The paintings are off the wall. The desk is cleared. The cabinets are empty, ready for his successor.<\/p>\n
Vivek Goel \u2014 no tie, top button undone, a flashy pair of custom University of Waterloo sneakers on his feet \u2014 is ready to step down on June 30, after five years as president. His tenure began amid a global pandemic and ends in a world transformed by artificial intelligence, geopolitical upheaval and a fundamental rethinking of universities\u2019 place in society.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very strange time,\u201d Goel said of his arrival on campus. \u201cI remember coming to campus, doing tours of the buildings, and they were all empty. The first year was a challenging year because we were continuing to deal with vaccine issues, people being allowed to come to campus \u2014 but it was also challenging because there wasn\u2019t a sense of community, and everything existed in these little boxes on a screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
University of Waterloo president Dr. Vivek Goel wears Warrior-branded shoes as he spoke about his time in the post, Wednesday, June 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Mathew McCarthy\/Waterloo Region Record<\/p>\n
Drawing on his background in public health \u2014 he was the founding president and CEO of Public Health Ontario from 2008 until 2014 \u2014 Goel said he tried to use that expertise to help guide Waterloo through the crisis. They were challenging times,\u00a0and mandates and policies were questioned as faculty and students yearned to return to the classroom.<\/p>\n
Now, he sees the pandemic differently than he did while living through it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we were in the pandemic, we thought this was such a disruption to society, but it was time-limited. When we were in it, we couldn\u2019t necessarily see the end, but we did get through it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pace of change thereafter has really been unlike anything we have seen before in history.\u201d<\/p>\n
AI has become one of the defining issues of Goel\u2019s presidency. He chaired the Council of Ontario Universities\u2019 AI Task Force, and the question driving that work was a simple one, he said: \u201cWhat have we done to prepare students for the world they are facing?\u201d<\/p>\n
His answer focuses on what he calls human skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see human skills as the essential skills. Call them soft skills \u2014 critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, curiosity \u2014 those are the skills that are essential,\u201d he said. \u201cAI can answer questions, but they can\u2019t tell you what questions to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n
He draws a sharp line between what machines can do and what people still must.<\/p>\n
\u201cMemorizing and solving equations, that\u2019s what AI can do. But building things, working in teams across disciplines to find new problems and then solve them \u2014 those are the things that humans can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goel is not convinced every institution will adapt quickly enough to survive what\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that all universities will persevere. It will require significant change because the nature of work, the nature of society, is going to change in the coming years,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had changes throughout history; the difference is the time interval of when technology is introduced to when it is adapted into society has changed from a few centuries to a few decades to a few years and now on a monthly basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he believes the core purpose of a university will endure, even if the way that happens continues to move away from the traditional classroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere I feel confident is that what universities do for young adults \u2014 developing those human skills \u2014 is still going to be needed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
University of Waterloo president Dr. Vivek Goel spoke about his time in the post, Wednesday, June 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Mathew McCarthy\/Waterloo Region Record<\/p>\n
Beyond AI, Goel said, the financial pressures facing Canadian universities were building long before the recent\u00a0international enrolment cuts.<\/p>\n
At Waterloo, a three-year plan to return to a balanced budget is underway after years of growing deficits and cost-cutting efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a challenge that had been coming to our institutions for a number of years, and it was masked because we were able to identify new revenue streams like international students, but the underlying challenge of declining public supports has been there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said this isn\u2019t a partisan issue, or even a uniquely Canadian one \u2014 it\u2019s playing out across provinces, and across American states as well. In Ontario,\u00a0the problem has been compounded by enrolment caps and a tuition freeze introduced in 2019 \u2014 one that has been removed starting in 2026-27, allowing for modest increases.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery institution was going to have to deal with this at some point,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At its core, he said, it\u2019s a revenue problem \u2014 \u201cif you\u2019re constrained in how many students you can admit, if you\u2019re constrained\u00a0in the price you can charge, and you live in an environment where there is inflation, you\u2019re going to reach a point of unsustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recent provincial investment has eased some of that pressure, Goel said, but new solutions are still needed and are already being considered at the university \u2014 international degree partnerships, online programs and other forms of transnational education that extend Waterloo\u2019s reach beyond its physical borders.<\/p>\n
These decisions will now lie with incoming president Bill Rosehart, who starts his term on July 1.<\/p>\n
Though he is stepping down as president, Goel isn\u2019t leaving the university. He will remain on the faculty, working on health innovation and technology, and he has been appointed to the board of the Waterloo Regional Health Network, where he\u2019ll help build connections as a new hospital is constructed on campus.<\/p>\n
Becoming a university president was never part of the plan, he said \u2014 the idea only took shape once he moved further into senior administration roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of the administrative part of my career, it\u2019s a great way to cap my career,\u201d he said. \u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve really felt here is that the community values having the universities \u2014 (Wilfrid Laurier University) and Waterloo. That\u2019s not always the case when I talk with my peers across Ontario and across Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
University of Waterloo School of Optometry and Vision Science director Stan Woo, left, poses with University of Waterloo president Vivek Goel, right, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Waterloo Eye Institute on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
University of Waterloo<\/p>\n
Times on campus weren\u2019t always easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had the impacts of various conflicts \u2014 we had the encampment and the challenges around that, and we had the knife attack, which really reflected a broader set of societal issues \u2014 and then this past year and a half with Donald Trump and the world order ultimately being turned upside down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goel took a hard stance in his dealings with the pro-Palestinian \u201cOccupy UWaterloo\u201d encampment at the University of Waterloo in 2024. After failed negotiations, the university issued a trespass notice, and filed a lawsuit in late June seeking an injunction to clear the camp and $1.5 million in damages for trespass and property damage.<\/p>\n
After nearly two months occupying the campus location, protesters agreed to voluntarily decamp in exchange for the university dropping its legal injunction and civil lawsuit.<\/p>\n
In 2023, an assailant entered a gender studies classroom in Hagey Hall and stabbed associate professor Katherine Fulfer and two students. Geovanny Villalba-Aleman, 25, was sentenced to 11 years in prison, but calls on campus were strong to increase safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The attack sent shock waves through the university community and led to a large security review about what it shares publicly about instructors and course locations, as well as its emergency notification system.<\/p>\n
Of everything he\u2019s done in the role,\u00a0Goel\u00a0says he\u2019s most proud of his work on truth and reconciliation, and on equity, diversity and inclusion \u2014 work that became more fraught as political winds shifted.<\/p>\n
Under his leadership, Waterloo created the Indigenous Strategic Plan 2023-2028 and secured full tuition waivers for local First Nations students.<\/p>\n
Goel also led Waterloo to become a signatory to the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education in 2021, while also backing institutional restructuring that created the associate vice-president of equity, diversity, inclusion and anti-racism role and embedding EDI principles into the university\u2019s long-term \u201cWaterloo at 100\u201d vision and core values.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started, it was a period of time where there was a lot of concern and attention,\u201d he said. \u201cRegardless of how the political winds blow, we as an institution remain committed to those principles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goel said Canadian university presidents were preparing for an\u00a0upheaval leading up to the last federal election.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of conversations happening across institutions in Canada about what they would do if the Conservatives won \u2014 Pierre Poilievre was clear he would scrap EDI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney was ultimately elected, but Goel said there is no guarantee future leaders won\u2019t one day cut funding for EDI initiatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what\u2019s important is laying down the values and the principles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The University of Waterloo\u2019s associate vice-president, Indigenous relations, Jean Becker, alongside president and vice-chancellor Vivek Goel at the Truth & Reconciliation event on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bill Jackson<\/p>\n
Some of his clearest moments of optimism, he said, have come while sitting on the convocation stage, watching students graduate.<\/p>\n
He thinks often, too, about his two grandsons \u2014 one almost three years old, the other almost three months.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople ask me, \u2018Don\u2019t you have despair about their future?\u2019 And I don\u2019t. I look ahead and they\u2019re going to have so many opportunities in their future, and I see this as an exciting time to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
For all presidents who come after him, his advice is to look backward before moving forward.<\/p>\n
When Waterloo was created in 1957, it was the height of the Cold War, the Space Race was on, computers had just been invented and local community members built Waterloo with a clear purpose in mind to help the world navigate these changes, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at a very similar moment in time today,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, understand our history, because that got us to where we are, and that will help us get through to the next period.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The paintings are off the wall. The desk is cleared. The cabinets are empty, ready for his successor.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-765966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}