News & Media
Memorial Speech for David Colman
June 3, 2011
As McGill’s chief academic officer after the Principal, I know that this University has been successful thanks to its ability to attract, develop, and retain world class scholars. Every year we are able to do just that and as a consequence we improve, slowly and steadily, incrementally and continuously.
But, sometimes the world around us is altering so rapidly that continuous incremental improvement, while important, is not enough. Instead in those times even a strong university needs truly transformative change.
To do that, a University needs visionary, persistent, and almost irrepressible leaders. A decade ago, Canada and McGill entered into one of those periods of paradigm shift in the intersection of higher education, basic research, and patient care, the three pillars of the Montreal Neurological Institute.
Fortunately, McGill found a perfect candidate to become the new director of the MNI, Prof. David Colman, then at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.
David had all of the attributes, qualities, and competencies that were needed to ensure the success of the MNI, and the Neuro, the Faculty of Medicine, and the University as a whole in turbulent times.
I had not yet met David when I heard his first CBC Montreal radio interview back in 2002. Listening to him speak I thought he was nothing short of spectacular. His vision for Neuroscience, Neuro-imaging, neurology, Neuro-surgery, and cognate disciplines demonstrated an understanding of the issues and drivers that was magisterial.
The words he spoke and the way in which he spoke them confirmed for me just how fortunate we at McGill were to have attracted him here. For sure he would be an impressive academic administrator, but more than that, he would be a true academic leader of McGill’s most valuable asset.
When I finally had the opportunity to meet him and to engage on the ways not only to maintain the MNI as a preeminent centre of basic neuroscience research, but to raise Penfield’s founding vision and mission to new and dizzying heights, I found David Colman to be compelling and irresistible.
Dave was firmly committed to basic, curiosity-driven research. He was the Wilder Penfield Professor of Neuroscience and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair with interests in myelination, spinal cord injury, and nerve cell development and regeneration. But he also wanted to ensure that the things scientists discover at the bench find their way quickly to clinician and the bedside. To this end, Dave launched a $40M capital campaign for the Neuro as part of Campaign McGill; ensured that the MNI became one of the first Canadian national Centres of Excellence in Research and Commercialization, was the architect of an emerging vision for a multidisciplinary program in Neuro-engineering; hired brilliant young scientists to work at the Neuro; supported an innovative program in Neuro-palliative Care (with a concept for an atrium and healing garden for the North Wing expansion of the current Neuro), helped champion the Integrated Program in Neuroscience, and believed firmly in community outreach, most recently with the National Film Board.
Dave and I developed a strong working relationship and a personal bond even though he was from Washington Heights and attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and I was a parochial school guy from the Brooklyn hinterland. Sometimes, I had to remind Dave that he studied for his doctorate in Brooklyn.
We spoke often and we often disagreed, but we understood each other’s perspectives and we respected each other’s positions. Our business relationship never degenerated into rumour, gossip, and innuendo: we cross-checked the things we heard about each other with each other. So, today it is with great sadness that I am here to mourn with his colleagues of the Neuro the loss of a great friend and visionary leader, David Colman. But, as much as David enjoyed being a neuroscientist and the Director of the MNI, he was firmly grounded in and deeply enriched by his family, Liz and their girls, Monica and Miranda. His pride in them was palpable, his love for them evident, and his time with them precious.
My deepest sympathies extend to his family as they grieve not the passing of a brilliant and highly respected member of the McGill community, not of someone who transformed for the better the things for which he was responsible and accountable. Rather Liz, Monica, and Miranda have lost a partner, a father, a point of reference, a guiding light far too soon in his life and theirs. David Colman made a significant difference in the lives of all those who had the good fortune to interact with him. He will be missed and he will be remembered.
