Campus Alberta Leadership

The first act passed by Alberta's legislature in 1905 was the University Act, signalling from the very beginning that a strong post-secondary education system would be the foundation of the province's future prosperity and well-being. Almost 100 years later, with 26 post-secondary institutions well established, the province launched Campus Alberta in 2002 as "a concept, a set of principles and a way in which the learning system works together." The aim? To encourage and support academic and administrative co-operation and collaboration among the institutions, while also recognizing and capitalizing on their different but complementary roles.

Academic Leadership

The University of Alberta has demonstrated leadership and service among its provincial peers, since the inception of Campus Alberta. Committed to easing the flow of students from one campus to another and from program to program, Campus Alberta, through the Alberta Council on Admissions and Transfers, now boasts the most effective student transfer program on the continent. To date, the U of A has negotiated more than 5,200 transfer agreements, enabling more than 27,000 students to move from other provincial institutions to the U of A. More than one in four U of A students begin their studies at another institution, while a small number U of A students move to other Campus Alberta institutions to continue undergraduate studies and pursue graduate and professional programs.

Through Campus Alberta, the university is able to bring students to its campuses, as well as "travel" to students in remote, rural communities, offering them the advantages of research-enriched learning experiences close to home. U of A Libraries, for example, has opened access to an exceptional collection of more than 10 million items to Alberta students through NEOS, a growing, multi-library consortium headquartered at the U of A, and The Alberta Library, an aggregating service extending to patrons of municipal and small-town libraries. The First Nations Information Connections, which provides electronic access to the U of A's vast digital collections, has also dramatically increased the holdings available to small First Nations colleges. The U of A also hosts the Lois Hole Campus Alberta Digital Library, funded by Alberta Enterprise and Advanced Education, to provide access to digital resources and collections.

Through a number of collaborations and agreements, the university has also enabled rural and Aboriginal students to study in home environments while earning U of A degrees. The benefits are many-not only for the students, but also for rural communities-because many of these collaborative programs prepare students for careers that are in high demand in rural settings. Examples include

  • 2+2 programs: Students take first two years at a college and then complete their degrees on campus at the U of A.

  • collaborative programs: Students admitted take the first (typically two) years of a transfer program as college students, then apply for admission to the U of A and finish the program earning a U of A degree while never leaving home. The final two years of instruction are delivered by U of A instructors on site at the same institution.

  • Aboriginal Teacher Education Program: Aboriginal, Métis and Inuit students earn a U of A bachelor of education degree, taking their classes at Portage College in Lac La Biche and Cold Lake, Northern Lakes College in Grouard and Wabasca, and Blue Quills First Nations College in St. Paul.

  • Collaborative Baccalaureate Program in Nursing: Nursing students (nearly 1,500 to date) study in their home communities and intern at local hospitals while earning a U of A degree, due to collaboration and standardized curriculum among the U of A and Grande Prairie Regional College, Keyano College and Red Deer College.

As the flagship Comprehensive Academic and Research Institution (CARI) in Campus Alberta, the U of A develops research partnerships of benefit to the whole system. For example, President Indira Samarasekera proposed and worked with CARI partners and the ministry to define and shape the Campus Alberta Innovates Program (CAIP) chairs. Throughout the joint appointment and identification of research theme processes, Alberta's top research universities co-operated to avoid overlap and maximize the future potential for interdisciplinary and inter-institutional research collaboration.

In addition to the CAIP chairs, the U of A currently holds more than 100 joint research grants, which involve Alberta's CARI researchers as partners. U of A researchers are involved in many interdisciplinary and multi-institutional projects on an international, national and provincial level. Here are some examples of projects with Campus Alberta collaborators:

  • The IBM Alberta Centre for Advanced Studies involves both U of A and University of Calgary researchers working together on projects, which include modelling and simulation-based research in health and bio-systems, energy and environmental systems, and others that are aligned with Alberta's economic development needs.

  • The Campus Alberta Neuroscience network includes more than 250 researchers from the U of A, U of C and University of Lethbridge whose expertise ranges from early brain development to clinical research. Initiated by the academic community across the three founding institutions, this network leverages Alberta's fundamental and translational neuroscience research in areas such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's and Parkinson's diseases, stroke, and brain damage rehabilitation.

  • The Alberta Climate Change Dialogue, led by the U of A and involving multiple Campus Alberta, municipal, provincial, industry and community partners, studies and tests methods of public engagement and deliberation on the topic of climate change with the aim of determining how to spark evidence-based social and political change, innovations in public policy and governance, and cross-sector understanding and consensus.

Administrative Leadership

On the administrative side, the University of Alberta's leadership in Campus Alberta involves a range of activities including

  • providing auditing services

  • hosting uDigit Systems

  • managing major capital projects

  • establishing provincial standards for research ethics

Due to the breadth and depth of U of A's administrative expertise-and the sheer size of its operations-the U of A leads in steering collaboration and harmonization within Campus Alberta by building alliances, streamlining operations, managing shared systems and agreements, sharing resources and providing centralized services.

Facilities and Operations works closely with its post-secondary partners and the ministry, sharing the U of A's operating programs and expertise in areas such as hazmat, utilities, fire safety, sustainability, general operations and reporting. NorQuest College and St. Joseph's College have contracted the U of A's expertise in project management services on major new capital projects.

The U of A's Finance and Administration provides leadership across Campus Alberta in a number of areas. Examples of administrative leadership include

  • managing provincewide information technology agreements, such as Microsoft Licenses, PeopleSoft, and learning management systems and software

  • conducting audits for Athabasca University and sharing audit methodologies with the U of C, U of L, Mount Royal University and MacEwan University

  • leading the administration of Environment Health and Safety (EHS), including collection and disposal of hazardous waste for MacEwan; training of safety personnel from both MacEwan and the U of L; and providing ad hoc EHS consulting services to the U of C, U of L, MacEwan and NAIT