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The Queen’s community is remembering Professor Emeritus Thomas J. Courchene, who passed away on Nov. 4 at the age of 85. He earned his PhD from Princeton University and served as professor of economics at the University of Western Ontario from 1965 to 1988. He then came to Queen’s to serve as the inaugural director of the School of Policy Studies (SPS), which he soon established as a central hub in a national policy network of academics and policymakers. From 1992 until his retirement in 2012, Dr. Courchene held the Jarislowsky-Deutsch Chair in Economics and Financial Policy at Queen’s, and he was director of the John Deutsch Institute and director of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations. He was also a senior scholar at the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal.

In recognition of his achievements, the SPS launched in 2015 (funded by the Margie and Tom Courchene Endowment Fund). In 2021, he was also honoured with the Queen’s Distinguished Service Award.

Dr. Courchene inspired his students, and they easily forgave him when he veered off course. He was a dedicated doctoral candidate supervisor and mentor. A modest and humble man, he drew enormous pleasure from the gifts, talents and successes of others, be they students or colleagues, and recognized that he owed his success in large part to his colleagues at Queen’s and beyond.