Arthur Kroeger College - CarletonUniversity

Arthur Kroeger, (September 7, 1932 – May 9, 2008) was a

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academic and

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

, who was referred to as the "dean of deputy ministers". Born on a farm in Naco, Alberta (now a

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), Kroeger was descended from

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radic ...

s who emigrated from

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. He received a BA in 1955 from the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

and was a

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. In 1958, he joined the Department of External Affairs and served in

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, and

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. He was deputy minister of the following ministries: Indian and Northern Affairs (1975–1977); Transport Canada (1979–1983); Regional Industrial Expansion (1985–1986); Energy, Mines and Resources (1986–1988); and Employment and Immigration Canada (1988–1992). He retired from public service in 1992. From 1993 to 1994, he was a visiting professor at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

. From 1993 to 1999, he was a visiting fellow at Queen's University. From 1993 to 2002, he was Chancellor 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 ...

. Carleton also named the

Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs The Arthur Kroeger College of Public Affairs, colloquially known as Arthur Kroeger College or AKC, is a specialized institute within the Faculty of Public Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. The College offers undergraduate and grad ...

, the school for the university's

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-lev ...

Bachelor of Public Affairs and Policy Management program and Bachelor of Global and International Studies programme, in Kroeger's honour. In 1989 he was made an Officer of the

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and was promoted to Companion in 2000. He is the author of '' Hard Passage: A Mennonite Family's Long Journey from Russia to Canada'' (University of Alberta Press, ), a non-fiction exploration of his

family's history, spanning three generations in Russian

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, the

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, and finally in

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. In 1966, he married Gay (Gabrielle) Sellers, a fellow Canadian whom he met in England; they had two daughters. She died in 1979. Kroeger's second spouse was

Huguette Labelle Huguette Labelle (born April 15, 1939) is a Canadian retired civil servant and former Chancellor of the University of Ottawa, serving from 1994 until 2012. She has been the chair of the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments since 201 ...

.In Memoriam: Arthur Kroeger, Carleton University
On May 9, 2008, Kroeger died at the Élisabeth Bruyère Health Centre in

with his family by his side.

References

*
Obituary at CBC

Entry from Canadian Who's Who 1997

The Late Arthur Kroeger, C.C., Debates of the Senate (Hansard)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kroeger, Arthur 1932 births 2008 deaths University of Alberta alumni 20th-century Canadian civil servants Chancellors of Carleton University Companions of the Order of Canada Canadian Rhodes Scholars University of Toronto faculty Canadian Mennonites Mennonite writers