Richard Van Loon (born 1940) is a former Canadian civil servant and ex-president of

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning World ...

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. Van Loon was the first president of Carleton who was also a Carleton alumnus. He got his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in chemistry there in 1961, as well as an MA in 1965. He completed a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in political studies at

Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to: *Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada *Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK **Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950) **Queen's University of Belfast ...

in 1968, and for several years he taught that subject at Queen's, Carleton and the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

. His career in the federal civil service has included stints in the Department of Energy and the

Treasury Board The Treasury Board of Canada (french: Conseil du Trésor du Canada) is the Cabinet committee of the Privy Council of Canada which oversees the spending and operation of the Government of Canada and is the principal employer of the core public se ...

. He has been an associate deputy minister of the federal departments of

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and

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When he was appointed president of Carleton in August 1996, Van Loon inherited a school $12.9-million in debt whose enrolment and retention rates were beginning to decline. The "open-door" admissions policy of one of his predecessors, William Edwin Beckel, had earned Carleton a reputation as "Last Chance U," but his immediate predecessor,

Robin Hugh Farquhar Robin Hugh Farquhar (born December 1, 1938) is a Canadian academic and former university administrator. He was president of the University of Winnipeg from 1981 to 1989 (where he is now president emeritus) and president of Carleton University from ...

, had managed by the end of his term to get Board and Senate approval for an increase in admission standards. Consequently, during Van Loon's first two years in office, although Carleton's accumulated deficit ballooned to almost $30 million, its entrance averages rose and he organized a massive faculty restructuring to focus on two core academic strengths: public affairs and high-technology programs. Van Loon's cutbacks also phased out several humanities and foreign-language departments, which aroused large but short-lived protests by the faculty, and by the end of his presidency the University's debt was just under $20 million. At the recommendation of Carleton's athletic department, Van Loon made the controversial decision to shut down the university's football program in March 1999. In 2001, Van Loon was appointed for a second term by Carleton's board of governors. During this term, he helped administer a $280-million construction boom to prepare for the arrival of Ontario's

double cohort The Ontario Academic Credit (OAC) (which may also be known as 12b) (french: Cours préuniversitaire de l'Ontario or CPO) was a fifth year of secondary school education that previously existed in the province of Ontario, Canada, designed for students ...

of high-school graduates. By the time his second term ended in July 2005, Carleton's $30-million debt had been almost cut in half
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Van Loon's successor was David W. Atkinson, formerly president of

Brock University Brock University is a public research university in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is the only university in Canada in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, at the centre of Canada's Niagara Peninsula on the Niagara Escarpment. The university bear ...

. Van Loon is co-author of ''Academic Reform: Policy Options for Improving the Quality and Cost-Effectiveness of Undergraduate Education in Ontario'' (with Ian D. Clark and

David Trick David Trick (born 1955) is a former Ontario civil servant and university administrator. Trick's career in the Ontario Public Service included Assistant Deputy Minister-level positions in Postsecondary Education and Finance. He also worked in the f ...

, 2011).

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