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

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, 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 se ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. 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, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

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

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

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

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

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

Treasury Board The Treasury Board of 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 service. The committee is supported ...

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

Health Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...

and

Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States federal agency within the Department of the Interior. It is responsible for implementing federal laws and policies related to Native Americans and A ...

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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, 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 ( or CPO) was a fifth year of secondary school education that previously existed in the province of Ontario, Canada, designed for students preparing for post-secondary education. The ...

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 university, 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 ...

. 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, 2011).

Further reading