Are you a student interested in developing your skills as a changemaker? Come learn about the Student Changemaker Certificate, the Catamount Fellowship, and other student learning opportunities in how to navigate complex issues impacting people and the planet. RSVP using the link below to attend or receive the session recording.
Program Updates and Redesign
- We are excited to announce our program redesign for the Catamount Fellowship is underway with website updates coming soon. Check back in late-April for program details!
- Current Mount Royal University students who are interested in our next offering of the Fellowship are invited to complete our 2025/2026 Expression of Interest Form, and subscribe to our Institute Newsletter to stay up to date about our program offerings.
The Catamount Fellowship is a cohort-based learning experience for Mount Royal University students committed to building a more just and sustainable future for all. The fellowship is one part community-partnered research and one part transformational learning. Diving into social innovation frameworks, experiential learning and deep listening with community, students explore the root causes of community-identified ecological, social, economic, and cultural issues.
Students collaborate across sectors and boundaries to engage multiple stakeholders, accelerate their personal and professional development, and deepen their ability to make meaningful change in their communities.
Our Catamount Fellows are senior level undergraduate students studying across academic disciplines. Student fellows partner directly with community partners working to address a complex social and/or environmental issue affecting Calgarians and those living in and across Treaty 7 and with faculty mentors who support students with their research in a mentorship capacity.
Fellows become part of a dedicated cohort engaged in peer-to-peer experiential learning while broadening their skills and personal competencies needed to understand and navigate complex 21st-century challenges.
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Dig into real world challenges with community partners in Calgary and those living across Treaty 7.
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| 2 | Develop a changemaker mindset, combined with an ability to see complex issues through a systems lens. |
| 3 | Build meaningful connections with a broader community of changemakers including community leaders, public officials, activists, social entreprenuers, innovators and students. |
| 4 | Gain applied community engaged research experience working within complex social and/or environmental issues. |
"Catamount is a transformative learning experience that provides future leaders with new skills and exposure to applied systems thinking. This offers new ways of conceptualizing problems and designing ways to address challenges. We can't address the same old problems with the same old thinking."
- Catamount Community Partner, 2022
Fellows receive a $2,000 cash stipend upon completion of the program and residency in MRU's Trico Changemakers Studio for the duration of the program.
*We highly recommend taking no more than 4 courses through the winter term due to the demands of the final deliverables at the end of the program.
Curious to see more from the fellowship? Check out the amazing work from previous fellows or contact our program lead, Barb Rallison at brallison@mtroyal.ca.
Did you know?! Catamount is a synonym for a cougar. Not only does ‘cat’ derive from catalyst but ‘mount’ references to both our name and evokes the challenge of climbing a summit. We chose Catamount because like all large cats, they are an example of a keystone species and their range extends through virtually all of southern Alberta. After watching so many unique lives flourish in the first cohort of this program, it only made sense to reimagine a name that suggests the unique and large journey the fellowship took them on.
The Catamount Fellowship is made possible with the generous support of the Suncor Energy Foundation
