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91�Թ�'s Stephen Toope was profiled in the this weekend. He'll be installed as vice-chancellor at the University of Cambridge next month – the first non-Briton to hold the post in the school’s 800-year history.

Toope, the former director of the Munk School of Global Affairs, received his doctorate from Cambridge in 1987. He served as the dean of law at McGill University, then spent eight years running the University of British Columbia, before coming to Munk.

He said that he wasn’t even aware Cambridge was conducting a search for a new vice-chancellor when he received a call from headhunters.

“As a West Island boy from Montreal, I feel extraordinarily privileged,” Toope, 59, told the Toronto Star.

He said that as he packed, he pictured Isaac Newton at Cambridge, discovering gravity, then imagined other geniuses passing through the university. He has had to remind himself that, “It’s not utterly crazy that I’m going there.”

As a scholar, Toope has specialized in human rights, international dispute resolution, international environmental law and the use of force.