James L. Packham

At the time of his death (03 July 2017) Jim Packham was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University. He held a BASc from the University of Toronto, and an MBA in Public Administration from York University (Canada).

Jim joined Ryerson in 1968 after 20 years of engineering and managerial experience in the electrical equipment industry. He first joined the Electrical Department as a lecturer, becoming Chair of that Department in 1970. 

In 1973, he was appointed Vice-President Academic and served in that role for seven years.  During that time, he was instrumental  - along with President Walter Pitman - in creating a centralized model of continuing education delivery from the loose cluster of un-coordinated offerings based in various departments, schools and divisions. The restructuring was proposed in a report to (then) Academic Council [now Senate] and was approved in the Spring of 1977. This formed the root of the "collaborative model" that has been used by the Division of Continuing Education [now the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education] ever since.  Among the central features of the model are the principles that every course must have an academic home, that most courses will be university credit courses, and that there will be a governing council within the School.  This distinguishes Continuing Education at Ryerson from continuing education at many other Canadian universities.

Starting in 1980, he was associated with the office of the President and undertook a series of special projects for Ryerson.

Concurrently in 1980, he was associated with the Department of Politics and Public Administration as a Professor of Public Administration for both full-time and part-time students.  He was instrumental in the approval and launch of the Advanced Certificate in Public Administration (1981) and the BA program in Public Administration (1983) - the first "stand-alone" part-time degree at Ryerson. 

Jim retired in 1990 and, in 1992, was designated a Fellow of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.

Jim Packham passed away on 03 July 2017. 

photo courtesy of Ryerson University Archives