Leading by example
Teaching students to be leaders is part of Mount Royal’s appeal for Associate Professor Roger Saint-Fort
— Mount Royal University | Posted: October 16, 2023
Working for the betterment of society, something instilled in him by his parents, motivates his work and his research, says Associate Professor Roger Saint-Fort.
This profile is part of Celebrate U, Mount Royal's employee rewards and recognition program. The University values and appreciates the exceptional work and contributions of our employees. Through this program, we aim to celebrate those who have dedicated themselves to the success of Mount Royal.
It’s a long way from Port-au-Prince to an office and a lab at Mount Royal University (with a youth spent in Montreal in between) and, at first glance the two map points might not seem to have much in common beyond their existence in the same hemisphere. But for Dr. Roger Saint-Fort, PhD, where he’s been — and where he is today — have been a continuous cycle of learning about the world around him and helping others make better lives for themselves.
Saint-Fort, an Associate Professor of environmental science in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, credits his mother with instilling a sense of responsibility that comes with being a leader that he carries to this day.
“My mother was a teacher and my father a senator in Haiti,” Saint-Fort explains. When they escaped the Duvalier dictatorship, bringing their five children (Roger is the eldest) to Quebec, they transferred their knowledge and experiences to their new homeland. Saint-Fort’s father entered the federal civil service and his mother found her home again in the classroom.
“My mom believed that true leadership is about giving people the ability to learn to lead for themselves,” he says. “She would say, ‘Try to be better than you are.’ My parents gave me confidence to do that.”
His work is reflective of that philosophy. Saint-Fort says it was seeing this determination of his parents to create a new place of safety and security for themselves and their children, but also for the betterment of society more broadly, that motivates him in his work today.
In the three decades he’s been at MRU, he’s made safe drinking water and the protection of water sources the focus of his teaching and research. Locally, Saint-Fort focuses on site remediation, specifically around groundwater contamination. And beyond Alberta, he takes his work from the classroom to the field, where he is engaged in several international collaborative projects, principally to create and improve upon cost-effective and long-lasting water purification systems for communities around the world.
When it comes to his academic home base, Saint-Fort lists many reasons for why he enjoys being a part of the MRU community. “I find Mount Royal to be a very appealing place to work. (It’s an institution) that has always been responsive in providing to faculty the support they need to ensure their success and that of their students.”
“First and foremost, the small class size provides a unique setting to interact and mentor students,” he explains. “And I believe that ensures their academic success.”
Perhaps the most critical aspect of his personal experiences at MRU can be found in the similarity of thought between the University senior leadership and his parents, he says.
“MRU supports faculty, and we in turn, do that for our students. We teach the students to be leaders in their own right. There’s not another place I’d rather be.”