NSCAD Senior Administration
Peggy Shannon, PhD, MFA, became NSCAD University’s president on July 1, 2022.
Dr. Shannon is an award-winning scholar and artist who holds a BA in Theatre from UC Riverside, an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington, and a PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London. She holds dual Canadian – American citizenship.
For more than 20 years, Dr. Shannon has been a professor and administrator at several North American universities, including the University of California – Davis, Ryerson University and most recently San Diego State University, where she serves as Dean of the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts. She brings to her new role at NSCAD a strong belief in preparing students for the creative economy with real-world problem-solving opportunities.
Dr. Shannon has a proven record of building strong partnerships and collaborations within institutions and their broader communities. Throughout her distinguished career, she has provided exceptional leadership in strategic planning, curricular excellence, teaching excellence, and multinational and interdisciplinary research within the visual and performing arts, humanities and social sciences.
A skilled fundraiser, Dr. Shannon has participated in several successful multi-million-dollar capital campaigns, as well as seeding new scholarship funds for performance students in Toronto. She brings to NSCAD University a proven record of developing and enhancing external partnerships and collaborations.
Email: president@nscad.ca
Jana Macalik was appointed Interim Vice-President (Academics and Research) and Provost for a one-year term on June 1, 2023. Jana is currently acting Dean, Faculty of Art at OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. As part of the Faculty leadership teams, she plays a central role in guiding aspects of the academic and administrative agendas within the institution.
Over the 20 years as an academic, her teaching explores how society is continuously challenged to break down barriers, barriers that stand to separate individuals and ideas. Art and design in their most authentic forms are created to fracture barriers and initiate dialogue with individuals, internally and socially. In her design practice, Jana explores discursive spaces as a link between the tangible and the intangible, representing an extension of society and its identities.
Since 1994, she has been involved in cultural exhibition design and branding applications in communications and architecture. She has over 25 years of experience working as a designer for cultural institutions in Toronto and for multi-disciplinary firms, including Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership in New York, Perennial Inc. in Toronto and Aldrich Pears Associates in Vancouver. She sits on the editorial board of Curator: The Museum Journal.
Presently, Jana is also a doctoral candidate in Higher Education at OISE/University of Toronto, investigating de-differentiation in the context of specialized art & design universities in Canada, particularly the differentiation frameworks that have posed a challenge to the unique model of art and design schools in higher education; among them, the economics of higher education being unfavourable to the studio-based approach. As an Associate Professor, she holds a Master of Architecture and a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, and is registered NCIDQ and LEED ID+C. Before joining OCAD University, she was a tenured faculty member at the School of Interior Design, Toronto Metropolitan University in Toronto, Canada.
Email: provost@nscad.ca
Professor Jacqueline Warwick was appointed interim Academic Dean, effective August 24, 2023. Dr. Warwick is a Canadian musicologist (PhD UCLA, 2002) who came to Halifax for a position at Dalhousie University in 2003. She has served in leadership roles for more than half of her years at Dal, in the interdisciplinary Gender & Women’s Studies program, the MA program in Musicology, and as the inaugural Director of the Fountain School of Performing Arts.
In this last position, she oversaw the merging of Dal’s departments of Music and Theatre, the development of new curriculum, and fundraising for the Strug Concert Hall and Costume Studies suite in the newly opened Arts Centre expansion. She continues to be an active researcher and writer and is currently working on a book about child prodigies in music for Oxford University Press.
Email: dean@nscad.ca
NSCAD appointed Leanne Dowe to Chief Financial Officer after serving as the university’s controller since 2016. She is a chartered professional accountant (CPA, CA) and has more than 30 years of experience as a finance professional including serving as CFO for Gammon Gold and director of finance for both the Arts Club Theatre Society and Forefront Entertainment Group.
As CFO, Leanne provides strategic financial and risk management of the university and serves as an executive resource to NSCAD’s Board of Governors including the Finance and Physical Resources Committee, and Audit and Risk Committee. She is also a board member and executive committee member of Atlantic Universities’ Interuniversity Services Incorporated.
Leanne holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, NS.
Email: finance@nscad.ca
Owen Gottschalk was appointed Interim Associate Vice-President, Operations on June 1 for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Owen started at NSCAD in 2007 as Assistant Director of Computer Services where he was heavily involved in implementing our Colleague program. He was Manager of Computer Services from 2012-2013, at which time he left NSCAD to work as a consultant on ERP systems. He returned to the fold in 2019 and became Director of Computer Services in 2021.
As Interim AVP, Operations, he will continue to oversee Computer Services, as well as the Facilities Management team.
Email: facilities@nscad.ca