News

MRU's newest university partner in Almería, Spain is the potential site for the delivery of Mount Royal's first offering in Europe of our Faculty Development program in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) in the summer of 2014.

In early May, MRU International Director, Lorna Smith and Audrey Olson, Manager of the Languages Institute and original developer of the FDP program, visited the UAL to formally sign the partnership agreement and to discuss the logistics for a potential offering of the FDP-CLIL program in Europe in 2014. After 15 years of offering this program in Canada and at MRU, demand has been increasing for customized versions of this program to be delivered on-site at partner institutions throughout the world.

Over the past 8 years, this program has been delivered in a customized format to partner institutions in Mexico, Peru, the Czech Republic and Colombia and increasing interest has been expressed by partners in Norway, France and Spain to deliver the program in a European location in order to reduce travel costs and living expenses for participants. Through this new partnership with the Universidad de Almería, MRU will work towards establishing this requested presence in Europe.

Universitat de Vic's International Academic Coordinator, Pere Morera, helps MRU students when they arrive in Vic.

The International Director from UAL will visit MRU in July to participate in the offering of the FDP program here on campus in which will include partners from Mexico, Colombia and Spain.

While in Spain, Smith and Olson also took the opportunity to visit the Universitat de Vic, near Barcelona, which has been an MRU partner since 2003 and with whom we have had a steady flow of student exchange every year. Plans for increasing opportunities for faculty exchange and collaboration were discussed.

-Lorna Smith, May 2013