Spotlight on Neil MacKinnon
How does a pharmacy student from Bridgewater, N.S., end up heading a public research university in the United States with a budget of US$462 million?
Neil MacKinnon will say his pharmacy training coupled with 25 years of higher education experience and a willingness to take risks were all factors on the path to becoming Central Michigan University’s latest president.
As the only current American public university president with a background in pharmacy, MacKinnon admits he has come a long way from that 18-year-old who started his pharmacist training at Dalhousie University. He says he found his passion in research early on, which has steered him towards various roles in and outside the pharmacy sector.
“I’ve heard pharmacy sometimes described as the engineering degree of health care where you can do so many things,” says MacKinnon. “So, while there is no formal training to become a university president, I don’t think I’m ill-equipped at all because I have these foundational skills that will serve me well.”
After more than 12 years in Canadian academia—which included faculty appointments in Dalhousie's College of Pharmacy, School of Health Administration and Department of Community Health and Epidemiology—he ventured south of the border to join the University of Arizona and direct the state office of rural healthcare. “It gave me an opportunity to wear my academic hat and be involved in government policy,” he says. “My team was doing everything from hiring physicians in small communities and helping rural hospitals stay afloat, to working with Indigenous tribes.”
Then he learned that the University of Cincinnati was looking for a pharmacy dean and threw his hat in the ring, successfully securing the role and staying put for 7.5 years. “Much of my research work there was focused on the opioid epidemic in the state of Ohio, which was a problem that required interdisciplinary solutions,” he says. “Then COVID came and our whole team’s focus shifted—we used the same methods and research tools that we were looking at in mapping out the spread of the of the opioid crisis to the spread of COVID.” This research led to future analysis on substance use disorder hot spots across the U.S.
From there MacKinnon joined Augusta University in Georgia as provost and executive vice-president for academic affairs. “The provost is really like the number two person at the university and since Augusta University also had an affiliated health system, and I served on the board of that health system, it was what is often referred to as a super-Provost role,” he says.
Today, seven months into his five-year contract as president of Central Michigan University, MacKinnon feels he has landed exactly where he needs to be. “Having worked at five universities that are all public research universities, I feel I have a special calling in life to contribute new knowledge but also provide access,” he says, noting that he will continue to conduct research on rural health and workplace mental health and wellbeing. In fact, MacKinnon and his team recently developed the Augusta Scale which measures workplace mental health and wellbeing among healthcare professionals, that has used on various populations.
“Sadly pharmacy, according to our research, ranked right near the bottom when it comes to work-life harmony and other aspects of creating a workplace that supports mental health and well-being,” he says.
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As president of a public university with a student population of 14,500, MacKinnon holds a strategic visionary role where he is overseeing enrolment and research growth, as well as overall student wellbeing. But he is also very active in his community, often attending events where he holds a "mini celebrity" status. “We just had this street carnival where I spent an hour and a half walking the crowd and interacting with students,” he says. “And my first month here, I met with a donor who gave us $40 million for a new medical school building.” On top of his expansive work duties, he is a proud father to three daughters, the oldest of which is following in his footsteps as a first-year pharmacy student.
Despite being a dual citizen now, MacKinnon says he still can’t cheer against Canada when it comes to men’s Olympic hockey. “My parents and best friend still live in Nova Scotia and I have an adjunct faculty appointment at both Dalhousie and Queen’s [universities],” he says. “Canada will always be in my heart.”
Follow MacKinnon on Instagram.
