With three degrees to her name, Lily Fraser has spent a big portion of her life at universities.
This semester, she’s back on campus.
But this time, it’s not as a student.
Fraser is St. Thomas University’s new vice-president finance and administration. She took over for Lawrence Durling, who held the job for 20 years, on Jan. 3.
She will spend much of this semester familiarizing herself with the university, its culture and its people.
“I’m not an in-your-face type of person, I’m not a huge marketer, but I do put a strong focus on relationships. I do want to be out there meeting people, not just in terms of finance and administration, but in terms of the overall organization, which includes the academic side,” Fraser said.
Building relationships has been key to Fraser’s success in a handful of roles in government over 20 years. Most recently, she was assistant deputy minister of the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour.
“My approach to leading and to managing is to really establish good relationships with my colleagues, with people that I work with.”
For a university that used to be all-male, Fraser’s appointment marks the first time there has been two women in the university administration. Dawn Russell is the first-ever female president.
“People gain their positions based on their competencies, not based on their genders. But I think with any management team, it’s good to have some balance and I think STU has that.”
The youngest of seven children, Fraser was raised in Grand Falls, a northern New Brunswick town with slightly more than 5,600 people.
What makes her small town unique is the mix of francophone and anglophone residents who co-exist without tension, making it easy to pick up both languages. Fraser was bilingual by the time she started elementary school.
But she yearned for bright lights and a big city.
The desire to try something new took her to Montreal, where she studied science at McGill University. At the time, she thought she might become a doctor.
But after a few biology labs, Fraser realized medicine wasn’t for her. After her undergraduate degree, she went to the University of Ottawa to study for a master’s degree in health administration.
Once she started working in government, she realized it would be useful to become a certified accountant – degree number three.
While Fraser’s interests are diverse, she’s learned what she isn’t interested in through trial and error.
After working in government for a few years, Fraser ventured into the private sector to work for an insurance company in 2001. She realized she isn’t driven by profit and went back to government.
“I am driven by public service, offering the best service you can with the money that you have in terms of good use of taxpayers’ money.
“I had to learn that by leaving.”The idea of providing public service is one thing that drew her to STU – along with her appreciation for the school’s community-minded spirit, its youth and the vibrancy on campus.
“Over time, you learn what makes you tick and what you can contribute to an organization and I’m hopeful this will be a good fit.”
In her free time, Fraser likes to be outdoors, cycling regularly from March to November.
Every year, she takes a cycling trip with a group of other women. One year, they travelled across the country by bike during the summer, starting in Vancouver and ending in St. John’s.
She also spends time caring for her two cats and three dogs, including two she is fostering from a puppy mill seizure two months ago.
The puppies were six weeks old at the time and are from the same litter.
“I didn’t want them to be separated. I thought, well, I’ll take them and see what happens. I’ve had them for almost two months now. They seem to get along well.
“Oreo, my other dog, seems to have taken on the mom role.”
Although Fraser has changed career paths often and enjoys change – laughingly, she said she still doesn’t think she’s figured out what she wants to do when she grows up – her love for Fredericton has stayed constant.
“It is a city, but there’s not too much traffic, not too much crime. It’s a nice community.”
