Where in the world?!

Mount Royal celebrates a quarter century of globe-trotting

Fall 2015 issue

Words by Marisa Norona
Illustration by Chao Zhang

Just over 25 years ago, Mount Royal’s Office of International Education offered eight Mount Royal students the opportunity to partake in an international exchange program. The world has been the University’s oyster ever since.

Mount Royal formally embraced international education over two decades ago, when market research began to surface indicating those with a passion for globe-trotting secured much more than a few stamps in their passports. We know there’s much to obtain through world-wide education. Mount Royal leaders believe that international experience is crucial to the personal and professional success of students, staff and faculty.

Over the past 10 years, the University has cultivated over 80 partnerships with schools across the globe. Currently, more than 150 Mount Royal students formally complete an international experience, through exchanges, field schools, study tours, or internships each year. In fact, at any given time, students are studying abroad across 27 different countries. Since the 1990s, thousands of international students from regions including Mexico, the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, Korea, South America, New Zealand and Australia have ventured to Calgary to study at Mount Royal.

“Working closely with our international partners, we have managed to create innovative and exciting opportunities for the Mount Royal community to internationalize,” says Lorna Smith, who became the director of the City Centre Campus in 1990. Until her retirement in 2015, Smith was responsible for the Office of International Education, including the Languages Institute, which has operated since the 1970s. She quickly began guiding development of a new institution-wide internationalization strategy, one of the first-of-its-kind in Canada and an important factor in achieving Mount Royal’s academic vision.

“I am confident that these and new opportunities will continue to expand in the future,” she says.

Through Smith’s leadership, the Office of International Education was one of the first institutions in Canada to partner with Mexico, and established its first North American mobility partnerships (between the U.S., Mexico and Canada) and its first European partnerships in those beginning years. It is thanks to these partnerships that, over its initial 10 years, the Office of International Education systematically developed a successful range of programs and services. The office was recognized nationally by receiving the Association of Community Colleges of Canada Internationalization Excellence Award in 1995.