 

Professor Callaghan has been recognized for outstanding commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) at UCalgary with the EDI Faculty Award. They were also honoured with two UCalgary Curriculum Development Awards for designing and coordinating the undergraduate course Diversity in Learning and the Master of Education program Advancing Healthy & Socially Just Schools & Communities, both of which actively promote EDI principles. Their research in the field of EDI explores resistance to anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia education in curriculum and policy.

Since joining UCalgary, they have served as Principal Investigator on 10 funded research projects and as a Co-Investigator on 6 collaborative funded research projects. All funded transdisciplinary projects examined LGBT2SQ+ individuals’ experiences with homophobia and transphobia in a variety of settings (Education, Medicine, Social Work, Psychology, and Refugee Settlement Agencies). They have served UCalgary in a myriad of ways ranging from Senator to Academic Co-Lead for Democracy, Justice, and Sustainability with UCalgary’s Institutes for Transdisciplinary Scholarship.

is a fifth-year sociology student and your SU Vice President Internal, which is a newly-created position that merges the portfolios of the previous Vice President Student Life and Vice President Operations and Finance.

After serving as a Faculty of Arts Representative in 2023-24, Naomie ran for a Vice President position to help pave the way for future leaders and leaving a lasting impact on her campus. Naomie aims to amplify the voices of marginalized communities, champion affordability and accessibility initiatives, and address critical issues such as food security and representation. Through her role at the SU, she hopes to inspire and empower future leaders from underrepresented communities to step forward and take on leadership roles.
Naomie is a member of several SU Clubs, including the Nigerian Students’ Association (NSA), the Ethiopian Eritrean Students’ Association (EESA), and the African Caribbean Students’ Association (ACSA), where she is part of a supportive community that celebrates and promotes African and Caribbean cultures. She is also a member of P2C (Power to Change), another SU Club that serves as a spiritual resource for students.

Naomie also dedicates her time to volunteering: both on-campus with the African Studies Expansion Taskforce and off-campus as a worship leader at her church. She previously volunteered for two years at the Women’s Resource Centre.

Outside of her role at the SU and her volunteer commitments, Naomie enjoys playing, singing, or simply listening to m

is Emeritus Professor of Modern Russian History at the University of Oxford. He is a historian of sexualities and genders in modern Russia and the Soviet Union. His publications include Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi, (Bloomsbury, 2017), and the first full-length history of homosexuality in Russia, Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent (University of Chicago Press, 2001). He continues to study the development of LGBTQ histories and communities in the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union.

is a historian of Russia and Ukraine, with a special interest in religion and modernization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her research has focused on the relationship between religion and social, political, and cultural modernization in late imperial and early Soviet Russia and Ukraine. She is the director of the Program on Religion and Culture at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. She is the author of Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, 1905-1929 (Indiana, 2005). She is co-editor, with Mark D. Steinberg, of Sacred Stories: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russia (Indiana, 2007) and editor of Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Source Book on Lived Religion (Indiana, 2014).

is Director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities and Professor of English at the University of Calgary. He teaches sixteenth and seventeenth-century poetry and prose. His work on early modern literature explores how narrative poetry participates in nation formation and the construction of national belonging, particularly through its re-imaginings of subjectivity and sexuality. His courses in this area explore literature within the context of major cultural, intellectual, and political trends. He has also published widely on film and was a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the Calgary Cinematheque. He was Acting Director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities in 2013-2014 and was appointed Director of the Institute in 2015.