Born June 3, 1939 in London, England, Robert A. Gordon immigrated to Canada in 1946. His family settled in Montreal, where he attended Lower Canada College. Due to his small stature, his classmates at LCC called him “Squee” after “Pipsqueak”. Although he later outgrew many of them in terms of height, he never outgrew the nickname.
Squee excelled at sports as a young man, particularly basketball. After finishing at Lower Canada College, Squee went on to study History (graduated 1960) and Education (graduated 1963) at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, and was also a key member of the school’s Men’s Basketball team, winning MVP four times (1957, 1958, 1960, 1963) and “Best All Around Athlete” in 1960. After a brief stint at the Royal Trust Company in Montreal, Squee went back to Lower Canada College to teach History and English (as well as coach Football and Basketball), where he remained between 1961 and 1966.
In 1966, Squee returned to an administrator role at Bishop’s. At the same time, he undertook a Master’s in Education from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (graduated 1969), and a Master’s in History at Bishop’s (he graduated and completed a thesis titled “The Political Importance of Sir Beverley Baxter, MP” in 1970). He then received a Doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts in 1971.
At the same time, in 1970, Squee started his career in the College sector, with a role as Secretary General at Dawson College in Montreal. He would go on to hold other roles at the College, including Dean and Director of Operations, before becoming President in 1975. Dawson was, at the time, the largest college in Quebec with a student body of 8,000 full-time students.
After leaving Dawson in 1981, Squee made his way to Ontario, where he became Humber College’s second President in 1982, a role he would hold for 25 years. Over his time at Humber, Squee undertook major developments, including consolidating the operations of Humber at two main campus (North and Lakeshore). The Lakeshore Campus, under Squee, included a significant expansion by renovating and restoring the 19th Century Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital and turning them into a part of the Humber Lakeshore Campus, when that part of the Lakeshore Campus first opened in 1995, it was named in honour of Squee.
Other major achievements at Humber under Squee’s tenure as President included the establishment of a Writer’s School (1992) and a Comedy School (1996), the establishment of a unique Nursing BA partnership with the University of New Brunswick (2001) and the opening of the University of Guelph-Humber (2002).
Squee formally retired from Humber in 2007. He has been honoured with countless awards, including an Order of Ontario (2009), and Order of Canada (2016), and Honorary Doctorates from Bishop’s University (2004), the University of Guelph (2004), the University of New Brunswick (2007) and the University of Toronto (2008).
Having dedicated his life to education, Squee remains an important figure in post-secondary education in Ontario. Upon his retirement from Humber in 2007, former Premier William G. Davis noted that “Squee obviously understood the intent of the College system, he nurtured it, and he is one of those leaders in the system who made it what it is today.”
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