Narrow in focus and small in size, Mt. Allison University prides itself on combining academic excellence with a total sense of community
By Peter Henderson & Produced by Ian Ross
It’s not easy being the best. The administration of Mount Allison University, a primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, knows that better than most. The school has placed in the first or second position in the last 17 years of the annual Maclean’s university rankings, and is often spoken of as the best undergraduate university in all of Canada. This continued excellence is a result of Mount Allison’s narrow focus—the school only enrolls 2,250 students per year—and its ongoing adherence to organizational learning and the development of its student community.
“We’ve been very careful to maintain our brand, our distinctiveness,” says Dr. Robert Campbell, who was appointed President of Mount Allison University in July 2006. “A core feature of our strategic plan is a focus on the individual. From that there are a bunch of instruments that we use or adopt to pursue that objective, and there are metrics to go with those instruments.”
The school is based on the liberal arts model of education, which emphasizes undergraduate study based on a broad range of teaching, not just vocational or professional education. This model is rare in Canada, yet Campbell believes it is the secret to the institution’s continued success. Because of its small size, the school offers a personalized learning environment for every student. This intimate educational experience leads to great academic success for Mount Allison graduates, and 47 of the school’s alumni have gone on to receive the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, more than any other liberal arts college in North America.
Emphasis on students
At Mount Allison, Heavy emphasis is also placed on things outside of the classroom, like sports, clubs, and social activities. Though these services are offered at other major universities, the emphasis placed on the student community at all levels of the school gives Mount Allison some of the highest marks for student engagement in Canada, year after year, as measured by the National Survey of Student Engagement.
Mount Allison University was founded as a boy’s college in 1839, but the degree-conferring university itself was founded in 1862. The school has three faculties, all of which offer bachelor’s degrees: Arts, Science, and Social Sciences. Mount Allison also provides two master’s degrees, in biology and chemistry. The university is now organized around the bicameral system of governance found in most Canadian universities. This system consists of a board of governors composed of citizens of the community with power over the financial and business end of the school and a senate composed of faculty members and some members of the university administration that holds power over the academic policy of the school. The president, appointed by the board of governors, provides leadership for and acts as a bridge between the two sides of the organization.
Campbell’s role as president allows him to direct the institution, and his philosophy for approaching such a complex task is surprisingly simple.
“[Academics and individual education] are at the core of our mission,” explains Campbell. “If you have a clear vision of what your values and objectives are, everything falls into place. It doesn’t make it easy, but it makes easier at the margins.”
Research opportunities
Though Mount Allison suffers from a lack of economies of scale because of its small size, professors—most of them full-time—are offered the same opportunities for research and publication as major universities, including comparable funding and other means of support. Because of its lack of graduate students, the policymakers at Mount Allison were forced to improvise when searching for research assistants. Research is now integrated into the undergraduate program, and some students can use their research experience to move directly from an undergraduate degree to a doctoral program of study. This innovative approach to research helps both the students and the professors, and helps to strengthen the bonds of community at Mount Allison as well as provide the individual students with an educational opportunity that is rare for undergraduates.
The innovation of Mount Allison’s approach to educating its students can also be seen on the business side of the organization. Unlike most universities, Mount Allison operates almost entirely debt-free. The latest addition to the campus, a $15-million student centre that opened in September 2008, will, according to Campbell, be paid off within the next 5 years. He feels that the university, with its limited resources compared to bigger institutions, is too small to expose itself to the risks of the marketplace.
“We’d rather be using our money to improve the university than pay interest,” he says.
As part of their commitment to remaining debt-free, Mount Allison’s yearly revenues pay for the cost of its operating budget, save for student financial aid. This financial aid comes from the university’s $100-million-plus endowment, which is supported through fundraising and donations. Aid is a key part of student life at Mount Allison, as the school’s high-quality translates into a higher-than-average tuition cost.
“We’re a high-cost, high-quality, high support university,” Campbell explains. “We want to make sure that the best students who want to come to Mount Allison can come here, so we raise a lot of money and we are able, on average, to give each student who comes here over $1000 [in financial aid].”
Though the credit crisis is causing belts to tighten all over the world, Campbell is bullish on the fate of Mount Allison’s budget. The strong networks that the school has built with its alumni—events for previous students happen often, in places as diverse as Ottawa, New York, and Hong Kong—help the university look at the longer-term picture. The university has even rearranged donation schedules in order to be more accommodating to its donors, but Campbell believes that the current economic turmoil will not adversely affect the university beyond a few cost-cutting measures. Both the provincial government in New Brunswick and the federal government have looked into infrastructure spending to help stimulate the economy, and Campbell believes that the school will be able to receive at least some money to help with the $20-million in deferred maintenance that is planned on the campus over the next few years. Even without government help, financial support is never hard to come by for an elite university like Mount Allison.
Raising the bar
“Nothing breeds support like success,” says Campbell. “Our single most important task is to live up to the expectations that people have of us; that’s why we’re always trying to raise the bar for ourselves. It’s the quality of the experience and our success in that regard that is the secret in recruiting students, recruiting faculty, and generating financial support.”
Mount Allison is also a leader in adopting environmental initiatives, and its success provides an example of how the school uses organizational learning to further its goal of satisfying students. The student population of the school has long been a driver of change and green programs, and the administration has responded in kind. The campus houses a residence where students live carbon-neutral lives and experiment with methods of being more environmentally conscious that are adopted by other areas of the school. As part of a year dedicated to environmental concerns, the board of governors passed a carbon reduction policy and the 2008 presidential speaker series invited environmental activists of all types to speak at the school. The school performs a biannual environmental audit, and every dollar saved through green efficiency is re-invested in making the campus a more environmentally-friendly place.
“Smaller places like us have a lot of things going against us,” explains Campbell. “But we’re very nimble and brisk, and we can do things very fast. We can experiment, we can learn from our mistakes very quickly and find solutions; we can do a full-court press on any of these issues.”
Though Campbell spent the beginning of his career at Mount Allison dealing with day-to-day problems and immediate issues, many of the initial problems he faced have now been solved and he is looking ahead to the legacy that he will leave behind. He thinks that the key to success for Mount Allison lies in one word: self-sustainability, both financial and physical. The aforementioned green initiatives and a commitment to maintaining the beauty and the functionality of the Mount Allison campus provide a solid basis for future policies of physical self-sustainability, but future financial questions also require a game plan.
“We trying to build a model of financial self-sustainability into the system, so we don’t have to reinvent the financial wheel every year,” says Campbell.
Mount Allison is a globally-recognized and well-connected university that defies its small stature to rank as one of the best universities in Canada. Its unique approach to teaching and organization give it a competitive advantage, and its solid financial footing looks to keep it at the top for a long time to come.