Our Community Archives

Bachelor of Education — Elementary students Fatima Sammoud and Jessica Cuillerier have each won a 2024 Siobhan Isabella Reid Memorial Scholarship for their volunteer efforts teaching students to read. Both work for various organizations that support students with learning disabilities. Read more.

CTV News – Natalie Meisner, faculty: Jann Arden, honorary degree recipient)

Natalie Meisner’s It Begins in Salt (Single Author book) is a finalist for both the W.O. Mitchell Award and the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for poetry for 2024. Meisner believes in the power of the written word to change hearts and minds and mentors student writers who have gone on to publish, edit, screenwrite, perform, and become songwriters, community developers and artists in Calgary and across the country. Learn more.

Thanks to associate professor Dr. Kari Roberts, PhD, for her expertise and guidance in leading our MRU contenders 

MRU Policy Studies and Criminal Justice students launched a new Model UN club that recently competed in the Alberta Intercollegiate Model UN (AIMUN) conference March 2-3, at MacEwan University. The club competed against Model UN students from across a number of post-secondary institutions in Alberta and they won some of the top awards. 

Congratulations to: Ryan Montgomery, Josh Logan and Allison Carter, representing North Korea (Best Speech Award). Another congratulations to: Naheel Al Sourani and Ice Garcia, representing South Africa (Honourable Delegation Award).

Attaining the rank of Professor is a significant achievement in one's academic journey, symbolizing unwavering dedication and scholarly achievements that contribute to Mount Royal's academic mission. In December 2023, the University Tenure and Promotion Committee granted approval for the promotion of seven faculty members to the rank of Professor:

• Professor Deb Bennett, Faculty of Arts
• Professor Corrine Mason, Faculty of Arts
• Professor Irene Shankar, Faculty of Arts
• Professor Sally Haney, Faculty of Business and Communication Studies
• Professor Jill Parnell, Faculty of Health, Community and Education
• Professor D. Gaye Watson Warthe, Faculty of Health, Community and Education
• Professor Sarah Hewitt, Faculty of Science and Technology 

Their accomplishments will be recognized at the Faculty Achievement Celebration in September.

MRU policy studies students and instructor Saira Bano, PhD, recently attended the Alberta Intercollegiate Model UN at the University of Calgary. Multiple students won awards, including Best Overall Delegation. 

• Liam Adamson and Sebastian Bennett-Monterroso won the Best Delegation Award

• Cooper Johnson and Nida Ahmad won the Best Position Paper award 

• Kevin Petrosenko and Oren Bachand won the Most Accommodating Delegation award 

• Kofo Odewale earned an Honorable Mention

Dr. Melanie Peacock, PhD, associate professor of human resources, is the new president of the Western Alumni Association, which connects Western and its alumni and provides opportunities to grow and learn. Peacock won Mount Royal’s inaugural teaching excellence award in 2014 and was recognized in HRD magazine's 2017 Hotlist as one of the top 30 most influential human resources practitioners in Canada. Read more.

Promotion to the rank of full professor is a reflection of a career of hard work, achievement and academic leadership. It is a formal recognition of remarkable contributions to the academy, adding to the collective body of knowledge, taking risks and persisting through much adversity while remaining devoted to the pursuit. Congratulations to:

• Faculty of Business and Communication Studies
  • Professor Paul Varella Connors
• Faculty of Arts
  • Professor Lee Easton
• Faculty of Health, Community and Education
  • Professor Mohamed El Hussein
  • Professor Christy Lane
• Faculty of Science and Technology
  • Professor Nathan Ackroyd
  • Professor Israel Dunmade
• Faculty of Teaching and Learning
  • Professor Michelle Yeo

On Nov. 27, the Governor General announced 144 new appointments to the Order of Canada. Five of those were from the Mount Royal community. The Order of Canada is one of the country's highest civilian honours and recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation.

• George Brookman ― businessman and 2020 Honorary Doctor of Laws recipient
• Ross William Glen ― philanthropist and benefactor of Mount Royal's Ross Glen Hall
• John Lacey ― chair of MRU's Conservatory Advisory Committee and 2018 Honorary Bachelor of Arts ― Policy Studies recipient
• Doreen Spence ― campus elder and 2017 Honorary Bachelor of Nursing recipient
• Mark Tewksbury ― Olympic champion and 2017 Honorary Bachelor of Communication ― Public Relations recipient

The Canada Research Chairs program stands at the centre of a national strategy to make Canada one of the world's top countries in research and development. Chairholders improve our depth of knowledge and quality of life, strengthen Canada's international competitiveness and help train the next generation of highly skilled people. The  Office of Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement is proud to congratulate the following individuals on being named Tier 2 Canada Research Chairs:

• Michael Asmussen, PhD ― Neuromechanics and Human Physiology
• Cherie Woolmer, PhD — Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
• Ranjan Datta, PhD ― Community Disaster Research

MRU has received over $5 million in new federal research support funding, including:

• Tri-Agency grants with approximately $1.4 million awarded
• Two new Canada Research Chairs: Ranjan Datta, PhD, C ommunity Disaster Research and Cherie Woolmer, PhD, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
• The first Canada Foundation for Innovation grants for Professor Gwen O'Sullivan, PhD (environmental science), and Assistant Professor Meg Wilcox and Associate Professor Brad Clark, PhD (journalism)
• Tim Haney, PhD, sociology professor, and Paul Varella, PhD, associate professor in general management, received SSHRC Insight Development Grants

Over the past six months, an interdisciplinary research team, in collaboration with Calgary Economic Development (CED), has been leading a project called  LearningCITY, which was developed as a direct outcome of the  High-Impact Talent Roundtable hosted last August at Mount Royal. Support for this project was provided by SAIT, CED, and the MRU Institutes for Community Prosperity and Innovation and Entrepreneurship.  Two reports have since been released, with authors from MRU including Professors  Evelyn Field, PhD, and  Michael Uzoka, PhD, Assistant Professor  Simon Raby, PhD, and Associate Professor  Michael Roberts, PhD. A recent  op-ed in the  Calgary Herald by project leads Professor  David Finch, PhD, Mary Moran and Jason Ribeiro (CED) and Janet Lane (Canada West Foundation) proposes a re-envisioned city-level learning system. For more information and to register for the June 26 webinar, go to the LearningCITY Lab's website at  LearningCITY.ca.

Rebeka Bertram has received specialized training in standards for cleaning, disinfecting and PPE (personal protection equipment) from the Global Biorisk Advisory Council. The training included prevention, infection control and contamination control for infectious disease outbreaks. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Environmental Services team has followed AHS cleaning protocols to the highest standards.

On May 30, the Canadian Association of Journalists announced “ Tainted Water” as the winner of the 2019 Data Journalism Award. A collaboration with Concordia University’s Institute for Investigative Journalism, Associate Professor Janice Paskey led the team of journalism and broadcast media studies students Alannah Page, Stephanie Hagenaars, Karina Zapata, Noel Harper, Christian Kindrachuk, Jo Horwood, Rose deSouza and Andrea Wong.

Minister of Advanced Education Demetrios Nicolaides gave former president of the Students’ Association of Mount Royal University Shayla Breen a nod in May for her work in combatting sexual violence on campuses. 

Mount Royal’s School of Nursing and Midwifery (SnoM) faculty have gone above and beyond with their efforts during COVID-19. Not only have they created new and innovative ways to deliver courses and interact with students, they have also volunteered their valuable time. Discover how the SNoM has been mak making a very real difference in the lives of many through donating time, expertise, support, and care.

Acclaimed Globe and Mail foreign correspondent, author and speaker on social inclusion Stephanie Nolen has accepted the 2020 Calgary Peace Prize, supported through Mount Royal's John de Chastelain Peace Studies Initiative. In lieu of April’s cancelled in-person event, more will be heard from Nolen in September in celebration of World Peace Day. Read her words of acceptance.

Mount Royal’s winning team from the Institute for Community Prosperity’s 2020 regional Map the System competition performed well enough at the Canadian finals on May 8 to be advanced to the global finals, which will be hosted by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford from June 5 to 7. The team includes the following individuals, who are investigating the question "Is Canadian charity designed to fail?": Jillian Mah, Bachelor of Arts ― Information Design; Ashley Dion, Bachelor of Business Administration ― General Management; and Matthew Taburada, Bachelor of Arts ―Behavioural Sciences (Ambrose University). The team's five-minute submission video provides an overview of their topic and research.

The last Our Community newsletter sent out on May 1 mistakenly identified the Bissett Stock Market Competition as the same as the Alberta Not-for-Profit Case Competition. This is an error, as the two are separate entities. Bissett students from social innovation and accounting placed third in the Alberta Not-for-Profit Association case competition in February. Read the blog post.

Registered Social Worker Michelle Chimenti, who is a Social Work Diploma alumna, has returned to the Stepping Up program coordinator role as the research-based program returns for 2020/2021. The Stepping Up program focuses on healthy relationships and the prevention of dating, domestic and sexual violence.

On April 27, poet and playwright Natalie Meisner , PhD, was named Calgary’s fifth Poet Laureate , a two-year position that will end in 2022. A professor with Mount Royal’s Department of English, Languages and Cultures , Meisner will act as an ambassador for the written word, saying in the Calgary Economic Development release that, “By no means can poetry take the place of food or safety or shelter or medicine… but sometimes it might just help hold body and soul together for that key moment until we find what we need.” Listen to Meisner accept her new title here (12:50). Read more.

Bachelor of Science alumna Ellie Campbell (2019) entered graduate studies at the University of Calgary with the support of a $20,000 Cummings School of Medicine Graduate Scholarship. She has since been awarded UCalgary’s Faculty of Graduate Studies Master’s Research Scholarship. Campbell says her undergraduate research was extremely impactful on her life path, and she gained tremendous benefit from attending an international research conference as an MRU undergraduate researcher with support from the MRU Undergraduate Research Travel Award.

The team of Varune Tillekeratne, Jamal Hussaini and Bidzina Mosiashvili has won the 2019/2020 Bissett Stock Market Competition with a stunning return of 78 per cent. The 14th edition of the annual competition began in September and concluded at the end of March and saw 14 teams start off with $1,000,000 in virtual money. Through the use of a simulator, they traded in Canadian and U.S. markets, with the ability to sell short and use options, navigating through an extremely difficult year. The student beat the market by the highest margin achieved by a team since the competition started in 2005.

Professors Ada Jaarsma,PhD, (philosophy) and Kit Dobson, PhD, (English)have co-edited Dissonant Methods: Undoing Discipline in the Humanities Classroom , which is set to be published by the University of Alberta Press in May. Supported by MRU's Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning , this collection of essays offer concrete and practical meditations on resistant and sustainable teaching. Jaarsma and Dobson both contributed to the collection, as did English alumnus Kyle Kinaschuk, who is now a PhD student at the University of Toronto.

On April 16, the Bachelor of Education's , fourth-year students presented their capstone projects online, streaming their research. Watch here as students present about Indigenous Pedagogy , Flexible Seating or Quarantine Conversations.

Three journalism students are finalists for the most prestigious award in Canada, the Canadian Association of Journalists’ Student Award of Excellence . Since 2013, students from the program have been nominated six times and won five. This year Alannah Page, Huyana Cyprien and Curtis Larson are the nominated for their work on Ukrainian internment camps , supported by faculty member Patti Edgar. Students working with faculty member Janice Paskey on the Institute for Investigative Journalism's national series " Tainted Water" are also among the nominees.

Assistant Professor Jeff Pollack , PhD, (Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences) has been selected as a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. He joins an international community of geoscientists with the aim of improving knowledge and understanding of the Earth.

A team of student editors from Mount Royal’s public relations program have published the top double-blind reviewed voluntary submissions of their undergraduate peers in the second edition of the annual Western Communication Report (WCR). The soft launch was on April 2, and students will continue to promote the WCR throughout the summer. Topics include pieces on flu vaccination, bullying, the equalization formula and more.

Two Mount Royal professors are recipients of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) Insight Grant , which supports research excellence in the social sciences and humanities. Humanities professor Ada Jaarmsa , PhD, received an Insight Grant for her project titled “Placebos Talk Back,” and professors Kevin O'Connor , PhD, and Gladys Sterenberg , PhD, were recognized for their project titled “Hybrid Spaces Within a Professional Development School Context.” Please note that this information is for internal distribution only pending a formal announcement from SSHRC.

Professor Michael Uzoka , PhD, and co-investigators Professor Joseph Osuji , PhD, and Assistant Professor Yasaman Amannejad , PhD, recently received Mount Royal’s first-ever NFRF award for their cross-disciplinary project titled “A system for diagnosing and treating febrile diseases by lay health workers in resource-scarce settings.” Please note that this information is only for internal distribution pending a formal announcement from NFRF .

Fourth-year Bachelor of Science ― General Science student Naseem Hijazi won third prize in the Best Poster Award competition at the recent Women in Data Science conference held at the University of Calgary. Hijazi’s poster covered the application of mathematical models to track the spread of Ebola in Congo and the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in China. A principal investigator supported Hijazi throughout the project.

Recent Bachelor of Science ― Health Science graduate Jordan Bird has garnered the prestigious Barbara A. Horowitz and John M. Horowitz Undergraduate Research Award. Bird submitted an abstract titled "Severity of Central Sleep Apnea Does Not Improve Sleeping Oxygen Saturation During Ascent to High Altitude" with associate professor of biology Trevor Day.

Manager of Academic Advising for Enrolment Services Shea Ellingham will receive an Administrator of the Year award (Excellence in Advising — Advising Administrator) at the NACADA Region 8 Conferencenext week. NACADA is the global advising community and maintains professional standards for advisors, and many of the academic advisors at MRU are NACADA members. Ellingham will also be taking on a leadership role with NACADA as chair of Region 8 in the fall.

Twenty leaders in the Canadian human resources space have been recognized on Human Resources Director’s inaugural Global 100 — the definitive list of the best and brightest people practitioners of 2020. Associate professor of human resources Melanie Peacock, PhD, was only one of two academics to be named to the list.p>

Bachelor of Computer Information Systems student Athina Sofocleous has received a Bank of Canada Scholarship, which are awarded to women, Indigenous students and students with disabilities. The scholarship encourages young Canadians to consider employment in fields related to the work of the central bank and assists them in furthering their education.p>

Assistant Professor Catherine Pearl (social innovation) and Associate Professor Simon Magennis (accounting) coached four students to third place at the Alberta Not-For-Profit Case Competition last weekend. The competition is the first live, undergraduate, not-for-profit case competition in Canada. Two accounting students and two social innovation students represented MRU: Mia Baines, Jan Santiago, Kolten Nelson and Xander Jensen.

Director of Cougar Athletics Karla Karch has been named to U Sports’ list of Top 100 women’s basketball players of the century. With Mount Royal since 2005, Karch is a former Canadian Olympian who played basketball at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. She also represented Canada at numerous world championships.

James Stauch, director of the Institute for Community Prosperity, and Alina Turner, PhD, of Turner Strategies, have published “ From Algorithms to Altruithms: The Fourth Social Purpose Revolution” in The Philanthropist . The first of two articles about artificial intelligence (AI), this series examines the role of AI in delivering social good and diminishing social harm.

Professor David Taras, PhD, Mount Royal's Ralph Klein Chair in Media Studies, has co-authored a new book titled The End of the CBC? with Professor Christopher Waddell, PhD, of Carleton University. The book is described as "about three overlapping crises: the crisis that has enveloped the CBC, the crisis of news, and the crisis of democracy." Taras has also co-edited a book with Routledge titled Power Shift? Political Leadership and Social Media , which includes works by leading thinkers in the field from Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

Professor Randy Connolly, PhD, of the Department of Mathematics and Computing, received an award from Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counselling for effort and creativity put into the design of and in recognition of the impact of the first edition of the book, Computing Careers & Disciplines: A Quick Guide for Prospective Students and Career Advisors , which was co-authored by Professor Faith-Michael Uzoka, PhD, and Janet Miller, PhD. The book is now in its second edition.

Mount Royal has been recognized through the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) program of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. This was MRU’s first time applying for the rating, which is a commonly used system among post-secondaries. Sustainability is championed by Facilities Management and the Institute for Environmental Sustainability with contributions from across campus.

Associate professor of religious studies Jackie Ho is one of two Buddhist women from Canada to qualify for a dharma instructor ordination. Ho achieved this second-level ordination after serving as a dharma assistant for five years and successfully passing an intensive exam on theory and music at the Rainbow Temple in Seattle, WA. She looks forward to promoting women in leadership roles in the Buddhist tradition and to serving the community.

NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising Northwest Region 8 has selected Faculty of Science and Technology academic advisor Cheryl Melatdoost as the winner of the Region 8 Excellence in Advising - Advisor Primary Role Award. Region 8 covers Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Yukon. Read more about how Melatdoost has made a “major” impact at MRU.

Sociology professor Tom Buchanan acted as the keynote speaker for the sixth International Conference on Multidisciplinary Approaches (iCMA) in Sri Lanka. His address was titled "Multidisciplinary Approaches in a Specialized World: How Active Pursuit of Difference Produces Positive Social Change." During his visit, Buchanan also developed initiatives for research and student exchanges. More information.

Health and physical education students Danny Pham, Tyson Kapty, Darryl Senholt, Joel Hartzell, Philippe Gabriele, Morgan Zulinick and Evan Lennon recently collected 200 teddy bears and $2,000 for the Ronald McDonald House by organizing a teddy bear toss at a hockey tournament in Chestermere. A sports and recreation management course assignment (SRMG 2440-001 ― Community Development) to support a community in achieving a charitable goal using recreation to bring people together inspired the act.

Bachelor of Child Studies and Social Work students recently presented their capstone projects to their community partners at the Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta and to Gaye Warthe, PhD, associate dean of Teaching and Learning. Guided by elder Roy Bear Chief, the students have learned and are applying the Blackfoot narrative Ani to pisi through creating spiderwebs ― visual representations of their professional growth and the development of their projects ― throughout the term. The students have worked in groups to: plan a conference for families with children and youth affected by cancer and hematological illness (scheduled for April 2020); create online training modules for volunteers; tutor children who are undergoing cancer treatments; and design and implement a physical literacy curriculum for children with cancer. During the presentation, the students explained the Ani to pisi story and shared their webs that included project strengths, vibrations (challenges) and practical ways they have supported each other.

Professor Lynn Moorman, PhD, of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences was a recipient of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society 90th Anniversary medal for work done for Canadian Geographic Education as the post-secondary representative. Each year the Society recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to Canada, the Society or the field of geography. In addition, Moorman was also recently named to the editorial board of the Journal of Geography.

Calgary Youth Orchestra member Spencer Mung recently brought his hand-made violin to the stage, a project two years in the making. Mung was encouraged by Conservatory faculty member Chris Sandvoss and taught by Natanael Sasaki, a local luthier known for repairing a cello owned by a refugee that had been damaged by militant gunfire as the musician was attempting to leave a performance

Jon Yeoh, a graduate of the Conservatory Academy Program and alumnus of the Calgary Youth Orchestra, has been awarded a position with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra’s bass section.

On Nov. 21 at Calgary’s Social Entrerpize Awards, hosted by the Trico Foundation and the Haskayne School of Business, finalists for What’s Next YYC participated in a live pitch fest vying for four awards of $25,000. Three went to MRU alumni. Paul Shumlich of Deepwater Farms received the Audience Choice Award, with Timothy Lipp (Beaverlodge) and Sean Crump ( Universal Access) each receiving Judge’s Choice Awards.

Criminal justice professor John Winterdyk, PhD, attended and presented on human trafficking in Canada at the Canadian Criminal Justice Congress ― 100 Years of Criminal Justice and was the recipient of the organization's Public Education Award. Winterdyk has also been invited to prepare the first editorial and introduction to the Global Journal for Criminological and Criminal Justice Research.

On Nov. 4, Global News and Star Metro Calgary, in conjunction with Mount Royal’s journalism program, published the results of a year-long investigation funded by the Institute of Investigative Journalism at Concordia University into lead in the water in Calgary and cities across Canada. Mount Royal student Alannah Page received a lead credit in the Star story, with Karina Zapata and Stephanie Hagenaars credited for research.

Associate Professor Ian Sherrington of the Department of Health and Physical Education challenged himself to summit Mount Logan, the highest peak in Canada, last May. Along with his brother-in-law, a mountain guide and high-angle rescue specialist, the pair decided to try the more difficult East Ridge route, which Sherrington describes as “an involved climbing objective including knife-edged snow ridges, short sections of rock and ice-climbing, and almost continuous exposure of up to 1,500 metres down on both sides of the ridge." The success rate for this ascent route is only about 40 per cent. They and four other climbers from Switzerland and Canada were the only ones on that part of the mountain. Sherrington spent two weeks on Mount Logan, which is subject to bursts of sub-arctic weather hitting the mountain at regular intervals from the Pacific Ocean located less than 120 kilometres away. Unfortunately, due to weather, the pair were unable to reach the top. Regardless, Sherrington came away with these thoughts: “I have spent 25 years educating people by providing them opportunities to challenge their own comfort zones with the myriad of benefits that spring from this. My time on Mount Logan gave me first-hand schooling on my own ability to deal with adversity and consider my own personal growth. This was the unexpected product of flirting with the deep and sometimes dark boundaries of my own zones of comfort. This brought me to places that gave me pause to think deeply on such ubiquitous issues as mental health and the role of challenge and wilderness in this ever-present equation.” 

Professors Duane Bratt, PhD, and Brett McCollum, PhD, have been invited to present in Paris at the Nuclear Energy Agency in December, contributing to a workshop on speaking across the disciplinary divide in nuclear and social sciences. Their presentation will focus on almost a decade of teaching the general education course of CHEM 3802: The Science and Politics of Nuclear Energy, programming that is being recognized by the international community as unique and groundbreaking. As part of the course, the professors explore the continuing impact and changes in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear accident, with the pair welcoming a visit from the Japanese consulate in 2018. They have also taken a group of students on a tour of a Cameco uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan in partnership with the University of Calgary.

Associate professor Mark Ayyash, PhD, of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology recently saw his book, A Hermeneutics of Violence: A Four-Dimensional Conception , published by the University of Toronto Press. The book’s description says, “Theories of violence are numerous today, but because of the mysterious nature of violence, and how each individual or group may endure it uniquely, its study cannot be limited to one specialized and highly restricted field. A Hermeneutics of Violence seeks to remedy this problem by placing in dialogue various theories of violence from the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, international relations and philosophy.”

On Nov. 20, National Child Day, second-year students in the Bachelor of Child Studies program will present their Image of a Child artwork exhibition at the Calgary Zoo as part of the Calgary Play Summit. The pieces were created as part of Assistant Professor Carolyn Bjartveit, PhD, and contract faculty Lea Blust's Guidance and Planning course, which challenged the students ― all early learning majors ― to address their preconceptions about their image of the child. Read more.

Associate Professor Katherine Boggs of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences is working on an ambitious EON-ROSE project to place a fleet of geophysical observatories across Canada to probe everything from the inner Earth to the upper atmosphere, as detailed in “ Earth scientists push ambitious project to map Canada’s geology” published by the Nature International Journal of Science. In addition, Boggs and colleagues also recently published “Google Earth Models with COLLADA and WxAzygy Transparent Interface: An example from Grotto Creek, Front Ranges, Canadian Cordillera” in Geoscience Canada .

Mount Royal University librarian Richard Hayman, faculty development consultant Erika Smith and psychology student Hannah Storrs have evaluated the use of MRU Confessions, a student-run Facebook page that is an unfiltered zone for students to vent, connect and seek advice for all things related to student life. The team has presented their research at national and international conferences, including the Canadian Association for Information Science,where their research was awarded Best Practitioner Paper. Recently, their findings on Information Behaviour of Undergraduate Students Using Facebook Confessions for Educational Purposes were published in Information Research.

Professor Richard Harrison’s Hero of the Play has been in print continuously for 25 years, with a tenth anniversary edition released in 2004. 25 (Wolsak and Wynn), is a celebration of this fact, as well as a meditation on 25 years of hockey poetry. This collection catalogues the way the game has woven itself into the life of the Governor General’s Award–winning poet, and is a reflection on how the game has become such a large part of the Canadian identity.

On Sept. 24, the Cougars men’s hockey team was awarded the title of the Autism Aspergers Friendship Society’s Community Partner of the Year. The team has been working with Bryce over the last year, who comes to MRU every Monday to assist with locker room clean up and practice preparation. Bryce is also alumnus and graduate of Mount Royal’s Transitional Vocational Program.

As part of this year’s International Federation of Social Work European Conference in Vienna, Austria, Assistant Professor Marva Ferguson presented her research “I Have to Go Back Home: The Complexities of Caregiving From Afar,” a topic that examines the experiences of Caribbean immigrants who face additional challenges shaped by systemic inequities specific to precarious employment and the lack of access to resources and decision making. More information.

Associate professor of biology, Sarah Hewitt, PhD, has been nominated by the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada for the 2019 People’s Choice Awards: Canada’s Favourite Science Online for her website, The Science B-Sides. Browse the sites and vote for your favourite.

English professor Natalie Meisner, PhD, has published a new book of poems titled Baddie One Shoe through Frontenac House. Her poems are odes to the renegades of the past and present who fight the powers that be with laughter.

On Sept. 27, Associate Professor Peter Choate, PhD, of the Department of Child Studies and Social Work, will participate in a PolicyWise 2019 Annual General Meeting panel titled Evidence in Action. Choate will discuss a PolicyWise Seed Grant project that examined the implications of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recommendations for how new social workers are educated. More information.

Associate professor Randy Nikkel Schroeder, PhD, of the Department of English, Languages and Culture’s new novel, Arctic Smok e , will be released this month by NeWest Press. The story follows aging punk Lor Kowalski as he and his band head north for a mysterious Artic festival tour. The work is described as “An absurdist punk-rock adventure through counter-counterculture’s most otherworldly spaces.” Read more.

Associate Professor David Finch, PhD, and Professor David Legg, PhD, in collaboration with the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Institute for Community Prosperity are hosting Calgary’s inaugural ActiveCITY Summit on Sept. 18 at WinSport. They will be joined by 250 other leaders in sport and recreation to debate the future of an active economy. Register.

Assistant professor Ran Ju, PhD, Associate Professor Sandra Braun, PhD, and MRU public relations students Dat Huynh and Sarah McCaffrey, won second place in the Top Paper Competition in the Public Relations Open Division at the 102nd annual conference of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication.

In May, Associate Professor Susan Jacoby of the School of Nursing and Midwifery wrote and co-directed a play titled"Born in the Ruins" for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. The 56-minute performance highlights the important work of midwives and nurses. It will also be performed on Sept. 17 in New York City as part of the UN High Level Commission for Universal Health Coverage. More information.

School of Nursing and Midwifery associate professor Marg Olfert is headed to Florence, Italy, in February to present her research, “The trail of an idea struggling for survival: Jean Mackie Establishes Canadian Nursing Education at Mount Royal College, 1964–68,” at the Florence 2020, International Conference on the History of Nursing, hosted by the European Association for the History of Nursing. More information.

Associate Professor Kirk Niergarth of the Department of Humanities, Assistant Professor Sean Carleton of the Department of General Education and University of Alberta post-doctoral student Julia Smith are the authors of a museum-style exhibit about the 1919 Calgary General Strike that is currently on display at the Calgary Central Library. Thirteen banners tell the story of how Alberta workers responded during a moment of international unrest at the end of the First World War. It is the 100th anniversary of the strike wave of 1919 that included the Calgary General Strike (in sympathy with the Winnipeg General Strike). Strikes in Alberta persisted throughout the summer and, for coal miners, into the fall. Over the next six months, the banners will be touring to a variety of schools, libraries and union events in Calgary, Red Deer, Lethbridge and Edmonton. They will also spend time on display here at MRU and at the University of Calgary. View the banners here.

Associate professors at the Bissett School of Business, Mohammed El Hazzouri and Leah Hamilton have concluded that public health authorities need to re-examine how they advertise to racialized groups. Through a series of four studies — partially funded by MRU's Internal Research Grants Fund — the pair has noted an interesting backlash effect. Their research shows that members of racialized groups feel negatively stereotyped by widely distributed public health ads that target their group. In turn, this makes them less likely to want to follow the advice of the advertisers. Findings have been published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing , The Conversation , Pride News and Newmarket Today . El Hazzouri says, “As society seeks to reduce healthcare inequities, we need to do a better job of planning public health campaigns by involving members of racialized groups in the creation of these ads.”

The Institute for Environmental Sustainability (IES) has been involved in a collaboration with the University of Calgary's Centre for Corporate Responsibility and Energy Dialogues out of San Diego. A podcast was recorded at the Calgary Energy Dialogues of a recent panel discussion with Associate Professor and Academic Director Connie Van Der Byl of the IES as the moderator and panelists from First Nations Major Projects Coalition and the Canada West Foundation. Topics addressed were the implications of Bill C-69, how regulatory approaches to approvals can be balanced and how the current climate is impacting investment in Canada. Listen here.

Religious studies professor Steven Engler will be teaching a four-day graduate course in methodology at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Brazil, in August. The course will be conducted in Portuguese, and readings will include Engler's co-authored chapter on methods in Brazil's first broad overview of the field, the Compêndio de Ciência da Religião ( Handbook of Religious Studies), along with several translated chapters, published in Brazil, from the first-ever handbook of research methods in religious studies in English, The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion , co-edited by Engler.

Elizabeth Van Den Kerkhof, PhD, will take on the position of director of Mount Royal’s School of Nursing and Midwifery effective July 9. Van Den Kerkhof earned a Doctor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in 1998, and for the past 18 years has been a member of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University. She has been deeply involved in research, particularly related to pain-related complex conditions, and has co-authored many peer-reviewed publications, held substantial peer-reviewed funding, participated on many committees and helped develop several educational programs.

From Aug. 22 to 23, in Geneva, Switzerland, chair and associate professor of the Department of Health and Physical Education, Christy Tomkins-Lane, PhD, will participate and inform the development of the World Health Organization’s 2021 Global Report on Effective Access to Assistive Technology. Learn more.

Professor and PhD Natalie Meisner's most recent play, Boom Baby, has been named the recipient of the 2019 Alberta Playwriting Competition Grand Prize. The play also won the Canadian National Playwriting competition this year and it will have its mainstage debut at Eastern Front Theatre in Halifax. The Mount Royal endeavour fund supported a workshop of Boom Baby, which also had had two MRU creative writing/script writing apprentices on the show. The creation of this play was a cooperative venture with Handsome Alice Theatre in Calgary.  Read more.

Based on the high calibre of his research, Bachelor of Science — Environmental Science alumnus Kevin Hayes is skipping his master's and headed straight to doctoral studies. Read more.

Forum, a groundbreaking feminist magazine that was published in Calgary from 1988 to 2002, is back and hitting streets thanks to MRU journalism alumna Silvia Pikal. New Forum is an homage to the original magazine and will serve as a platform for writers and artists in Alberta. Read more.

Mount Royal was chosen by the public as the winner of the Best Post-Secondary Education Institution category for the Star Metro Calgary 2019 Community Choice Awards, beating out nine other options.

Earth and environmental sciences student Nikita Kahpeaysewat was chosen as the cover story for the 2019 spring issue of Winds of Change, a publication created by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. Kahpeaysewat comes from the Moosomin First Nation, which is near the town of Cochin, Sask. Read more.

MRU is one of the first Canadian institutions to become a signatory to the Dimensions Charter to foster increased research excellence, innovation and creativity through greater equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

A short film titled Memento Mori created by two graduates of Mount Royal’s Theatre Performance Diploma program — Anna Barker and Ryan Irving — garnered two 2019 Calgary Underground Film Festival Awards: the Special Jury Mention — Emerging Filmmaker award and the Audience Award Best Canadian Short. Barker is also currently majoring in English at MRU.

Associate Professor Peter Choate, PhD, of the Social Work Diploma program and five of his practicum students were recently published in the Canadian Journal of Law and Society for their research “ Rethinking Racine v Woods from a Decolonizing Perspective: Challenging the Applicability of Attachment Theory to Indigenous Families Involved with Child Protection.”

Associate professor in the Department of Biology, Trevor Day, PhD, was awarded the title of the 2019 Hotchkiss Brain Institute Neuroscience Alumnus of the Year, which recognizes the outstanding performance of a graduate student, postdoctoral fellow or research fellow who trained in a neuroscience laboratory at the University of Calgary within the Hotchkiss Brain Institute. Day’s PhD was based in the study of cardiovascular/respiratory sciences, and his esteemed research into the physiological challenges and dangers of climbing Everest was recently featured on Global News at 6 .

Bachelor of Nursing faculty members Professor Cathy Carter-Snell, PhD, and Kerri Alderson were nominated for the CARNA (College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta) Awards in the areas of Nursing Excellence in Research and Nursing Excellence in Education (respectively). The CARNA Awards celebrates nursing excellence, recognizing outstanding nurses and partners across seven award categories.

For the third year in a row, MRU will be sending a team to Oxford for the global Map the System finals. The interdisciplinary Team Kistoonon, which includes five students enrolled in four MRU different faculties, were chosen from among 15 schools from across the country. The team is examining the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Read more.

Three journalism students have won the 2018 Canadian Association of Journalists Student Award for Excellence. The award recognized the project Lost in the System, which charts the difficulties of transgender people accessing transition services in Alberta. Mount Royal students have now won the excellence award five times in the past six years.

The Distinguished Alumni Award, established in 1986, is the highest form of recognition presented by MacEwan. Associate professor Scharie Tavcer teaches in the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies and previously worked for Correctional Services Canada.

Associate dean of the Faculty of Arts Joe Anderson, PhD, was recently appointed to a five-year term as the Alberta member for the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. 

Professor Robert Boschman, PhD, and Associate Professor Mario Trono, PhD, of the Department of English, Languages and Cultures’ edited collection, On Active Grounds: Agency and Time in the Environmental Humanities , has just been published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. The work is described as a consideration of “the themes of agency and time through the burgeoning, interdisciplinary field of the environmental humanities.”

Instructor Carolyn Willekes, PhD, of the general education and humanities departments, will appear in an upcoming documentary series produced by Lion TV for the Smithsonian Channel titled Rome's Chariot Superstar . The series, which was reviewed by the Daily Mail , will be released on April 21 and will also be available on Amazon Prime. 

Reading Canadian Women’s and Gender History , a new book edited by Department of Humanities associate professor Carmen Nielson, PhD, and colleague, has been released by University of Toronto Press. As characterized in the description, "... this broadly historiographical volume represents a conversation among established and emerging scholars who share a commitment to understanding the past from intersectional feminist perspectives."

The William Harvey Gross Award is bestowed annually by the Mineral Deposits Division to a geoscientist less than 40 years of age who has made a significant contribution to the field of economic geology in a Canadian context.  Associate Professor Michelle DeWolfe, PhD’s project "Evaluating mineral potential of the Winter Lake greenstone belt, Slave craton, Northwest Territories" focuses on understanding both ancient and modern submarine volcanic successions and ore-forming processes related to volcanism. She has also received an NSERC Strategic Partnership Grant for her work.

Al Bohonus, who was the host chair of the first-ever Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) men’s basketball National Championship at Mount Royal in 1975, will be inducted posthumously into the CCAA Hall of Fame in the Builder Category. He was also host chair for men’s and women’s basketball in 1982 and men’s volleyball in 1994. Bohonus began his career at Mount Royal in 1975 as campus recreation coordinator and took over as athletic director in 1978, occupying the position until his passing in 1995. Under his leadership the Cougars earned 41 provincial college championships and seven national titles. In 1999, Mount Royal received the CCAA 25th Anniversary Overall Sport Supremacy Award.

“In addition to being an outstanding leader at Mount Royal College, Al consistently took on a variety of leadership roles within the ACAC and CCAA to ensure that varsity sport was a meaningful contributor to student life in Canadian colleges,” said Brian Fleming, who worked closely with Bohonus during the 1980s and 1990s.

Bohonus served as the ACAC’s representative to the CCAA Board of Directors from 1980 to 1982 and was on the CCAA Executive from 1982-85 as the 2nd Vice President. Bohonus twice served as the ACAC president, from 1980 to 1983 and again from 1990 to 1992.

Athletic therapy alumna Savannah Blakely is being credited with helping to save the life of Bob Elliot, whose heart stopped while addressing the attendees of an Okotoks Dawgs banquet. Blakely and team photographer Angela Burger performed CPR on Elliot, keeping him alive until assistance arrived. Blakely has been an athletic trainer with the Okotoks Dawgs for the past eight years.

Bachelor of Arts ― English alumnus Niall Howell’s new book, Only Pretty Damned ( NeWestPress), is set to be released April 15. Staged in a circus during the 1950s, Only Pretty Damned has been well reviewed. English professor and poet Micheline Maylor, describes the work as follows: “Told in the Hitchcockian tradition of the film noir, we follow (the lead character) on a bizarre and dark trail of his life as a circus act. This character-driven spectacle lets us peek behind the literal curtain of the theatre of the strange.” 

Calgarian Robert Blaine has donated an interesting collection of sports memorabilia to MRU valued at $80,000. The donation is currently housed in Mount Royal’s Archives and Special Collections and is expected to be used for research and potentially put on display.

Mount Royal journalism students have been nominated for two Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) student awards. Amber McLinden, Rayane Sabbagh and Simran Sachar received a nod for their story, “ Lost in the System.” “ Mindtrap,” by Natalie Valleau, Courtney Ingram and Breanne Kramer, was also recognized. The winners will be announced May 4 at the CAJ conference in Winnipeg.

Associate Professor Paul Johnston, PhD, of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, was recognized with a Friend of the Society award at the 23rd annual Symposium of the Alberta Paleontological Society, held at Mount Royal on March 23 and 24. Johnston along with Instructional Assistant Mike Clark and Professor John Cox, PhD, are instrumental in working with the Alberta Paleontological Society to bring the symposium to Mount Royal each year.

Professor Geoffrey Jackson, PhD of the Department of Humanities, has published the book, The Empire on the Western Front: The British 62nd and Canadian 4th Divisions in Battle with UBC Press. The work delves in to the divisional level of command during the First World War and the different experiences of the British and Canadian soldiers.
 

Chemistry professor Brett McCollum, PhD, received an honourable mention for his poster presentation Mapping Chemistry Education Practice to Professional Identity at the Royal Society for Chemistry Twitter Poster Conference last week. The poster maps out how to train students to think like a chemist.

School of Nursing and Midwifery associate professor Tammy Sherrow's book Preemie Care (Page Two Books) is focuses on a community engagement agenda and provides health literacy and support for parents of premature babies. Associate professor Katherine Janzen's book Artistic Pedagogical Technologies (Vernon Press) concentrates on practical teaching strategies for faculty in higher education, including online learning.

Associate professor Cynthia Gallop, chair of the Mount Royal University Human Research Ethics Board, recently received the welcome news that she is the recipient of two Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Awards. The first is an Individual Partnership Engage Grant and the second is an Explore Grant. In addition, her chapter titled “ Insinuating: understanding approaches to critical practice” was recently published in the Routledge Handbook of Critical Social Work.

Soon-to-be journalism grad Huyana Cyprien has been named as a 2019 Joan Donaldson CBC News Scholarship recipient. Thirty-three candidates from 13 different institutions were interviewed before the eight finalists were chosen. Cyprien is the fourth Donaldson scholar to emerge from the journalism program. In announcing the winners, the CBC pointed to work that Cyprien and fellow students did on a multimedia project on the Ukrainian internment camps of the First World War.

Associate Professor Ben Kunz, chair of the information design program at Mount Royal, worked with program alumnus and Special Olympian Christopher Demchuk to design the logo for the 2019 Special Olympics Alberta Winter Games, which was hosted in Calgary from Feb. 8 to 10 for the first time in 12 years. Kunz and Demchuk teamed together with the organizing committee to come up with the final concept.

For the second year in a row Mount Royal students have won the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Societies of Canada Ethics Challenge's regional round, competing against counterparts from the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge and SAIT. The team of five Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) students will now advance to the national championships, to be hosted in Calgary in early May. They will face off against the top schools from the other five regions of the country ( B.C., the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes).

The team is comprised of:
Aliza Carroll, Bachelor of Business Administration ― General Management, concentration in financial services (2020)
Houston Higgins, Bachelor of Business Administration ― General Management, concentration in financial services (2019)
Gurdit Khatra, Bachelor of Business Administration ― General Management, concentration in financial service (2019)
Alaina Magnusson, Bachelor of Business Administration ― General Management, concentration in financial services (2020)
Allana White, Bachelor of Business Administration ― General Management, concentration in financial services (2020)

The Canadian Public Relations Society recently granted accredited status to 21 of its members after successfully completing the 2017/2018 accreditation program. Assistant Professor Peter Ryan, PhD, has earned the accredited in public relations designation.

Jenny Limoges was recognized for her commitment to mentorship with an Outstanding Future Alumni Award. She stays connected through the Harry G. Schaefer Mentorship program and by mentoring other students as a Learning Peer. 

Associate Dean Joe Anderson, PhD, of the Faculty of Arts recently had West Virginia University Press publish his book, Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork, and Power in America . The book examines the changing inter-species relationship between people and pigs from the Colombian Exchange in the region that became the United States.

Aboriginal Education Program student, Glenielia Ariel Crawler, has been selected as a 2019 Top 30 Under 30 from the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation for her work promoting Indigenous rights globally, as well as her service in the Morley community.

Professor John Winterdyke, PhD, of the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies, recently received a grant from the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development to deliver a national workshop on human trafficking. The project is part of India's Global Initiative of Academic Networks, which recruits international experts to engage with the Institutes of Higher Education in India.

Professor Steven Engler, PhD, along with three Brazilian colleagues, was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Explore grant (through the MRU Internal Research Grant Fund process) and a Collaborative International Research Grant from the American Academy of Religion for a project on Ritual Polyphony in Afro-Brazilian Religions.

Engler's team will do fieldwork in two cities in Brazil on Afro-Brazilian terreiros (temples) that hold the rituals of one religion one day and the rituals of a different religion the next. The same leaders organize and conduct these sessions, and many members participate in both. This phenomenon challenges how scholars think about religions as discrete entities and religious identities as mutually exclusive.

Provost Lesley Brown, PhD, and alumnus Paul Shumlich were each named one of the Calgary Herald's 20 Compelling Calgarians. In addition to being a proven administrator, Brown is an accomplished scholar in the field of kinesiology, and Shumlich is growing Deepwater Farms, an aquaponics business he started while still a student at Mount Royal.

On Sept. 22, Noelle Antonsen, a second-year student in Mount Royal's Bachelor of Midwifery program, was presented the Belcourt Brosseau Métis Award, which helps Métis Albertans realize self-sufficiency through post-secondary education and skills development.
 

MRU's Centre for Community Disaster Research (CCDR) just published Professor Kimberly Williams, PhD's, research essay, " Managing Pets during Disasters: Findings and Recommendations from the Horse River Fire, Fort McMurray, Alberta." The essay was also recently covered in the Calgary Herald , as well as in other media, and is available on PreventionWeb, a project of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. A grant from the CCDR funded the project with support from the Faculty of Arts and MRU's Office of Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement.
 

Department of Child Studies and Social Work professor Gaye Warthe, PhD, recently garnered an Inspiration Award in recognition of her work to prevent family violence, sexual violence, child abuse and bullying. The award was presented by Alberta’s Minister of Community and Social Services Irfan Sabir, who said, “These Albertans work day in and day out to transform lives, promote healthy relationships and prevent violence.”

Mount Royal’s Stepping Up initiative was also recognized. Stepping Up is a research-based program focusing on the prevention of dating violence. The current Mount Royal Stepping Up team includes: Michelle Chimenti, alumna and project coordinator, Elene Rangel Arcila-Otte, peer facilitator and Bachelor of Nursing student, Patricia Kostouros, PhD, associate professor, Child Studies and Social Work, Gaye Warthe, PhD, associate dean, Faculty of Health Community and Education, Cathy Carter-Snell, PhD, associate professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Christine Brownell, associate professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery.

Bissett School of Business alumna Corrine Thiessen is one of six women worldwide to win a prestigious Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship from Zonta International. Since 1923, Zonta International has provided more than 40.9 million US Dollars to empower women and expand their access to education, health care, economic opportunities and safe living conditions. Thiessen first won the Zonta Club of Victoria Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship, then went on to secure the Zonta District 8 scholarship, and was recently successful in earning the Zonta International scholarship. Finance professor Catherine Roy‐Heaton describes Thiessen as “of superior intelligence and (holding) superior analytical and communication skills.” She is currently working on post-graduate studies at the University of Victoria. Read more.

Mount Royal University students Taryn Hamilton and Spirit River Striped Wolf won Best in Stream for two of their presentations at the 10th International Social Innovation Research Conference held at Ruprecht-Karls-University in Heidelberg, Germany from Sept. 3 to 5. Hamilton (justice studies) and Striped Wolf (policy studies) were the only undergraduate students to present their work at this conference, presenting on “Otahpiaaki Law Keepers: Attributional Justice, the Role of Elders, and Decolonizing the Intellectual Property of Indigenous Creatives,” and “Challenging Scarcity: Nation-to-Nation Policy Imperatives for Indigenous Community Prosperity.”

Professor Katharine McGowan, PhD, of the Bissett School of Business also won Best in Stream at the conference for her presentation, "Perceiving a Plague: Understanding Systems from Within During Times of Crisis." 

Sociology professor and director of Mount Royal's Centre for Community Disaster Research, Tim Haney, PhD, recently published “Paradise Found? The Emergence of Social Capital, Place Attachment, and Civic Engagement After Disaster” in the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 36(2): 97-119. The article is linked here with permission of the editor.

A national association representing Canada’s graphic designers has given Mount Royal University information design professor Milena Radzikowska its inaugural teaching award. Radzikowska, a founding member of Mount Royal's information design program, is one of two teachers receiving RGD’s 2018 Design Educators Award, which recognizes “outstanding contributions to student development and pedagogical research.” Read more.

English professor Natalie Meisner, PhD, has been appointed as Mount Royal's internal director of Changemaking, tasked with facilitating changemaking across campus in teaching, learning and curriculum development.

Economics professor Anupam Das, PhD, has recently published in the following journals; Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, Journal of the Knowledge Economy, and OPEC Energy Review. Two of the essays were co-authored with MRU arts faculty members Professors Tom Buchanan, PhD, and Young Jung, PhD, and one was co-authored with policy studies student Sariah Seaborn.

The 2018 monograph volume of the Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos (Canadian Journal of Hispanic Studies), edited by Professors María Teresa Grillo, PhD, and Rita de Grandis (UBC), was published this year. Grillo’s article on Indigenous author José María Arguedas was included in this volume. She was also recently interviewed about her role in editing first issue of +Memoria(s), The Journal of the LUM (Place of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion, Ministry of Culture, Peru), and was interviewed by El Comercio, the main newspaper of Peru. Read more here.

Sociology professor Mark Ayyash, PhD, had his article, “An Assemblage of Decoloniality? Palestinian Fellahin Resistance and the Space-Place Relation," published in the summer 2018 issue of Studies in Social Justice .

French Professors Antoine Eche, PhD, and Justine Huet, PhD, recently published an issue of their co-edited, open-access journal Convergences Françaises, available here.

Orange Chinook: The Politics of the New Alberta , edited by Mount Royal Professors Duane Bratt, PhD, Keith Brownsey, PhD, Richard Sutherland, PhD, and David Taras, PhD, is forthcoming from the University of Calgary Press in January 2019. The book covers the 2015 win of the New Democratic Party over the Progressive Conservatives in Alberta. 

Professor Michelle DeWolfe, PhD, has been awarded an NSERC Strategic Partnership Grant. This highly prestigious award for the project, "Evaluating mineral potential of the Winter Lake greenstone belt, Slave craton, Northwest Territories," will provide DeWolfe with $306,250 over the next three years for her research.

Mount Royal University's journalism program's publication the Calgary Journal has been named a finalist in the competition for three Associated Collegiate Press Awards. These awards pit the Journal against large American universities. The nominations are:

• Multimedia Story of the Year ― Closing Midfield
• Multimedia Feature ― Instafit
• Photo Slideshow ― Calgary Structures

Alumnus and spring 2018 Convocation valedictorian Djordje Calic (Bachelor of Business Administration ― General Management (Honours)), was named a regional winner for U.S. and Canada in the Business category of The Global Undergraduate Awards 2018 for his honours thesis research, “How do we make decisions under uncertainty? Examining how a tutorial influences gender differences in risk propensity.” Calic was also the BBA honours Thesis Award winner and runner up for the Dean’s Award for the same honours research project.

The results from a large national research project led by the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO) at the CHEO Research Institute shows that about two-thirds of Canadian children haven’t achieved an acceptable level of physical literacy. Physical literacy is more than just fitness or motor skill; it includes the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engaging in physical activities for life. Fourteen articles that looked at different aspects of physical literacy and the Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy (CAPL) were published on Oct. 2, 2018, as a special supplement in the journal BMC Public Health. Bachelor of Health and Physical Education professor Dwayne Sheehan, PhD, contributed research to six of these articles. More than 10,000 children, aged eight to 12, from 11 cities across the country participated in the study from 2014 to 2017 through the CHEO Research Institute and research partners. Over the three years, 1,300 students from two Calgary charter schools participated in the research. Using the CAPL, children were assessed on a number of different areas, such as step counts and questions about daily activities. Also evaluated were functional motor proficiency or fundamental movement skills in every child. The results demonstrate that more needs to be done to ensure Canadian children are physically literate.

Two Bachelor of Health and Physical Education — Sport and Recreation Management students have received national awards from the Canadian Society of Club Managers (CSCM). Chris Jennings won the Young Professional Award and Matt Paley won the Val Mason Scholarship. The CSCM provides scholarships to individuals who are pursuing a career in club management.

Professor Yasmin Dean, PhD and chair of the Department of Child Studies and Social Work along with Serbian refugee Boban Stojanovic have penned an article titled “ Identification, please,” set to be published in a third-party social work newsletter and which delves into the complicated experiences of LGBTQ2+ immigrants to Canada. Read the article.

Mount Royal students Jessica Barabas and Tayler Delannoy of the Faculty of Health, Community and Education are reaching an international audience with their research. They are headed to the ISSOTL 2018 Conference in Norway this month to discuss their investigation into whether capstone projects in their faculty could be interdisciplinary.

On Sept. 27, Bachelor of Health and Physical Education — Physical Literacy professor, Dwayne Sheehan, PhD, co-published, “Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, Gross Motor Competence and Peak Height Velocity in 10- to 14-Year-Old Canadian Youth: A Longitudinal Study,” with Karin Lienhard, PhD, of the University of Calgary. The objective of this study was to evaluate gross motor competence and growth spurt in Canadian youth. Read the results.

On Sept. 24, Department of Health and Physical Education adjunct professor, Stephen Norris, PhD, was appointed chair of the Alberta Sports Connection Board of Directors. More.

2016 JMH LaunchPad Pitch Competition alumnus Zac Hartley and his team from Smoke Barrel (now Burgundy Oak) will appear on Dragons' Den on Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. to pitch their venture to the panel of business experts. The company manufactures custom hand-crafted hot and cold smokers from old wine and whiskey barrels.

Fourth-year Bachelor of Health and Physical Education — Physical Literacy student Rebecca Thow, won second overall at the world highland dancing championship held at the Cowal Highland Gathering in Dunoon, Scotland. Last year Thow was named world champion.

Bachelor of Health and Physical Education – Physical Literacy professor, Christy Tomkins-Lane, PhD, won Best Paper of the Year from Spine Journal 2018 for her research " Digital biomarkers of spine and musculoskeletal disease from accelerometers: Defining phenotypes of free-living physical activity in knee osteoarthritis and lumbar spinal stenosis." Tomkins-Lane also took home several prestigious awards for similar work in 2017. Read more. 

Professors Frank Cotae, PhD, and Jacqueline Musabende have received the Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Education (CUIBE) Award for the Best Paper on International Business Education for their research and teaching innovation. Cotae and Musabende acknowledge MRU's Teaching-Learning Enhancement Grant for making the research and development possible. This is the first time a university offering only undergraduate degrees has been nominated at the Academy of International Business.

Professor Sonya Jakubec, PhD, has announced a pilot research project being carried out through the Centre for Child Well-Being (CCWB) and supported by an anonymous donor, the same benefactor who supported the development of the Centre and Mount Royal’s Child Development Lab. Along with community partner Calgary's Urban Project Society (CUPS), the CCWB is exploring the nutritional, mental and social well-being benefits of a 12-week gardening and food literacy program for preschool-aged children and their caregivers. The lead investigator for the project is Professor Lynne Lafave, PhD, who is joined by Jakubec, professors Scott Hughes, PhD, and Judy Gleeson, PhD, along with other faculty members from the Faculty of Health, Community and Education.

Frank Cotae and Jacqueline Musabende received the Consortium for Undergraduate International Business Education (CUIBE) Award for the Best Paper on International Business Education. CUIBE is part of the Academy of International Business (AIB), the highest worldwide forum for research in teaching and theory in international business. This is the first time an undergraduate focused university was nominated and received this award.

In June 2018, Professors Robert Catena and Heather MacLean from the Bachelor of Nursing program won first place in the Education category for their poster "Does Rapid Cycle Deliberate Practice (RCDP) Support Student Nurse Learning During a Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation High Fidelity Simulation?" at the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation & Learning Conference, held in Toronto. Read more.

Department of Biology Professor Trevor Day, PhD, has been studying with colleagues the influence of altitude and physical activity during pregnancy above 3,700 metres. Their article titled, " Extreme Pregnancy: Maternal Physical Activity at Everest Base Camp," was selected for APS select , a collection from the American Physiological Society showcasing some of the best recently published articles in physiological research. The article reports on a 28-year-old third-trimester pregnant native highlander (Sherpa), documenting her physical activity, sleep behavior and physiological measurements during an ascent from 3,440 metres to Everest base camp (~5,300 metres) over eight days in the Nepal Himalaya.

Message from Annalise Van Ham, vice-president, Finance and Administration

It is my sincere pleasure to introduce Mount Royal University’s new Associate Vice-President, Human Resources, Trika MacDonald.

MacDonald comes to Mount Royal from the University of Saskatchewan where she’s served as director of Integrated Human Resources since 2015. MacDonald has an MBA in Human Resource Management from Royal Roads University, and brings a blend of post-secondary, private sector and government experience and a track record of excellence over the past 26 years.

At the University of Calgary, MacDonald held the position of director of Staff Relations and Consulting Services. Following her service at U of C, she was recruited to join Walmart Canada, where she held senior-level roles including national director, Human Resource Employment Practices.

MacDonald’s progressive human resources career began close to home in 1992 with the Government of the Northwest Territories. She’s also worked in human resources-related roles at Parks Canada.

This announcement marks the culmination of a national search that was conducted with the assistance of Davies Park & Associates. Thank you to the selection committee members who participated in this process for their time and commitment:

• Tanya Caissie
• Evan Cortens
• Jeremy Duffin
• Elizabeth Evans
• Aaron LeBlanc
• Catharine Lindland
• Amy Nixon
• Marc Schroeder
• Baset Zarrug
• Andrea Hennel (resource)
   

A special thank you also to Tanya Caissie for her leadership as interim associate vice-president, Human Resources through this search process.

MacDonald’s first official day at MRU is July 16, 2018.

Beginning July 1, Professor Paula Price will begin her term as the new director of Mount Royal's School of Nursing and Midwifery. During her 27 years at Mount Royal, Price has served as interim director for the school and as acting chair for the advanced specialty health studies department. She has also been an active scholar and teacher in the critical care nursing program and is the current editor for the Canadian Journal of Critical Care Nursing and the Canadian Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.

For the second year in a row a Mount Royal student has been named the recipient of the City of Calgary's Aboriginal Youth Award. A member of the Siksika Nation, Wacey Little Light credited the support of his family, community and the Iniskim Centre at Mount Royal University for his success. Last year the award went to business student Latasha Calf Robe.

Student Jordan Hofmeister recently won second place in the Graduate/Undergraduate Student Oral Competition category at the 101st Canadian Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, held by the Canadian Society for Chemistry from May 27 to 31. Hofmeister, a research assistant of chemistry professor Brett McCollum, PhD, presented on his study evaluating the experience of peer learners (similar to teaching assistants) in a flipped classroom environment relative to the criteria of the High Impact Practices of George Kuh. This inquiry was carried out as part of Hofmeister’s fourth-year independent research project.

Bachelor of Science ― Health Science (2017) grad Brandon Shokoples has won a Canadian Graduate Scholarship ― Master's Program worth $17,500 and the Lady Davis Institute/TD Studentship worth $10,000. Currently at McGill University as a graduate student in experimental medicine, during his time at MRU Shokoples engaged in undergraduate research with Professors Brett McCollum, PhD, and Carol Armstrong, PhD. He presented his research at the National Canadian Chemistry Conference in Toronto and the American Chemical Society Conference in San Francisco. Shokoples is the co-author of a publication on the International Network for Chemistry Language Development (DOI: 10.1039/C7RP00220C), and co-author of a second article that is currently under review. He also served as a peer leader for the peer-led team-learning environment McCollum facilitates, and appeared in the latest issue of Summit in the article “ Alumni Gone Grad.”

Updated June 12, 2018 — Professor Lynn Moorman, PhD, of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, received the Influencer of the Year award on June 7 at Tecterras's North51 Connect event in recognition of her accomplishments in the geospatial industry. Tecterra is a not-for-profit organization supporting job creation and innovation in start-ups and small Alberta companies, and the awards were part of an Inventures Canada “unconference” for creative minds.

On May 23, Tom Buchanan, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, delivered his research, "Exploring the Impacts of Helicopter Parenting and Parental Contact on University Students in the United States: Well-Being, Drug Use, and Self-Efficacy," at the University of Colombo's Department of Sociology Lecture Series during his field school excursion to Sri Lanka. Buchanan also appeared in the fall/winter 2017 issue of Summit magazine as part of the feature story “ Under Pressure,” which reports on the unique stressors today’s undergraduates find themselves under. 

English professor Natalie Meisner’s (PhD) play, “ Legislating Love: The Everett Klippert Story,” has been nominated for a Betty Mitchell Award in the categories of Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. A beloved Calgarian bus driver, Klippert was the last person in Canada to be tried and convicted under legislation allowing the jailing of homosexuals in 1965.

Mount Royal University’s nursing alumna (and former valedictorian) Roisin Dillon won the top prize at the prestigious Oxford Map the System Challenge at Oxford University over the weekend with a passionate submission and presentation highlighting possible solutions to the opioid crisis in Canada. Read more.

Recent Bachelor of Nursing alumnus Josiah (Michael) De Los Santos, has published an article in a new interdisciplinary, undergraduate journal created through the University of Alberta called Spectrum . De Los Santos's article, titled " A Socio-ecological Framing of the Philippine Mental Health Act of 2017," evolved out of a major paper/final assignment for PhD Sonya Jakubec's spring/summer 2017 course on critical mental health promotion, NURS 4465: Supportive Environments for Mental Health.

A recognized international leader in the theoretical aspects of the study of religion, Professor Steven Engler, PhD, recently gave the keynote address at the Second International Conference on Religion and Healing at Sogang University in South Korea. As an ongoing consultant for the research team behind the conference, Engler wrote a long context-paper, “Religion/Healing, Theory/Method,” which was published in the conference proceedings. It explored issues raised by the dialogue between religious/traditional healing systems and biomedicine/western medicine. His keynote, “Theorizing Healing in Umbanda,” drew on a Brazilian spirit-possession religion to illustrate themes from the paper.

“With mainstream medical systems under increasing pressure, attention is turning toward how to incorporate insights from alternative healing systems in a responsible and rigorous way. Questions we discussed included therapeutic impacts of religious rituals, the idea of 'total healing,' physical, mental and spiritual, and how doctors' cultural sensitivity can motivate patients to stick with their ‘western’ medical treatments,” Engler says.

Medical doctors, Buddhist monks, Christian Scientists and Religious Studies scholars were among the presenters at the conference. Engler also met with the research team and graduate students. He will be delivering another keynote in early August titled “Teorização na Ciência da Religião [Theorizing in the Study of Religion]” at the 6th Colloquium of the Research Group on Religion and Culture, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

At the recent Canadian finals for the Oxford Map the System Challenge, recent MRU Bachelor of Nursing grad Roisin Dillon (also a former valedictorian) shared the top prize with teams from Simon Fraser University and Royal Roads University. Dillon will participate in the global finals from June 1 to 3 at Oxford University. 

Two MRU journalism projects have been nominated by the Canadian Association of Journalists in the Student Award of Excellence category, alongside projects from three other universities, including McGill, UBC (graduate program) and University of King's College. 

• Jolene Rudisuela, Lexi Wright and Amy Simpson, plus their instructor Patti Edgar, for Closing Midfield . (Winners)
• Karina Yaceyko and Ashley King, plus their instructor Patti Edgar, for Beneath the Embers: Uncovering the lasting effects of the Fort McMurray wildfire.

Chemistry professor Brett McCollum, PhD, was recently elected chair of SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) Canada, and will be serving on the board of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. McCollum has also served as the acting academic director of Mount Royal's Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Professor Richard Harrison's Governor General's Literary Award-winning book "On Not Losing My Father's Ashes in the Flood" has been translated into Italian. He will also be reading at Italy's International Poetry Festival in June 7.

Devon Proctor, a recent Mount Royal University information design graduate (2017), received a Bronze Award from the International Institute for Information Design (IIID) for her outstanding work on a project submitted an assignment for COMM 4665 ― Instructional Design on the topic of using medicine for cataract surgery. The IIID is recognized as the premier organization in the field of information design, and the awards represent internationally recognized superior achievement in the field.

On April 19, the Nursing Education Program Approval Board (NEPAB), granted a five-year re-approval for Mount Royal's Bachelor of Nursing program to lead to initial-entry to practice as a Registered Nurse. The re-approval comes after a rigorous program approval process to be able to graduate students that meet industry standards to become practicing nurses.

The 13th annual ATB Investor Services Investment Challenge, otherwise known as the Bissett Stock Market Competition, wrapped up at the end of March after seven months. Starting in September 2017, this year saw a record number of 33 teams compete. The winning team of Bissett students Austin Glenn, Lucy Javorcikova and Harrison Lane had an outstanding return of 92%. The second place team of Jarett Bishop, Rob Flach and Graham Perry managed an impressive 54% return, and the third place team of David Carlson, Amy Gillies and Ahsan Khan were close behind with a return of 44%. All three teams were the recipients of cash prizes. The winning team was immortalized by having their names inscribed on the Stock Market Competition trophy.

Wes Lafortune, an alumnus of Mount Royal's communications program (2000) and illustrator Samantha Rogan were recently honoured with an IABC Gold Quill Award in the Communications category for their work  on the Hull Services 2017 Annual Report, Diary of an Angry Young Man . Hull is a registered charitable organization with more than 400 employees that serves children and families who face serious mental health challenges.

Lafortune says, "It’s a real honour for Hull Services and as always the ultimate objective is to bring attention to children’s mental health and how Hull Services is leading the way in providing trauma informed care to thousands of Calgary children and their families on an annual basis."

Mount Royal has been allocated $2 million in funding for two new Canada Research Chairs (CRCs). The University will be able to bring on a Tier 2 CRC (emerging researcher) for five years and a Tier 1 CRC for seven years. The process of determining how to nominate applicants for these opportunities will begin soon. In addition, MRU was successful in the new Social Sciences and Humanities (SSHRC) Institutional Grant process and will receive $36,500 in each of the next three years to allocate as internal SSHRC Explore (research) and Engage (dissemination) grants. These will be adjudicated and awarded in parallel with the existing Internal Research Grant Fund (IRGF) and Faculty Conference Travel Grant (FCTG) processes and will provide the equivalent of five additional IRGFs and seven FCTGs per year. This is a huge boost to research and scholarship at MRU.

The Centre for Community Disaster Research's (CCDR) report titled, "Rising Waters, Difficult Decisions, Findings and Recommendations from the Calgary Flood Project" is being featured on PreventionWeb, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction's website. The site receives 100,000 visitors per month. Sociology professor and director of the CCDR Tim Haney, PhD, presents some surprising findings about residents’ awareness of flood risk, their decisions to evacuate, compensation, disruptions to relationships, their decisions to remain and plans for the future. Read more about the report.

Three papers by Mount Royal University students Spirit River Striped Wolf (Bachelor of Arts - Policy Studies), Taryn Hamilton (Bachelor of Arts - Justice Studies) and Braden Etzerza (Bachelor of Science - Environmental Science) will be presented at the Global Conference on Indigenizing Entrepreneurship, to be held at Algonquin College from June 3 to 5 in Ottawa. All three papers are derived from experiences with Otahpiakki, a social innovation project based at Mount Royal that partners with Indigenous designers and artists from across Canada. Spirit River Striped Wolf will describe Otahpiaaki as a seven-generations "seed-to-runway" economic model focused on Indigenous fashion and design. Taryn Hamilton will demonstrate how Otahpiaaki Law Keepers are transforming and protecting the rights of Indigenous designers, artists, and creative entrepreneurs, and Braden Etzerza will explore "deep beauty" and Survivance, the foundational values supporting the four pillars of Otahpiaaki's entrepreneurial approach. The work was co-researched and written with Elders Jeannie Smith Davis and Roy Bear Chief along with contributions from Otahpiaaki colleagues Jordan Piraux (Bachelor of Communications - Information Design)  and Patti Derbyshire (Associate Faculty - Marketing, Entrepreneurship & Social Innovation).

March 19 was International Certified Nurses Day.

International Certified Nurses Day recognizes the contributions of certified registered nurses (RNs) to advancing the profession and supporting continuing competence.

Created by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and the American Nurses Association in
2008,  International Certified Nurses Day is now celebrated around the world. In Canada, 18,039 RNs are certified by the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) in one of 21 specialties/areas of nursing practice.

Certified RNs are …

• recognized nationally for their practice excellence and commitment to lifelong learning
• valued by employers, because their certification demonstrates specialized knowledge and brings many benefits to organizations
• viewed as having enhanced professional credibility

The School of Nursing and Midwifery would like to recognize the following nine faculty members with a Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) certification in a specialty area:

• Sandra Gordon (gerontological nursing)
• Cathy Carter-Snell (emergency nursing)
• Tricia Bray (critical care nursing)
• Marnie Lento (gerontological nursing)
• Heather McLellan (emergency nursing and flight registered nurse (U.S. versions of CNA)
• Terri McGrath (critical care nursing)
• Tess Astley (medical-surgical nursing)
• Clara Puzey (cardiovascular nursing)
• Gregg Trueman (hospice palliative care nursing)

Mount Royal English professor Micheline Maylor (who is also Calgary's 2016-2018 Poet Laureate) has been shortlisted for the League of Canadian Poets' Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Maylor's Little Wildheart is published by the University of Alberta Press.

Gregg Trueman, professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, has been nominated for an Alberta Health Services President’s Excellence Award as part of the East Calgary Family Care Clinic and Patient Advisory Group for Outstanding Achievement in Patient and Family Centred Care.

Four current students, one graduate student and one post-graduate student (all trainees of Professor Trevor Day, Department of Biology) will be presenting their research at the Okanagan Cardiovascular and Respiratory Symposium. Topics include studies in acute hyperglycemia, renal acid-base compensation and acute exercise impairment of cognitive function at high altitudes.

A team of four Bissett School of Business human resources students placed second at the recent HRC West Case Competition, which was hosted by SAIT on March 2 and 3. This human resources focused case competition is a joint initiative of the Chartered Professionals in Human Resources (CPHR) Alberta and the CPHR BC and Yukon professional associations, and aims to develop and showcase the HR stars of the future. Groups from 17 post-secondary institutions from across western Canada participated.

Mount Royal’s team members (under the name of Insightful HR) were Layli Ataie, Colleen Berner, Meredith Johnson, and Jennifer Miko. They were provided with a business case (not previously seen), and were given only three hours to read, analyze, make recommendations and prepare a persuasive and professional presentation to deliver to three CPHR judges from various industries. The team had just 20 minutes to deliver that polished presentation and then respond to 10 minutes of questions from the judges based on their presentation. The finals consisted of a second presentation to the entire case competition delegation in front of a new panel of three judges and over 100 people in the audience.

Mount Royal's journalism program's publication the Calgary Journal has been named as a finalist in the categories of Print Cover ("Black Lives Matter Here, Too" by Mary Yohannes and Jan Kirstyn Lopez), Online News Site ( CalgaryJournal.ca) and Multimedia Production (" Closing Midfield" by Jolene Rudisuela, Amy Simpson and Lexi Wright, as well as faculty supervisor Patti Edgar) of the 2018 Emerge Media Awards.

Emerge recognizes the work of post-secondary journalism programs across the country.

Mount Royal University's Enactus team finished first in the Capital One Financial Education Challenge at the regional competition held March 1 and 2. They are headed to nationals in Toronto, to be held May 14 to 16.

MRU will receive up to $82,000 for a period of four years as a recent recipient of the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships program. These scholarships were awarded because of Mount Royal's Sport Leaders International Internship Program. This funding will support 12 international internships ($6,000 each) for qualified students.

Also included is an additional $1,000 per student to support networking, leadership and community engagement activities as well as other project administration requirements. The program will be managed by International Education in close collaboration with Professor Julie Booke of the Department of Health and Physical Education.

MRU is partnered with the Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC) NGO. Students will be placed at a Commonwealth Games site over the four-year period.  Project countries include Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Zambia and Namibia. In total, $5.8 million of funding will support 650 students in 20 Canadian university-led projects. Undergraduate and graduate students will enrich their academic, professional and cross-cultural skills while contributing to global projects led by participating Canadian universities.

Five senior finance students from the Bissett School of Business took home first prize at the CFA Society Winnipeg Ethics Challenge held at the end of January. The win earned the team a spot at the Canadian Ethics Challenge finals, to be held in Vancouver in May.

The team members were Dylan Assen, Tiffany Doyle, Harrison Kozak, Andy McAuley and Graham Perry. The competition included six universities: University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of Saskatchewan, University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg, in addition to Mount Royal. The students had four weeks to analyze and evaluate a case, which presented several ethical dilemmas. Their task was to identify the violations of the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct and to recommend a course of action to address the situations. They had 10 minutes to present their findings to a panel of industry judges, followed by 10 minutes of intense questioning by the judges. 

In Vancouver the team will compete against the top teams from the other four Canadian regions: British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.  

In January, four Mount Royal University geology students attended the Western Inter-University Geoscience Conference (WIUGC), which was hosted by the University of Regina this year. Bringing in students from roughly seven schools across Western Canada, during the conference the Regional Divisions of Challenge Bowl was held by the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists. This game-show style geoscience trivia contest was won by MRU students Darby Desrosiers and Alex Patterson, who will compete next at the Canadian National Finals at GeoConvention 2018 in Calgary. The conference brings together students in the geosciences and enables them to interact with each other, offering short courses, field trips, student presentations and an industry fair.

Early in 2018 the Institute for Community Prosperity welcomed Cathy Glover to the campus's Changemaker in Residence team. Glover comes to Mount Royal from a long career in the energy industry and volunteering with charitable and non-profit organizations in Calgary. Because of her ability to have a system-wide view, Elder Casey Eaglespeaker gifted Glover with the name Aahpii Pitahgii, which means White Eagle Woman. Glover is based out of the Trico Changemakers Studio. Read more.

Professor Scharie Tavcer, PhD, of the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies Women is co-author of the recently released Women and the Criminal Justice System: A Canadian Perspective, 2nd Edition . The only text of its kind that covers female offenders, victims, and workers in a single resource, the work features a breadth of perspectives from authors and academics located across Canada, giving this edition a well rounded, in-depth approach.

Sonya Jakubec, PhD and Mohamed El Hussein, both professors in Mount Royal's School of Nursing and Midwifery, were each recently nominated for a 2018 College & Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta (CARNA) Excellence Award for Research. This is the second year in a row both educators have received this honour.

Established in 2009 by Liza Choi, a professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, the English As An Additional Language (EAL) Nursing Student Support Program has helped over 250 students. This program was founded on the principle of stemming the tide of academic challenges faced by these students in addition to issues of communication, social isolation and marginalization. Using a purposeful design to address both academic and non-academic issues, the framework for this group has combined a number of elements, which include: workshops for clinical and non-clinical communication, large group social gatherings, peer coaching and faculty support. This holistic approach has allowed many EAL/international nursing students to achieve academic success. Scholarly work being performed by Choi examining the effectiveness and impact of this unique program is ongoing and has shown great promise. Extension of this program to other faculties and institutions has been considered and offers a rich opportunity to meet the educational needs of an even greater population of diverse students. 

Samanti Kulatilake, PhD and professor in Mount Royal’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology received training in DNA extraction, amplification, sequencing and interpretation at the Paleo-DNA Laboratory, Lakehead University in August 2017. With this training, Kulatilake is able to integrate newly obtained knowledge in her classes in biological anthropology, a subfield in anthropology that is highly sought after by MRU anthropology majors. Future plans are a collaboration with Patrick Carmichael, PhD and adjunct professor in anthropology at MRU to conduct a feasibility study on extracting ancient DNA from mummified human remains from an archaeological cemetery site in Peru.

Mount Royal community service learning students made a big difference in the lives of many through the creation of a pamphlet detailing how food bank clients could better use the food they receive in hampers. Chelsea Harney spearheaded the project after volunteering with the food bank and learning that recipients often have difficulties using all their perishable items before they go bad. Harney and four other students created a pamphlet detailing how to make their food last longer and providing healthy recipe suggestions. Harney estimates they have reached 300 families so far. Read the Calgary Herald article.

Rochelle Longval, an alumna of Mount Royal's Bachelor of Science ― Geology program, was recently recognized with a 2017 YWE Award. The Young Women in Energy website states that, "YWE aims to address the recognized need to increase female presence, development and leadership in the energy industry." Longval is currently an exploration geologist with Cenovus Energy.

Professor Christy Tomkins-Lane of the Faculty of Health, Community and Education's 2017 paper titled, "Objective measurement of free-living physical activity (performance) in lumbar spinal stenosis: are physical activity guidelines being met?" received the Surgical Award in October in Orlando at the North American Spine Society's (NASS) annual meeting. Tomkins-Lane also gave an invited symposium at the event. The same paper was also was also named The Spine Journal Outstanding Paper in Medical and Interventional Science Runner Up. Additionally, Tomkins-Lane's 2016 paper titled, "Objective measurement of function following lumbar spinal stenosis decompression reveals improved functional capacity with stagnant real-life physical activity" won Outstanding Paper in Medical and Interventional Science Runner Up from both NASS and the Spine journal.

The creator of Mount Royal's independent coffee stop, Barrow, business student Ryan Wenger was named the EO Entrepreneur of the Year at the award ceremony on Nov. 8. Business student Ormhel Manuel, whose newest venture is called Barberri, received second. The event was hosted at the Riddell Library and Learning Centre in the Ideas Visualization Lounge.

Mount Royal has won this competition in the past three consecutive years! Winners include Derek Rucki (TLink), Paul Shumlich (Deepwater Farms) and Austin Lang (Green Cup).

Chief Information Officer Michael Barr of Mount Royal's Information Technology Services recently received a Pillar Award from the Alberta Technology Leaders in Education association at their 2017 Convergence Conference. The award honours outstanding contributions to supporting the convergence of leadership, learning and technology in Alberta.

Mount Royal English Professor Richard Harrison has been announced as the winner of the 2017 Governor General's Literary Awards for his collection, On Not Losing My Father's Ashes in the Flood . Publisher Wolsak and Wynn describes the work as, " a generous and enchanting book, one that leaves you, like the poet, thinking about the way 'characters in a novel can escape anything / except their story.'"

Other awards for On Not Losing My Father’s Ashes in the Flood include:

• Winner of the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry from the Writers' Guild of Alberta
• Winner of the 3rd Prize for Poetry in the 2017 Alcuin Society's Book Design Awards
• Shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry
• Shortlisted for the City of Calgary 2016 W.O. Mitchell Book Prize
• Finalist for the Poetry category of the High Plains Book Awards
• Number one on the Calgary Herald's bestseller list for non-fiction

His six books of poetry include Big Breath of a Wish , poems about his daughter’s acquisition of language, and Hero of the Play , poems in the language of hockey, which was launched at the Hockey Hall of Fame. He has published on literary criticism, cosplay, spoken word poetry, and mathematics. As well as hockey and literature (about which he co-edited the collection Now is the Winter ), Richard also contributes to the scholarship on the superhero: with MRU colleague Lee Easton, he co-authored the book of essays, Secret Identity Reader (2010). Harrison teaches composition, creative writing (poetry), and comics and graphic novels.

The Bissett School of Business’s concentration in financial analysis has been admitted to the CFA Institute's University Affiliation Program. This affiliation is awarded to academic institutions that insert a significant portion of the CFA Program Candidate Body of Knowledge, including the CFA Institute Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct, into their curriculum. The recognition will allow the Bissett School of Business to award several CFA Program scholarships each year, and signals that the curriculum of the financial analysis concentration is closely tied to the practice of investment management and is helpful to students preparing for the CFA Program exams.

Professor Cathy Carter-Snell, PhD, of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, has been named on of the 150 Leading Canadians for Mental Health. Her four-hour training session for professionals ― including police officers, social workers, nurses, physicians and lawyers ― teaches how to be trauma informed, dispels myths, promotes resilience and recovery and reduces the guilt and shame surrounding sexual assault. She has worked to spread the training across Alberta and Prince Edward Island, and also offers an online version. A nationally and internationally recognized expert in caring for victims of violence, Carter-Snell’s expertise is changing how sexual violence and trauma are being responded to in domains ranging from university campuses to natural disasters. Carter-Snell was also very involved with the Stephanson-Cook Violence Awareness Seminar held at MRU on Nov. 15.

Watch Carter-Snell discuss secondary victimization here.

Recreation recently earned a nomination for a 2017 Developmental Disabilities Resource Centre (DDRC) of Calgary Inclusion Award in recognition of Rec's provision of a welcoming and inclusive place to play on campus. The nominator stated that, "The staff at the recreation facility are very polite, friendly, and approachable for our clients (adults with developmental disabilities), and have made an effort to make them feel comfortable while using the facility. They have made a point of getting to know our clients and foster an inclusive environment."

Creative writing professor Beth Everest's (PhD) book of poems, silent sister: the mastectomy poems (Frontenac House) won this year's BPAA Awards' Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry. Edited by Mount Royal's Micheline Maylor (PhD), silent sister explores the impact of severe illness on the mind, body and spirit. The work was also shortlisted for both the League of Canadian Poets' Raymond Souster Award and the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize.

Bissett School of Business graduate Jenn Lofgren (2007), chief executive officer and founder of Incito, recently achieved her Master Certified Coach accreditation – one of only 54 in Canada, and three in Calgary. The designation of Master Certified Coach is awarded by the International Coach Federation, which addresses the standards and ethics professional coaching.

Mount Royal English Professor Kit Dobson's (PhD) newest book Malled: Deciphering Shopping in Canada (Wolsak & Wynn) is set to be released in late September/early October. Dobson unapologetically hates malls ― yet he finds them fascinating at the same time. For this work he braves the distracted crowds and shiny floors of Chinook Centre in Calgary, the underground shopping marts of Montreal, Whitehorse's famous Walmart and more to explore Canada's culture of consumerism and how malls reflect the people they serve and the space they occupy. 

Mount Royal's new Human Rights Advisor, Khaula Bhutta, will provide private support for individuals with questions, concerns or complaints involving discrimination, harassment and accommodation. Bhutta has a LL.M in International Human Rights Law and Practice from the University of York and a Bachelor of Arts ― Law, Politics and Economics from Dublin City University. She is an experienced advisor who has helped individuals, institutions and charities with human rights related issues in Canada, Ireland, UK and Malaysia.

Professor Erika Smith, PhD, of the Academic Development Centre, is building broader understanding of undergraduate digital literacies by investigating student perceptions and uses of social media in their learning. Building on her previous findings demonstrating that social media is a double-edged sword that serves as a meaningful part of university education, while both informing and distracting from learning, Smith was recently awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2017-2019) titled "Undergraduate Digital Literacies in Disciplinary Contexts" to research undergraduate digital literacies in their disciplinary contexts.

Released by Canadian Scholars' Press this month, School of Nursing and Midwifery professor and PhD Sonya Jakubec's newest book, Research Literacy for Health and Community Practice , features a chapter contributed by MRU librarian Cari Merkley and is coauthored by former MRU faculty member Barb Astle.
The book's overview states that its contents will, "introduce students to fundamental research concepts that will enable them to think critically about research and to recognize effective methods for understanding and utilizing research for practice."

Ormhel Manuel and cofounder Abby Mejia of Carberri, a company born through Mount Royal's Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship that was one of the winners at this year's LaunchPad competition, recently took home second place in a Alberta-wide post-secondary pitch competition as part of the Innovation Rodeo (held over Stampede week). Carberri provides a safer and better way to buy and sell a used car. Both Manuel and Mejia are Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) students with the Bissett School of Business. To reach the finals Manuel won the Calgary regionals against strong competition from the University of Calgary. This came with a $3,000 cash award. On July 14, Manuel came in a close second in a field of five regional winners from across Alberta. Carberri took home an additional $5,000 for this achievement. Interestingly, the team that edged Manuel and Mejia out of first place overall was from McEwan University, but had an MRU connection. Marc Nzojibwami, an MRU BBA student, was a key member of the winning team along with McEwan students.

Professor Yasmin Dean of the Department of Child Studies and Social Work and Professor Catherine Pearl of the Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Social Innovation helped organize the Social Entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia (SESA) Conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, this past spring (May 22 to 24).

The conference highlighted the benefits of creating enterprises and opportunities in which profit and community building can intersect, a key element of social innovation and changemaking. Pearl says, “The conference provided a platform that enabled inter-disciplinary and multi-institutional collaboration, aimed at promoting social entrepreneurship and creating positive social impact in Southeast Asia.”

Pearl has started work on another conference, this one closer to home. Canada's first-ever National Conference on Social Innovation is scheduled for July 3 to 5, 2018 at Mount Royal.

Melanie Peacock, PhD and human resources professor with the Bissett School of Business, has published her latest book, The Human Resource Professional’s Guide To Change Management Practical Tools And Techniques To Enact Meaningful And Lasting Organizational Change (Business Expert Press) . The work covers ways to help an organization effectively deal with change and will serve as a tool for human resource students and professionals.

The Institute for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISOTL) has concluded the search for its new director with the selection of Michelle Yeo, PhD, a current faculty member with the Academic Development Centre (ADC). Yeo will continue with the ADC on a part-time basis in the areas of curriculum and assessment, as well as furthering cross-campus efforts on indigenization. She is an award-winning teacher and member of leading educational associations such as the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the Canadian Society for the Study of Education and the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. At Mount Royal, she’s served on the Teaching and Learning Standing Committee, General Faculties Council and Human Research Ethics Board. As director of ISOTL she will help advance research and practice, support multidisciplinary collaborations and develop future leaders in the field.

At the recent IST (Information Systems and Technology) Africa Conference in Windhoek, Namibia, Mount Royal computer science professor Faith-Michael Uzoka and team took home one of two Best Presentation awards. Their innovation is a smart pill dispenser that also doubles as a medical assistant, with two-way communication between the patient and the medical practitioner. Uzoka says they will use feedback received at the conference to continue work on increasing the efficiency and reducing the size of the smart medicine cabinet, and they looking for funds to advance the product (which has been patented) to the next level. Uzoka is also known for his work in developing an application to help diagnose and fight back against common tropical diseases in Africa.

Humanities professor Emily Hutchison’s original research titled “Policing Late Medieval Paris” looks at how the emergence of a royal policing force affected civil governance, as well as class, gender, and racial relations in late medieval Paris. The recipient of a SSHRC Insight Development Grant in 2016, Hutchison is a specialist in medieval culture and history with a particular interest in the history of violence and warfare in France. Currently in Paris carrying out archival work, Hutchison’s SSHRC grant extends until June 2018.

Travis Juska, who graduated from Mount Royal with a Bachelor of Applied Justice Studies (2006), was recently invested into the Canada Order of Merit of the Police Forces. According to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police website, "The Order of Merit of the Police Forces is a fellowship of honour based on the highest qualities of citizenship, service to Canada, to the police community and to humanity at large." A sergeant with the Calgary Police Service, Juska received a Member Award. He carries out outreach work in the community, often speaks with students in the justice program, is a mentor in the Harry G. Schaefer Mentorship program and is on the leadership group for the Criminal Justice Alumni Chapter.

Mount Royal professors and poetry ambassadors derek beaulieu, Beth Everest and Richard Harrison typed out custom poems as part of the opening events of the Alberta Student Leadership Conference in Lacombe May 28. This most recent Pop-Up Poetry event took place among other attractions such as a rock band, carnie games and a hot dog stand. "There we were," says Harrison, "doing our typing in the shade of a huge tree, a poetic island of cool in the hot sun ocean of fun and games."

Enrolment Services also provided more than 2,000 MRU backpacks for the student leaders in attendance.

School of Nursing and Midwifery professor Aliyah Dosani, PhD has received a three-year Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant to pursue her study titled, "Psychosocial distress during pregnancy and pathways to preterm birth: Building evidence in LMIC to guide targeted psychosocial interventions.” The study seeks to understand the association between emotional distress during pregnancy, biological measures of emotional distress, and preterm (early) birth (PTB) in a low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Emotional distress places pregnant women at increased risk for giving birth too early and negatively affects their well-being and that of their infants.

Mount Royal University sexual violence response and awareness coordinator Cari Ionson has been named to a newly-formed Calgary Police Service (CPS) committee that will review review sexual assault cases that have been closed as unfounded. The committee will offer advice on whether an investigation could be improved to ensure the CPS carried out as thorough and complete an investigation as possible. Set to meet at least three times a year, the committee also includes representatives from the Calgary Sexual Assault Response Team, Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse, the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre and the Alberta Status of Women Ministry. Read more about Ionson's role on campus.

Cathy Smey Carston, director of the Centre for Child Well-Being, was awarded the Alberta Early Childhood Education Association's (AECEA) Dr. Sherrill Brown Award of Distinction at the AECEA conference held on campus May 13. This award has extra significance in that Smey-Carston worked closely with Brown, who the award was named after.

A study co-written by Mount Royal professor Bob Uttl and Saint Mary's University PhD candidate Dylan Smibert titled, “Student Evaluations of Teaching: Teaching Quantitative Courses Can Be Hazardous to One’s Career," was recently noted in an Inside Higher Ed article titled, "What are Students Rating When They Rate Professors." Part of the findings were that class subject had a large impact on student satisfaction and eventual prof ratings. The complete study is available on PeerJ .

After careful counting of votes by an independent facilitator, Stone & Olafson, it's confirmed! Calgary has shown it's love for Mount Royal and named the University as WINNER of this year's Best Educational Institute category.

Professor Mohamed El Hussein of Mount Royal's School of Nursing & Midwifery was the recipient of this year's Alberta Nursing Education Administrators' (ANEA) Nursing Educator Award. El Hussein was nominated by Professor Cathy Carter-Snell.

Francesca Simon, wellness services administrator for Health Services & Optimal Therapies applied and was accepted for a second three-year term serving on the Health Advisory Council for Prairie Mountain with Alberta Health Services. This provides Mount Royal with a voice in the future of the province's healthcare system around various issues such as access, quality and wait times. Please let Francesca know of any needs and hopes for a better healthcare system.

Mount Royal's Summit magazine was awarded silver in the Digital Presence category for Summit online and silver in the Photograph Essay or Series category for the " Rapid Momentum - Summit Spring, 2016 " photo spread at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association (AMPA) Awards March 16. Summit beat out entries from publications such Avenue, Western Living, New Trail and Swerve.

The "Cougars — Rapid Momentum" photo series accompanying a story about Mount Royal's journey to the CIS found in the Spring 2016 issue of Summit magazine recently won an Applied Arts Community Award. See the complete story online here.

Human Resources Director (HRD) magazine has named Melanie Peacock, human resources professor in the Bissett School of Business, to their annual Hot List. Bringing together the “best of the best” in the industry, Peacock is considered among the top 30 high achievers in the industry.

Angela Ryu of The Conservatory's Advanced Performance Program, recently took home the top prize at the 2017 RBC Concerto Competition. A collaboration between the Mount Royal Conservatory, the University of Calgary music department and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the RBC Concerto Competition supports the development of emerging artists and the achievement of artistic goals.

On March 10, Professor Anupam Das (PhD) of the Department of Economics, Justice and Policy Studies was recognized in the Achievement Under 35 category of the 2017 Calgary Immigrants of Distinction Awards. Das's research interests include economic growth, international financial flows to developing countries and heterodox economics.

Benjamin Maeseele, a graduate of Mount Royal's Employment Preparation Certificate Program (2016) is heading to Austria in to compete at the 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games, beginning March 9. Maeseele will compete in figure skating, and says in this Calgary Herald article , “I am most excited to meet other competitors who have made it this far.”

Mount Royal University has partnered with the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine for their Brain in Motion study that looks to advance knowledge of relationship between exercise and brain health. Mount Royal's contribution to the study is being led by Julie Booke, PhD, interim chair of the Department of Health and Physical Education.

From U of C's UToday:

"With 25,000 Canadians diagnosed with dementia each year, by 2030 the number of Canadians living with the disease will be just shy of one million. Finding a cure, or even effective treatment options, is a daunting task, complicated by the fact that researchers don’t know what causes dementia in the first place.
With this in mind, a group of researchers are looking to exercise — the only intervention that has been shown to have a disease-modifying effect — for answers."

Professor Peter Choate of MRU's Department of Child Studies and Social Work was invited to join the provincial government's child intervention panel, struck after several reported cases of injury, harm and loss of life while under government care. Also on the panel are Bruce MacLaurin, professor at the University of Calgary's social work faculty, Patti LaBoucane-Benson, research and evaluation director at NCSA, five NDP MLAs and a member from each opposition party. Results are expected in early March. Edmonton Sun article.

Facilities Management recently received an exclusive Energy Cost Index (ECI) Award from Camfil for their introduction of state-of-the-art, 5-Star Energy Cost Index (ECI) air filters in the U Wing in 2016. The change has resulted in electricity costs decreasing by a whopping 49 per cent, and the filters' longer service life also means a reduction in landfill waste and a large drop in carbon dioxide emissions. The Camfil award is presented to those who work to improve air quality and conserve natural resources, putting their employees, visitors, customers and the environment first.

Due to the success of Mount Royal's Pop-Up Poetry events, three writers from the Department of English, Languages and Cultures were recently invited to take part in Universities Canada's Converge 2017 conference in Ottawa. Professors Micheline Maylor (Calgary's current Poet Laureate), Richard Harrison and derek beaulieu each typed out custom poems for attendees. This year's conference theme was, "What kind of Canada do we want in the next 50 years?" and it was clear that poetry will continue to play a major role in our futures. Read Richard Harrison's thoughts about the experience.

Professor Leah Hamilton of Mount Royal's Academic Development Centre's article "The Global Refugee Crisis: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications for Improving Public Attitudes and Facilitating Refugee Resettlement," was recently published in the academic journal Social Issues and Policy Review. The article discusses improving public attitudes and facilitating refugee resettlement, and the ensuing policy implications, and was co-authored with Victoria M. Esses of the University of Western Ontario and Danielle Gaucher of the University of Winnipeg. 

Professor Steven Engler, (PhD), of the Department of Humanities, is co-editor of two major religious studies handbooks, both of which were just released. The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religion was co-edited with Michael Stausberg of the University of Bergen (Norway), and the Handbook of Contemporary Religions in Brazil was co-edited with Bettina E. Schmidt, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

Interim dean of the Faculty of Health, Community and Education Pam Nordstrom, PhD, and Jennifer Pettit, PhD, chair of the Department of Humanities, have each been awarded The Chair Academy’s 2017 International Exemplary Leadership Award for their ability to advance academic and administrative leadership. The annual conference will be held on March 30 in Orlando, Fla.