A message from Dr. Annette Trimbee, president and vice-chancellor
A few weeks before I began my tenure as MacEwan’s president, I talked to my daughter on the phone about my new role. I was still in Winnipeg, but my daughter was living in Edmonton and excited to tell me about MacEwan’s grads. “They’re everywhere,” she said. And she was right. When I think about our alumni now, the word that comes to mind is ubiquitous. The more I’m out in different communities talking about our strategic vision, Teaching Greatness, the more appropriate that word seems.
It’s significant that MacEwan's more than 87,000 alumni are embedded in every part of our communities. They are everywhere. This is the point in a university president’s column where most would talk about their institution’s impact on the economy and contributions to GDP, which are essential and an important part of what we do here at MacEwan. But the hard numbers alone do not tell this university’s full story.
That story is about more than our alumni’s mere existence, the money they earn, the people they employ, or any other monetary measures; it’s also about the sum total of the impact they make in service to their communities. I believe the seeds of that impact are often sown during the time students spend here, and that their collective service is also an important marker of this university’s success.
In a perfect world, there would be an easy way to measure the change that every student experiences from arriving at MacEwan until leaving – and how those transformative experiences lead them to affect change around them.
Because it’s those transformative experiences that Teaching Greatness sets out to grow and expand upon, and the living proof of those transformative experiences is our alumni. Like our faculty (some of whom are alumni themselves), they are trendsetters and trendbreakers. They question the way things have always been done and look for ways to do things that serve society more equitably. Yes, Teaching Greatness is about great professors and great students. But it’s also about our alumni – all of them, including those who work quietly behind the scenes and those in the spotlight.
When I look ahead to us shining a spotlight on a new group of alumni with our Alumni Awards in April, I think of the many alumni – both award winners and those whose greatness is celebrated in other ways – who I’ve had the chance to meet over the past years. I think of how easily and naturally they express gratitude for their time at MacEwan – stories about their experiences here, their sense of purpose, meaning and community building. They often focus on the good times, even when we know that the transformative experience of post-secondary education often comes with struggle.
It’s interesting to note that the memory of the most difficult parts of their experience generally seems to fade with time. When they come back to MacEwan – often as volunteers, mentors or to provide community-engaged learning opportunities for our students – they don’t focus on the specifics of the challenges they faced while they were here. Instead, I hear those alumni talk about the person who helped them. The classmate who kept them going. Or even the faculty member who let them bring their child to class when that was their only option.
That’s not to diminish the challenges our alumni faced as students – and our students' struggles today. The realities of our world mean that students often have a difficult time while they’re here – perhaps to an even higher degree than ever before. That’s real. And we must continue to acknowledge and address those challenges however we can.
We also know that our best mentors and inspirations are often the people who are just a few steps ahead of us. For our students, that is our alumni community. Since today is International Women’s Day, it feels appropriate to highlight a few of the inspirational women who illustrate greatness among MacEwan alumni.
I want to begin with Dr. Brenda Barton, Public Relations ’81, MacEwan’s first Honorary Doctorate recipient. I remember how humbled and honoured she was when she came to see us on campus in 2021. She talked about how studying public relations opened up a whole new world to her. And the story of the 32-year journey that followed her time at MacEwan blew my mind. Brenda’s work to improve global food security and combat hunger with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has taken her to Kenya, Italy, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Philippines – and earned the WFP team a 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
Brenda is featured in the university’s new advertising campaign, “Greatness. Powered by MacEwan.” She is, without question, a perfect illustration of greatness. So is Mallory Yawnghwe, Bachelor of Commerce ’18.
I heard Mallory speak at a roundtable event at MacEwan that invited Indigenous entrepreneurs to share their experiences. With incredible eloquence, she wove her way back and forth between business terminology and Indigenous history, explaining that amiskwaciy-wâskahikan, or Edmonton, has always been a hub of trade and commerce for many nations, and how she uses the knowledge of supply chains she honed at MacEwan to help Indigenous entrepreneurs create new opportunities. With Indigenous Box, Mallory lifts up so many Indigenous companies.
Lifting up some of society’s youngest members is the focus of Adine Shuchuk, Early Childhood and Development ’88. I had the pleasure of sitting with Adine, a 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient, at an event a while ago. Listening to her speak about the role of early childhood and the impact of the province-wide early learning and care framework called Flight (which was developed right here at MacEwan) is inspiring. So was her 2023 Convocation address.
I could keep going. The list of alumni making an incredible impact at home and abroad is long – and getting longer. With plans for a new School of Business building and the growth that will come from Teaching Greatness, there will be an increasing number of MacEwan alumni making an impact out in the world.
I talked about scaling up in my last column, along with the issues that come with it and making decisions that protect what matters most to us. In my mind, growth has a quality dimension to it. Like the impact of our alumni, that growth isn’t only about the numbers. We must grow in ways that continue to result in graduating people poised to make a positive difference. We want to celebrate the greatness we see in them – the excellence they bring to what they do and the heart and soul they invest in that work.
Dr. Annette Trimbee
President and Vice-Chancellor