Celebrating International Women’s Day with McGill’s female Deans

Friday, March 8 was International Women’s Day, marking the achievements of women and serving as a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.

This year’s theme is Inspire Inclusion—a message exemplified by McGill’s female leaders. At the moment, 10 of McGill’s 14 deans are women, including our own Acting Dean Valérie Orsat.

The McGill Reporter shared their thoughts on the women who inspire them, the progress that’s been made, and the barriers that have yet to be broken.

Valérie Orsat, Acting Dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

“The field and professional practice of agricultural, environmental, and bioresource engineering has been evolving in the past decades and is increasingly attentive to being an inclusive and safe environment for all individuals to flourish in,” says Acting Dean Orsat. “In the past decades an increasing number of women have chosen to study in these fields, but they have not necessarily stayed within these professions due to, at times, unfriendly work environments and a lack of role models supporting their professional paths. This is changing, as women are finding their passion within the practice to discover appropriate solutions to feed the planet while respecting the earth’s boundary conditions.”

“As the acting Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and a Professor of Bioresource Engineering, I take immense pride and joy in the mentoring of students, and this has always proven to be very rewarding to me,” she says. “I can see that my trainees are thankful for the support and patient guidance that I provide. I would also say that the female students I teach to do really appreciate having a woman in a leadership role as a model to confirm their choice of studies.”