Alumni

Cultivating, connecting with, and engaging alumni are essential to the university. Alumni are ambassadors that help promote institutional reputation. They mentor, create career opportunities, and are important in enhancing fundraising. Mount Royal’s Alumni Office has set ambitious goals in its 2015-8 Strategic Plan. To support these, Academic Affairs will utilize the talents of faculty to establish bold initiatives targeted to graduates, namely an annual weekend of learning to which alumni will relive the academic experience with talks and interactive workshops from disciplines across the institution and a high profile Lecture of a Lifetime.

Continuing Education

With some 22,000 distinct clients and 50,000 course registrants annually, Continuing Education, though confined to non-credit offerings, is a key area of Academic Affairs. It creates unique programs and credentials - consistent with a BASI-mandated institution - pursues different modes of delivery, connects Mount Royal to a wider demographic base, and generates revenue. In pursuing such aims and innovative approaches, it is essential that a high quality student experience be maintained as well as accessibility to higher education. Committed to these values, though recognizing that best pedagogical practices vary according to program and student clientele, Continuing Education will expand its collaboration with the credit side of Academic Affairs to enhance opportunities for students and, through its programing, attract more learners to Mount Royal. To make Continuing Education students feel more a part of Mount Royal, Academic Affairs will work to have graduates of diploma and certificate programs recognized as university alumni.

Community

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela’s observation speaks to the fact that universities, at their core, educate, discover and disseminate to enrich people’s lives, to gain insight into human nature and experience, and to improve the world. We strive to engage the community in our quest to understand societies and ourselves. We want to inspire students to be changemakers and Mount Royal to be known as an institution deeply immersed in promoting social responsibility and more resilient, inclusive communities. This requires that we have strong external connections, locally to internationally. Moreover, a university’s reputation is based upon its broader recognition as a place of excellence in higher learning. As indicated in its 2016 Brand Reputation Survey, Mount Royal, while improving, still does not come to mind enough when people are asked about universities, especially outside of Calgary. It is essential that Mount Royal become seen as not only a place of education, but also as a hub of intellectual, cultural and social activities. Universities are uniquely placed to pursue this goal, and Mount Royal has exceptional opportunities in this respect, given its new Library, Bella Concert Hall, thousands of people moving into the Canada Lands/Currie Barracks development, and increased emphasis on experiential education (that brings hundreds of students into the community). In pursuing stronger links to external communities, Academic Affairs will endeavor to:

• Publicize its events more extensively
• Utilize the new Library and Bella Concert Hall for major scholarly events
• Pursue an annual academic fair that introduces external audiences to key areas in MRU disciplines
• Establish a new administrative position to promote and coordinate community outreach and embed stories in mainstream media
• Create subscription lists to attract people to activities of Academic Affairs
• Hold more events off campus, including to raise Mount Royal’s profile among under-represented groups in higher education
• Create university awards for Service to the Community and for raising Mount Royal’s profile, including through involvement with media
• Facilitate and support more student Community-Based Research and Community Service Learning
• Create a Co-Curricular Record for students to record Community-based work
• Explore opportunities for faculty to deliver courses off campus to reach a more diverse population