Vincent Burke

Vincent Patrick Burke CBE (August 3, 1878 – December 19, 1953) was a Newfoundland educator and administrator and a member of the Senate of Canada.

He was born in St. Jacques, Newfoundland, to a Roman Catholic family of Irish descent. He was educated at St. Bonaventure's College in St. John's. He worked as a teacher and, at 19, he was appointed principal of the high school in Torbay. He was appointed Superintendent of Roman Catholic Schools in 1899.

While studying in the US, he became the first Newfoundlander to become a licensed school superintendent in New York.

Burke was instrumental in the establishment of Memorial University College. In 1919, Burke, as superintendent of Catholic education on the island and his Methodist counterpart on the CHE, Levi Curtis, co-sponsored a resolution of the Patriotic Association urging the Newfoundland government to build a training school as a memorial to those who died during World War I. As part of the CHE's effort to create the university, Burke arranged a grant of $300,000 from the Carnegie Corporation. He was convenor of Memorial's first Board of Governors in 1925 when the college was established and was chairman of the board from 1936 to 1951. and worked to improve teacher training. Burke was also chairman of the Newfoundland School Curriculum Commission from 1933 to 1934. He left the position of Secretary of Education in 1935 when he was appointed director of adult education in Newfoundland, a position he held until 1946.