ATHABASCA – Athabasca’s university is gearing up for a new year a new plan, thanks to consultations with the community, staff, and stakeholders that took place throughout last year.
The plan, Like No Other, was finalized last fall, and Athabasca University (AU) president Dr. Alex Clark is hoping it helps create direction and provide guidance as the school continues to grow and develop its role in Athabasca.
“It’s important for a university as unique as AU to reflect and consider, ‘Where do we fit into this changing world?’” said Clark in an early December interview.
“A really good strategic plan should connect to your past, speak to your present, and chart your future.”
A year ago, Clark and Dr. Catherine Swindlehurst met with Town of Athabasca councillors to discuss the plan after they had completed their staff consultation, and laid out a framework for Athabascans to have their voices heard.
At the core of the plan is a desire to rejuvenate AU’s physical campuses — the previous strategic plan had been made before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the institution had been moving towards its “near-virtual” policy in the immediate aftermath.
“I’ve done a lot of strategic plans at different universities, and what really struck me about AU was the passion people have for the difference this university can make,” said Swindlehurst.
“There was a lot of buy-in from staff and from the community, and because we’re in a small community, the internal and external blends, which is really cool.”
Indigenous Education
A major part of the strategic plan is the university’s current and upcoming focus on Indigenous learners, in part due to a new executive position focused entirely on Indigenous learners and their communities.
AU’s first ever Associate Vice President Indigenous, Priscilla Campeau, runs Nukskahtowin (a Cree word meaning meeting place), a centre that, among other roles, works to integrate Indigenous knowledge into the school’s courses and programming.
“We know from the data that we don’t have enough Indigenous students engaged in post-secondary in Canada,” said Clark.
“We have an amazing nurse practitioner (NP) program, for example, but we need more Indigenous NPs because many of their patients are Indigenous. This is where the potentiality comes with integrating the institutional plan with Nukskahtowin’s plan, and I’m so excited.”
One challenge AU is hoping to address over the five-year long plan is around access to broadband and high quality internet. While it can be easy to take it for granted in urban settings, high-speed internet access still isn’t a reality in Canada’s rural and remote communities,
“We know that access to fast broadband is important, and we know that it’s important now particularly post-COVID. So much of cultural life now is influenced by the speed and quality of internet in a way that wasn’t the case five or ten years ago,” said Clark.
“If you have access to fast, high quality and reasonably priced broadband, you get the benefits of not only a transformative cultural experience, but now, a university education.”
What comes next?
At the end of the day, Like No Other is just a plan and it’ll be up to AU’s staff and leadership to make it a reality.
“It’s not the beginning of the end, it’s the end of the beginning,” said Clark.
“The real work has to begin, in terms of, how do we integrate this? How do we work with faculties that have lots of freedom, and how do we keep focused a create a supportive working culture.”
Athabasca mayor Rob Balay — a former AU board member — said he’s optimistic about the work the institution is doing. From consulting community members to bringing convocation back to the town, he said things look like they’re trending in the right direction.
“The relationship between the senior management and the communities is in a far better place now than it was a year ago, and for sure it’s in a much better place than it was a couple of years ago,” said Balay.
“There’s a good foundation there. Would I like to see things happen faster than they are? Yes. But overall, the relationship is strong.”
Balay listed more hiring for Athabasca-based staff and new development on university-owned land as two areas he would like to see faster movement in but acknowledged that they were things that come with time.
“The communication is better now, it’s much easier to speak frankly and I think there’s a real respect there. I expect that to continue to move forward,” said Balay.
