ADC Affiliates Program

Cultivating Educational Leadership

The Academic Development Centre (ADC) is committed to fostering teaching excellence and innovation in support of student learning. The ADC Affiliates Program advances this mission by supporting faculty members who are ready to extend their influence beyond their own classrooms and contribute to the culture of teaching and learning at Mount Royal University.

The Affiliates Program is a short-term, supported, secondment-style opportunity that recognizes and enables distributed educational leadership: the ground-up influence faculty exercise through pedagogical expertise, collegial relationships, and sustained inquiry. Rather than formal administrative appointments or recognition-only awards, Affiliates lead focused initiatives that respond to real teaching and learning needs and build cross-campus capacity.

Program Overview

The ADC Affiliates Program provides faculty members with protected time and structured support to design and lead a faculty development initiative over a defined period. Affiliates translate their individual teaching and learning expertise into programming and resources that benefit colleagues across disciplines, while developing their own identities and skills as educational leaders.

Each Affiliate works in close collaboration with the ADC Academic Director, educational developers, and professional staff. A workload plan outlining deliverables and scope is co-developed to ensure that expectations are clear, feasible, and aligned with both institutional priorities and the Affiliate’s expertise. To support this work, Affiliates also participate in a facilitated Community of Practice (CoP) that emphasizes reflective leadership, collaborative problem-solving, and the realities of working with faculty peers.

• Term: One academic term
• Support: Course release (e.g., 48 SICH) to enable focused engagement
• Focus: Design and facilitation of educational development initiatives (e.g., workshops, communities of practice, consultations, or resource development) that address a defined teaching and learning need at MRU
• Outcomes:
  • Sustainable, reusable enhancements to teaching and learning practices
  • Strengthened professional learning opportunities for MRU faculty
  • Development of participants’ capacity to lead educational change within and beyond their disciplines

Meet the Winter 2026 Affiliates

We are excited to welcome our newest cohort of Affiliates. These nine faculty members are hosting programming designed to expand the scope and innovative application of teaching and learning practices across the university.

Alysia Wright
Assistant Professor, Social Work

Project: Feedback that feeds forward

Anh Thu Nguyen
Associate Professor, Marketing

Project: Supporting sustainability education

Cheryl Techentin
Associate Professor, Psychology

Project: Work-integrated learning

Christopher Grignard
Assistant Professor,
English, Languages, and Cultures

Project: Learning from a Blackfoot Odyssey

Joshua Hill
Assistant Professor, Education

Project:Tsuut’ina Learning Community

Karen Ho
Lab instructor, Chemistry & Physics

Project: Storytelling as learning

Leda Stawnychko
Associate Professor,
General Management and Human Resources

Project: Identity-informed leadership in teaching

Liza Choi
Associate Professor, Nursing

Project: Intercultural mentorship

Vicki Goodfellow-Duke
Assistant Professor,
School of Communications

Project: Oral Communication and Teaching

Become an Affiliate

Applications for the Winter 2026 cohort are currently closed. Future calls for Affiliates will be announced through the ADC newsletter and this webpage. When calls are open, a detailed Call for Expressions of Interest will be posted here.

The Affiliates Program is best suited for full-time faculty members with a well-defined teaching and learning initiative that can be carried out within a single term and that has the potential to build cross-campus capacity. Affiliates may be at different stages of their educational leadership journeys, but all share a commitment to collegial learning and institutional impact.

Eligibility & Orientation

• Status: Full-time faculty members
• Focus: A clearly defined area of teaching and learning (e.g., assessment, generative AI, inclusive pedagogy, experiential learning)
• Orientation: A desire to contribute to the professional growth of colleagues and to strengthen MRU’s teaching and learning culture

Contact Us

For questions about the Affiliates Program or to discuss future opportunities, please contact the ADC at adc@mtroyal.ca or 403.440.6042.