Michael Ignatieff has accepted a position as a senior resident at Massey College, a graduate residential college affiliated with the University of Toronto. He will begin his new role on July 1.
The announcement follows Ignatieff's loss of his seat in the House of Commons on May 3 and his subsequent decision to step down as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Similarily, former Prime Minister Kim Campbell went on to lecture in political science at Harvard University after suffering a crushing defeat in the 1993 federal election and resigning as the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
Before entering political life Ignatieff was an internationally respected author and academic, having lectured at Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge universities. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the University of Toronto on numerous ocassions before deciding to return to Canada in 2005 to enter federal politics. Mr. Ignatieff will will teach in the Faculty of Law, the Munk School of Global Affairs, the School of Public Policy and Governance, and the Department of Political Science.
Massey College chair Dr. John Fraser stated in an announcement, “It has been a tradition for some time to offer [a] position to political leaders making transitions in their professional lives. In the past 15 years, three outstanding Canadians have been senior residents: former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, former premier of Ontario Bob Rae, and former leader of the Reform Party, Preston Manning.”
Established in 1963 by the Massey Foundation, Massey College houses approximately 60 postgraduate students in a multi-disiplinary environment designed to "nourish learning and serve the public good”. The College is reputed for the annual Massey Lectures, Canada's most prominent public lectures.
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