Student Profile and Supports

Mount Royal faces a number of key questions that have profound bearing on student experience and student support. Which growth strategies will we pursue to fulfill the goals of the Institutional Strategic Plan, and with what resources? What will be the student demographic mix? From which pathways will students arrive in our programs? How will students’ academic aspirations relate to their academic preparation? Traditionally Mount Royal served a community role in providing a variety of access points to post-secondary including supporting students in their academic preparation. Following the university transition, and with the prioritization of degree programs, competitive admission has been in tension with broad access. At the same time, given the intensivity of student employment, and the social and economic environment for post-secondary students, timely parchment completion is a challenge, which may have a bearing on student success, program planning, and resource allocations.

Recommendations

• Plan growth thoughtfully, always predicated on receipt of adequate and equitable funding; on preservation of program quality; and on protection of the value, and values, of a Mount Royal education.
  • Evaluate our real infrastructure and resource (including faculty resource) capacity in relation to growth targets and other initiatives
• Develop an Enrollment Management Plan in a broadly consultative process led by Enrolment Services to support the Institutional Strategic Plan and Academic Plan with goals to:
  • Establish benchmarks and achievable goals on yield and retention numbers;
  • Gather information on prospective students who decline admission offers;
  • Gather information on students who leave before parchment completion;
  • Review, balance, and prioritize student admission pathways
• Develop a Student Success Plan in a broadly consultative process led by the Office of Student Success in collaboration with Student Affairs and Campus Life to support the Institutional Strategic Plan and Academic Plan with goals to:
  • Enhance existing and develop appropriate new academic and structural supports for timely and successful parchment completion;
  • Target student supports considering their demographic diversity, varying levels of academic preparation, and holistic range of needs;
  • Develop a comprehensive orientation program from recruitment through the first semester;
  • Establish a centralized Welcome Centre for enrolment and related services, dedicated to ongoing development of the student (academic and co-curricular);
  • Continue to measure student satisfaction and respond to indicators;
  • Continue academic early warning system;
  • Assess student retention and time-to-completion and respond to factors affecting these (timely access to required courses etc.)
• Conduct a broadly consultative review of student advising and related student mentorship led by Academic Advising with goals to:
  • Define the core nature of academic advising as distinct from related student supports and implement a core competency-based training program for all new Staff Advisors and Program Advisors across campus to ensure consistency of information provided to students.
  • Evaluate existing advising models (centralized staff, faculty- or school-embedded staff, faculty advising or other models including peer advising) relative to responsiveness, consistency of information, usefulness of advice to students, and measurable retention and completion outcomes
  • Propose new student supports and expand on those already occurring, including full implementation of first-year registration assistance
• In collaboration with the Development Office, improve student financial supports and access to scholarships and bursaries

Reputation, Communication, Recruitment

Mount Royal has an enviable reputation built on personalized instruction in small classes, but it does not extend much beyond the local community, our current and former students. Elsewhere, we could be described as one of the best-kept secrets in the Canadian post-secondary landscape. Even in the local community, where we do promote ourselves, we promote our Continuing Education opportunities our more often than our core credit programs. This affects recruitment efforts and MRU’s status relative to other post-secondary opportunities.

Recommendations

• Develop a new Academic Communications Plan in a collaborative process between Academic Affairs and Marketing and Communications to celebrate, communicate, and promote MRU’s credit academic programs, the advantages of our small class sizes and personalized learning, our student successes and opportunities, our faculty accomplishments in teaching and scholarship, and our academic and cultural events. This communication should consider local, provincial and national audiences.

Course Offerings and Program Pathways

Statistics on Letters of Permission issued to Mount Royal students suggest a growing number of them are seeking courses elsewhere in the Alberta system for credit towards MRU programs. This may be because of alternative delivery models, but in many instances the problem arises because students cannot access MRU courses in a timely way, given fill rates and course rotations. At the same time, there are internal barriers to student success and to program planning. These include admissions pathways that bring students into second-choice programs they would prefer not to pursue, and program mobility challenges when students have completed MRU credits that do not easily transfer internally if they seek to change programs.

Recommendations

• Evaluate and refine access pathways including bridging pathways for students not fully academically prepared;
• Review, realign and further develop effective supports for students in transition to post-secondary education from a variety of pathways, including traditionally under-represented groups, to improve student success, retention, persistence;
• Study and remedy course availability and internal pathways for students in a broadly representative process including Deans, Chairs and Enrolment Services, with goals to:
  • Balance physical capacity, faculty complement, instructional budgets, and academic scheduling;
  • Consider and adapt to positive changes to retention and more timely program completion;
  • Balance intake and planning priorities at the program level;
  • Review and address internal impediments to student pathways and program transferability;
  • Expand scheduling options to include weekend, evening, and (in select programs) year-round delivery

Institutional Responsiveness

Mount Royal’s institutional growth, and the complexity of its program base and internal community, has allowed us to engage in a broader range of activities, but also created constraints and pressures. External expectations and internal aspirations around a nimble, responsive university are in tension with the scale and scope of university processes.

Recommendation

• Support a culture of academic innovation and risk-taking rather than of risk-avoidance by identifying and reducing structural, policy and process barriers to academic activities and opportunities for students and faculty.