Robert B. Macmillan, Ph.D. (OISE/UT)

I spent 10 years in the school system of Quebec where I was first a secondary social studies teacher and then a principal at both the elementary and secondary levels. In 1993 after completing my doctorate, I became a professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia where I coordinated the B.Ed. program until 2003. After 10 years in the same position I decided that I needed a change, thus I applied for and was appointed to the Faculty of Education at Western. This change allowed me to expand my research on the principalship, for which I had received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant. In 2005, I was appointed as Associate Dean and am currently teaching in the B.Ed. and graduate program.

My most recent publications (2005) are “Litigation in special education: From placement to programming” in Education & Law Journal, 15 (1), 31-60; and “The necessity of trust for the school leader” in H. Armstrong’s Examining the Practice of School Administration in Canada. My co-researchers and I are planning a series of papers and articles on the following topics: trust and morale in schools; the vice-principal and succession; and teachers’ experience as a mediator of perspective on administration