Faculty of Health, Community and Education Strategic Plan

 

HCE is a unique collection of programs that prepare students to work collaboratively in helping professions and communities.

We inspire students to make a difference and to be “A paat tsi kani takiiks” (those that create sparks). Our robust collection of program offerings and high-quality curricula explore connections across 10 professional disciplines. HCE programs deliver exceptional learning opportunities that inspire curiosity. Our exciting partnerships further enhance student learning through unique practicum and clinical experiences.

We are a professional, people-focused faculty rich in diversity and inspired by inclusion.

Ani to pisi 2030 guides our resources and energies for the next five years with a focus on promoting a healthy community, inspiring engaged learners, strengthening our scholarship, engaging in changemaking and connecting with our communities. The story of the spiderweb guides our work, sensing vibrations as they occur, and sends support to the aid of others. The vibrations from the spiderweb inspires our work with reconciliation and progresses equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA), indigenization, decolonization, anti-racism and intersectionality.

 

 

Narrative for Ani to pisi (spiderweb) framework for HCE strategy

by Elder Roy Bear Chief (Siksika Nation)

The use of Ani to pisi as a framework for the HCE plan for the next five years will once again honour a creation story that speaks to vibrations and how we respond to them. It is also in keeping with what HCE is doing to address reconciliation, indigenization and decolonization.


For the past five years or so, Ani to pisi (spider web) which is a creation story that came from my late older brother, Clement, has been used as a framework for the HCE plan. During that time, Ani to pisi has given off a lot of vibrations both positive and negative and HCE has responded well. This is even through the major vibration that covid-19 created back in 2020 into 2021 wherein the whole institution needed adjustments and realignments to be made between faculty and student learning in classroom settings. The response to the vibrations was possible because Ani to pisi teaches us to work together because a vibration in any one of the strands of the web usually signals issues or that there is something positive happening and is a cause for celebration.

In conclusion, it goes back to the story when Creator instructed ani to pisi to wrap the world with the people in it in his web and bring them down here; he did as he was told. This speaks loudly to the notion that we ALL belong here within the web regardless of who we are because we are all interconnected and interrelated. Ani to pisi welcomes everyone into its web and does not segregate anybody. Much like the HCE plan we will continue to work together because it is important to do so for the benefit of the students and MRU as a whole.

Mount Royal University - Academic and Strategic Plans

Mount Royal University Academic Plan - Learn more about MRU's Mission, Vision and Values 

Mount Royal University Strategic Plan - Learn more about MRU's strategic connection and goals 

Faculty of Health Community and Education Strategic Plan

Vision

Engaged learners contributing to healthy, supportive communities.

 

Mission

Inspiring students to make a difference — A paat tsi kani takiiks (those that create sparks).

 

 

 

Goals

 

 

 

Goal: Contemplate, create, share and disseminate scholarship

 

We support Boyer’s scholarship of discovery, integration, application and SoTL through a lens of acceptance with multiple ways of knowing. We inspire curiosity for life-long learning and commit to ethical and relational scholarly practices.

Objectives

  1. Cultivate and grow knowledge production activities that support individuals and interdisciplinary groups.
  2. Seek and secure external funding for research and scholarship.
  3. Capture scholarly impact on local and broader communities. 
  4. Support and mentor students in their scholarship endeavours to nurture a culture of student scholarship. 
  5. Incorporate EDIA, indigenization, decolonization, anti-racism and intersectionality principles in research and scholarship planning, execution and dissemination.

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Goal: Engage in changemaking

 

We encourage all employees and students to be changemakers: Changemakers are social innovators who foster community engagement, supportive environments, relational connections, inspiration and interconnected systems.

Objectives

  1. Continue our response to the pertinent Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for each of our programs.
  2. Assess and incorporate the Calls to Action and recommendations from various guiding documents such as, but not limited to, the Scarborough Charter, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Ashoka Principles, MRU EDIA Plan, MRU Indigenization Plan and Okanagan Charter.
  3. Educate, encourage, support and diversify changemaking opportunities for students, faculty and scholarship activities.
  4. Identify and adopt a framework for experiences that contribute to changemaking.

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Goal: Inspire engagement in learning

 

We prioritize relevant and future-looking curricula guided by pedagogical, disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research to integrate high-impact teaching and learning practices. We aim to create an educational
environment that is innovative and inclusive, preparing students for a diverse and evolving world where relationality is valued.

Objectives

  1. Advance the effectiveness of our current high-impact practices. 
  2. Increase interdisciplinary and interprofessional teaching and learning opportunities with a focus on experiential learning. 
  3. Design and integrate SoTL into program curricula. 
  4. Evaluate and develop strategies to reduce time to program completion. 
  5. Develop a framework for the indigenization of curricula. 
  6. Embed principles of EDIA, indigenization, decolonization, anti-racism and intersectionality, and experiential learning in program curriculum.

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Goal: Promote healthy communities

 

We value and prioritize the well-being of our communities.

Objectives

  1. We support the pursuit of excellence and in the context of a compassionate community.
  2. Nurture experiences for interdisciplinary sharing, collaboration and community building.
  3. Support practices that contribute to the well-being of our communities.
  4. Embed principles of EDIA, indigenization and decolonization, anti-racism and intersectionality through experiential learning.

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Goal: Create meaningful sparks with our communities

 

We engage in meaningful reciprocal relationships with communities.

Objectives

  1. Build and maintain truthful, respectful and sustainable relationships with all communities including people, cultures, land, water and the environment.
  2. Nurture and support ethical and inclusive relationships that engage the interconnectedness of all living beings.
  3. Cultivate spaces that honour human rights and uphold the dignity and integrity of all by integrating principles from various guiding documents such as, but not limited to, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls To Action, Scarborough Charter, Ashoka (strategic priorities) and United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

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Goal: Promote responsibility to the land (KSA KO’OM, “Mother Earth”)

 

We are grateful for the land that provides for us. The land includes the earth, air, water and all the creatures that encompass the interconnectedness of this place and all our relations. We are mindful that caring for the land we inhabit is our collective responsibility.

Objectives

  1. Recognize each person’s role in promoting the awareness and responsibility we have to local and planetary health. 
  2. Create curriculum connections that include generative principles. 
  3. Review procedures, guidelines and curriculum for inclusion of people, cultures, land, water and the environment. 
  4. Create opportunities for students to engage with the land.

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HCE Strategic Plan 2019-2024: Ani to pisi 2024