About the Provost and Vice-President: Academic

Anthony (Tony) Vannelli is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and is an accomplished academic administrator, researcher, and university teacher who holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and a Master of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics from Concordia University. His area of scholarship is quite interdisciplinary using advanced mathematical optimization to solve large circuit layout problems.

Tony joins Laurier from his most recent post as Provost and Vice-President: Academic at the University of Saskatchewan. Prior to that, he served for ten years as the Dean of the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Guelph.

Tony has a distinguished record of teaching and research at the University of Waterloo, including as Associate Dean of Research and External Partnerships, Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and as an NSERC University Research Fellow.

As Provost and Vice-President: Academic at Laurier, Anthony will be responsible for advancing academic excellence and developing future-ready students as an integral member of the university’s executive leadership team.

About the Office

The Provost and Vice-president: Academic is the chief academic officer of the university and provides strategic direction and leadership for academic programs and shared services, academic planning, budget planning and resource allocation, and academic labour relations.

The Provost and Vice-president: Academic is responsible for advancing academic excellence and ensuring the quality of Laurier’s academic programs, which differentiate Laurier and exemplify Laurier’s strengths in experiential learning, pedagogical innovation and community engagement. 

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Provide strategic leadership within the university. Laurier has two campuses in Waterloo and Brantford, a location in Kitchener, and an office in China. Laurier is currently exploring a Milton campus.
• Lead the academic mission and programs. Laurier is well underway in executing the current Strategic Academic Plan (2015-2020), which is organized around three pillars: advancing academic excellence, expanding experiential learning and enhancing diversity.
• Plan, manage and steward the university's resources. Following broad consultation, endorsement by Senate and approval by the Board of Governors, the university has adopted a budget model based on responsibility centre management (RCM) principles. Under this model, budget decision-making is distributed to academic and administrative units to ensure they are responsible and accountable for budgeting and financial performance. Revenue is attributed and costs managed at the faculty level.

The portfolio is broad in scope and includes nine faculties, the university library, the Office of the Vice-President: Academic (academic strategy, academic quality assurance and budgeting) and several administrative functions which provide key academic support services.

Reporting Structure

Special Initiatives