Timmons bids farewell to leadership forum she helped create

Vianne Timmons said she was getting a little emotional Wednesday as she spoke about leaving the University of Regina in about a month and her last Inspiring Leadership Forum as president of the university.

Dawn Smith, Samra Zafar and Caitlyn Jenner all took the stage on Wednesday as part of the forum, the theme of which this year was Living Your Truth.

It’s the 11th year of the forum, and the last one for Timmons — she’ll soon be leaving her post as president of the University of Regina to take on the role of president and vice-chancellor at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Timmons said it was a fabulous day but, speaking at noon, she said she thought it could be a hard day by the end of it.

“This was something that was kind of my baby when I got here, to do something for women and about women in Regina, and so this kind of emerged. The first time we did it, it was just 250 participants and now we sell out at every one and today we’re over 800,” said Timmons.

She called it fun and exciting to be able to watch the event grow.

“Every year I think, ‘Can we get speakers that are just as good as we had the year before?’ And so each year we try to up it even more,” said Timmons.

Caitlyn Jenner was one of the keynote speakers at the Inspiring Leadership Forum put together by the University of Regina on March 4, 2020. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

Timmons thinks more and more women and men are looking for stories of resilience and overcoming obstacles.

“What we try to do in the (Inspiring Leadership Forum) here is show that you can succeed, that you can overcome obstacles, that you can be resilient in times of great, great struggle and strife,” she said. “We want people to leave here inspired and excited and a little bit charged to do something good in the world.”

The forum has managed to bring some big names to speak, including Jenner — a trans-right activist — on Wednesday. Timmons said one of the speakers who really hit her hard over the years was Elizabeth Smart, who spoke in 2019.

Smart was the victim of a kidnapping in 2002 when she was 14.

“(Smart’s speech) really, really touched my soul,” Timmons said. “I remember I cried through her entire speech.

“I was in awe of how she stood up there and was so composed and could tell her story with such power. She wasn’t loud, she was quiet and serene, and I will always carry that with me.”

Timmons was a driving force in creating the forum 11 years ago, and though she’s moving on, it will continue without her next year.

“And that is wonderful too because you hope that something like this gets a life of its own and people just want to come because it is inspiring and we’re going to see that next year,” she said.

There are some things Timmons said she wishes she could have done before leaving for Newfoundland — raising the money for a new business school building is one.

But she said she has found you’re never finished, that there are always things that you’ll wish you had been able to do.

As for what she’s going to miss most, Timmons said it’s the people.

“The people in this city who have wrapped their arms around me and my family and — I’ll get a little emotional — this is an amazing place and I will have such amazing memories, not only of people who lifted me up but, at times, people who held me up,” said Timmons.

Timmons will be at the University of Regina for about another four weeks.