Born Calgary, Alberta, December 6, 1913

Elementary and high school education in schools of Winnipeg and Montreal

University education:

B. A. Honours History, McGill, 1935

M. A. in Education (magma cum lauds), McGill, 1948

Ph.D. Cornell University Graduate School of Education, 1951 (on graduation was elected to the graduate honour society, Phi Kappa Phi)

Teaching and administrative posts:

A period of 14 years as a high school teacher and principal in Quebec (chiefly at Valleyfield and Three Rivers)

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, 1951-54.

University Registrar, Director of Summer School, and Research Associate Professor of Education, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1954-64.

Visiting Professor, and Consultant, Sir George Williams University, fall semester, 1964.

Postdoctoral Visitor, Harvard University Graduate School of Education, spring semester, 1965.

Deputy to the President, and Professor of Education, Brandon University, 1965-69.

Dean, Faculty of Education, and Professor, Brandon University, 1967-70.

Professor, Department of Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and Executive Vice-Chairman, Kellogg Foundation-OlSE Professional Education Project, 1969-72.

He had come to Toronto in September 1969 as W. L. Grant Fellow for that year at the Department of Adult Education.

Visiting Professor, Special Summer School in Education, Sir George Williams University, 1972.

Consultant on professional education (Innis College, University of Toronto, Transitional Year Programme; Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto; new Canadian programmer in the health services, etc.)

The Maturation Process and Adult Learning (at OISE); also given as The Modern Adult and Adult Learning, at Brandon University and Sir George Williams University a series of seminar-style meetings on the adult life cycle and on adult capability and potentiality in learning, with a section devoted to suggested teaching and learning strategies for adults.

Comparative Canadian Education, sometimes given as The History of Canadian Education, but in either case built so that past Canadian educational history is used primarily to throw light on contemporary major developments in Canadian education, including higher education. At both Brandon and Sir George Williams.

Also gave courses in the history and organisation of adult education; in issues and problems in education in North America, including higher education; in the sociology of education; and in methods of teaching English in the secondary school.

Dr. McLeish, for a number of years, taught English as a second language as a leisure-time activity, an interest which grew partly out of his long experience as a counselor to overseas students at Cornell University, Carleton University, and Brandon University; in the last two cases he was specifically named the adviser to overseas students.

Activities which promoted development in educational and cultural affairs in Canada:

Editor, from 1969-72, of the newsletter Renewal, reporting on new developments in teaching and learning in the professions, with a distribution list of 1800 university and professional people.

Was chairman of the National Commission on Theological Education of the Anglican Church of Canada, from 1967-69, and wrote the Commission Report:

Theological Education for the Seventies, published July, 1969. As a result of the Commission's work, a national consultancy has been established by the Church with continuing development of new programme in theological education.

Organized with a group of colleagues, and chaired, two regional workshops at Toronto and Halifax, in the winter and spring of 1972, on improved teaching and organisation in professional education, and chaired two national conferences in 1970 on the same general topic .

Was invited to appear as one of the nine symposium speakers at the nine-week University of Indiana (Urbana) symposium of April-May, 1972, on Continuing Education in the Professions; was invited to attend as the participant from Canada at the Invitational Conference at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois on The Improvement of Teaching in Higher Education, November, 1972; and at the Commission on Planning and Strategies of the American Association of Theological Schools at Chicago in January, 1973.

Founded at Brandon University the Midwinter Seminar on National and International Affairs which has been held each January since its foundation in 1966 as one of Canada's national symposia on political affairs. At Brandon he opened the Department of Extension as one of his duties. He had been a founding member of the Canadian Association of Directors of Extension and Summer School in 1955.

Co-founder at Brandon University of the Brandon Film Festival, again in 1966, which also has been held each year subsequently over a three-day period in March, with many hundreds of people attending from Western Manitoba and Winnipeg, the Festival's films being shown in three campus theatres simultaneously.

Was the initiator in Ottawa of the movement which led to the founding of the YMCA-YWCA Counselling Centre to provide low-cost counselling to young adults, and older people, seeking vocational guidance, and also assistance in meeting personal problems. At that time he was also for two years president of the Ottawa Personnel and Guidance Association, an organisation of which the objective is to bring counselors from the civil service, industry, the schools, and universities together for their mutual benefit and to assist community enterprises.

At Ottawa organised the first national summer conference on the United Nations and international affairs for Canadian high school teachers (1960). At the time he was president of the United Nations Society of Ottawa, and a member of the national executive. At Brandon in 1966 he organised (with Mr. Alex Dowd of the Winnipeg YMCA as co-organiser), the first Western Canada Seminar on World Service for YMCA officials, laymen, and students interested in the world work of the YMCA National World Services Committee, of which Mr. Maurice Strong was then chairman.

In his earlier career in teaching in the province of Quebec. Dr. McLeish initiated thecommunity forum of Valleyfield, Quebec, and the Three Rivers Community Centre for arts, crafts, and public affairs, to promote the "lighted schoolhouse" concept, then being advocated by E. A. Corbett. As president for two years of the Quebec Federation of Home and School Associations, he initiated the first Home and School broadcasts and newsletter, and with the Board of the Federation organised the first annual convention of that body, then numbering about 11,000 memberships.