Professor Doug Welch says more good things come our way as we grow older, but few of them arrive unexpectedly.

Welch may want to revisit his theory.

This year, the McMaster University Faculty Association gave Welch an Unexpected Good Thing — the 2024 Award for Outstanding Service.

Besides being greatly honoured to receive the award, Welch says he was genuinely surprised, given that he spent nearly half his 36 years at McMaster working in administrative roles.

“There aren’t many universities where faculty associations are recognizing administrators — but then there aren’t many universities like Mac.”

And there aren’t many administrators like Welch.

“Doug’s always been a source of excellent advice and institutional knowledge, and set an excellent example of a dedicated, caring, and compassionate leader,” Physics & Astronomy Chair Alison Sills wrote in her award citation.

Like Sills, Welch has served as chair of Physics & Astronomy. He was also the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies for both Science and Engineering before becoming Vice-Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies — a key leadership role that focuses on supporting nearly 5,500 McMaster grad students as learners, instructors and researchers.

Unlike the long-term rewards of research, administrative leadership brings immediate rewards, he says.

“You don’t have to wait to see the impact of the changes that you’ve helped bring about.”

A parting gift

For Welch, the most personally rewarding change came from working with a team to overhaul McMaster’s graduate application system — a complex, mission-critical project that took nearly two years.

There was one other problem Welch wanted to help solve — and now he has, with a parting gift for his department.

His years as Dean of Graduate Studies gave Welch an understanding of how grad students are funded and the financial challenges that many face.

Welch has established the Physics & Astronomy Graduate Support Award, which lifts the support floor for grad students during a time when costs of living are outpacing available funding.

“During my time as grad dean, it became clear that those students earning the minimum amount of money at the support floor ran into many more challenges than students with earnings that were even just 10 per cent higher,” he says.

The challenges are especially acute for international students, who have access to few merit-based scholarships.

Rather than establish an endowed award that allocates a percentage of funds in perpetuity, the support award is a spend-down trust: All the money donated to the award during the course of a year is divvied up among grad students at the funding floor.

These awards could help students worry less about their finances and focus more on their studies, increasing their odds of securing scholarships and moving further away from the edge of financial precarity, Welch says.

“Some of us nearing the end of our careers have the agency to make a real difference for grad students in the here and now.”

Welch and others have pledged multi-year donations to the fund to ensure that lift is sustainable — and the department will match each year’s total donations.

“The financial pressures facing graduate students are a universal and urgent problem.”

Making way for a new generation

Today’s astronomy students have a wealth of readily available archive and survey astronomical data readily available to them.

When Welch was a grad student, most of his professors were using photographic plates for their astronomical research.

When he joined the department at McMaster as an assistant professor, exoplanets had not yet been discovered.

And while he envies today’s students their resources in a golden age of major breakthroughs and discoveries about the universe, Welch doesn’t regret retiring.

“It’s time to make way for the next person, just like it was done for me when I arrived here as a wide-eyed 30-year-old and the youngest faculty member in the department.”

And what would Welch say to the next generation of faculty?

He offers three pieces of advice.

“Be fearless. Surround yourself with mentors who will be your secret decoder ring for understanding how McMaster works.

“And realize that the students you’re supervising aren’t all the same but aren’t all that different from when you were a student. Give them the same support you received from your best supervisors.”

After he retires, his telescope projects and research collaborations will continue, along with plans for travel, hikes and bird watching in the great outdoors.

And after five Arctic backpacking trips, Welch says he’s looking forward to canoe trips where the pack is off his back and buoyancy handles the heavy lifting.