Dianne Wing

Dr. Roseann O’Reilly Runte sends hand-written cards. It’s something she has always done in both her professional and personal life. So, when the editor of The Mainstreeter recently delivered to her Old Ottawa East condo a boxed set of The Mainstreeter’s new greeting cards, it was not surprising that he should find her an interesting subject for the Our Neighbours feature.

Runte is a dual American/Canadian citizen. Her early education took place in French schools run by nuns. Her grandfather, who was fluent in many languages, told her that only when she understood and could write poetry in French, could she truly speak the language. She took him at his word. Years later, she completed her Masters and PhD in comparative French literature at the University of Kansas.

Dr. Roseann O’Reilly Runte: “All my life I have tried to make myself better…” Photo Supplied

Canada was the perfect place

She has the honour of being one of a very few non-French people to receive the Poetry Prize from the French Academy of Paris. She appreciates the power of language. “It’s always a good thing to speak other languages, to understand the value of words and to be able to understand that people think differently because they say things differently. It’s important for negotiation and for leadership to be able to say the words that will mean something to the people who are listening. Half my life was in English and half in French. I really wanted to be here. Canada was the perfect place for me.”

Runte is the former President and Vice-Chancellor of Carleton University. She has the distinction of having served as president of more universities and colleges than anyone in Canada: in addition to Carleton, Université Sainte Anne, Victoria University, Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and as Principal of Glendon College.

When asked how one becomes the head of a university, Runte mused, “all my life I have tried to make myself better, to be able to move to higher positions. When I started teaching at the university I thought I should take graduate courses in the Faculty of Education and learn about the history of higher education in Canada and the governance of higher education, And then I thought, now I should go to the Business Faculty and learn about finances and how finances run. And then, year after year, I just kept learning things and set assignments for myself.” She also went to Harvard for classes and did volunteer work in areas where she wanted to learn more. Her path was driven by continually asking: “What should I learn now that would make me a better person.”

Developing data as a resource

Runte served as President and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) from 2017 until October 2024. During that time, she wrote a strategic plan for the country, Considerations for a Roadmap for Research in Canada, about how we could foster research and how research would help grow the economy and make a healthy, better society. Her roadmap starts with people – our most valuable resource – and moves to our place in the world as a northern nation and our wealth of natural resources.

Moreover, her strategic plan proposes the development of data as a resource, not as a problem. According to Runte, data is interesting because it’s a resource that is coming to us. It’s not taking anything away from us. The more we have, the more interesting we become to the rest of the world. Canada has the land, the temperature, the people and the energy. But data banks are like the new gold of the world, she notes.

Runte likes to work. It makes her happy. It is now just a few months since leaving the CFI and she is already on to a new endeavour with the creation of Runte and Associates Inc. Her thinking is that at a time when there may be budget cuts for institutions, there are going to be a lot of people thinking about what they have to change. Runte & Associates Inc. can provide strategic planning, innovative solutions, good governance and support for executives. Her associates are made up of a roster of former heads of hospitals, universities and colleges, deputy ministers in government and business leaders. She has invited other companies who are also doing similar work to join her.

Innovation is in society

The head of Simon and Schuster asked her to write a book about innovation in Canada. She agreed but wanted to do it a little bit differently. “Most people think of innovation as the space arm or a new kind of can opener, but innovation is in society. It’s how we do our laws, it’s how we organize our communities, in art, in music, in business, in philanthropy.”

Dr. Runte wanted her book to be hopeful and inspiring, and filled with people who had a story to tell. Photo Supplied

In her book, she wanted to be able to cover many fields, not just the economy and things to be built. She included people from all across the country; engineers, business people, artificial intelligence, computing, arts, social issues, environment. Because she knew most of the people from her job at CFI she would ask those people who else they would recommend? She was looking for people who had a story. She wanted the book to be hopeful and inspiring. Canadians Who Innovate: The Trailblazers and Ideas That Are Changing The World is just that. Runte believes that in hard times there are still winners. There are people who have good ideas and work really hard and actually get ahead really well.

So what does Runte do in her spare time, if she has any time to spare? Not surprisingly, she is a writer of more than academic and research publications. At the moment, she is writing a book about the North, a kind of reflection on what the North means to us. She has written a mystery novel about the Avro Arrow which she describes as “fiction liberally sprinkled with facts,” as well as a literary, academic book about women and travel. The travelers in the latter book range from contemporary women travelling to Rio de Janeiro and the Sahara Desert to Catherine Parr Traill and Susanah Moodie. Runte believes that travel writing is autobiographical and the traveler is actually describing herself.

Why did Runte stay in Canada, and Old Ottawa East in particular? Her reasons are not unfamiliar. She likes walking to the Old Town Hall for exercises, to the NAC and the Rideau Centre. She thinks people here are very nice – kind and helpful and not pretentious. “And where else can you be skating in the middle of downtown?” – just like the Tim Hunt sketch on The Mainstreeter greeting cards that introduced us.