Our Strategic Vision
Determined. Daring. Kind.
Message from the Dean
Dr. Vikas Mehrotra
Dean of the Alberta School of Business
It has been an extraordinary privilege serving as your Dean over the last year. In that year, I’ve been lucky enough to get to know many more members of our community, both on and off campus. This spring we set out to create a new strategic vision for the Alberta School of Business (ASB). In that process I’ve been delighted to see such a diverse set of members of our community give their time and wisdom to help set the course for our school’s next five years.
Throughout our strategic planning, your contributions have been varied and frank: telling us about the ASB that you love, and the ASB that disappoints you, on topics that ranged from climate change to paint colours. But in our many conversations, one theme emerged again and again: people. You told us about the special culture at ASB. Alumni told us about the lifelong friends they made, faculty told us about their gratitude for staff, and prospective students shared how excited they were to meet new companions on their educational journey. A department chair told us that if a promising young academic came to visit for a few months, they would stay for years.
We have a special culture here. Preserving and growing that culture is at the heart of our strategy. Together, we’ll take on that challenge.
“We heard that the people at ASB value rigour and are exceptional critical thinkers. We heard how high stress, low risk situations help our students gain confidence in their professional skills. We heard about the value of adaptability — faculty and students who can achieve great things by being ready for change and adopting new perspectives. We also heard about kindness. How at ASB an expectation of excellence is matched by warmth and care.
Intention statement
Intention Statement
Business is not only economics, finance, leadership or entrepreneurship. It’s not only marketing, strategy, data or analytics. It’s not any one, or all, of these things.
It’s people. It’s the relationships between people.
The working together, the being there for each other, the spirit of collaboration that inspires everyone to learn, to build, to create — to be their absolute best.
In business and in life.
We challenge the status quo of curriculum, create world class research, and are united with the business community. Our students, faculty, and alumni support each other to thrive collectively and shine individually.
That’s our business card.
It’s a kind of kindness that sets our benchmark of excellence, attracts new thinkers and new ways of thinking so that we’re not just ready for the future — we’re creating it.
This is the kindness that emboldens each of us to be confident risk-takers, knowing that we can count on each other to help us through our setbacks and be there to celebrate our successes.
Together, we shape tomorrow and better the world.
Together, we uplift each other.
We are the Alberta School of Business.
Anticipate
Preparing for the future means embracing rapid change in the world — and in ourselves.
It's knowledge for today and developing the skills to navigate and shape tomorrow. To be prepared for that future, we’re creating local partnerships with lasting impact, developing practices and technologies that serve as models for people around the world. The best of our school’s work must be reflected in our curricula while we continuously keep our offerings up to date and compelling for students, employers and professional associations. We’ll innovate our methods of delivery, increasing adoption across the school for methods that resonate with the needs of our students.
Cultivate
The Alberta School of Business is known for a humbler style of excellence.
Our culture of collaboration, empathy and rigour among both staff and students attracts the best people and helps them to strive for excellence without arrogance. Culture requires continuous work, for staff and students. We’ll share methods for building stronger team-based skills and set high standards to push each other to grow. To do this, ASB leadership must be accessible for students and staff, both formally and informally, to share ideas and experiences.
Illuminate
Research and research translation are fundamental roles of ASB, enriching our teaching and learning.
We support research faculty without undue intrusion on their time and attention because the best research happens when great people come together with the space to do their best work. Communicating and translating research is critical for that work to have the impact it deserves. We engage students and members of the business community in translating research into meaningful change.
Integrate
ASB reaches across disciplines for solutions to both theoretical and applied research problems.
Our interdisciplinary approach includes faculty, students and industry. Taking on new perspectives is key to creating the best work. And our perspectives will be invaluable for our colleagues and partners across the university and business community. This coming together of perspectives includes culture, academic disciplines, pure research and translation.
Overall key PRIORITIES
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Top 50 Globally
ASB ranked top 50 in the world among business schools
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Community Engagement
Strengthened relationships with local and national alumni, organizations and industry
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STUDENT SUccess
Committed support, resources and opportunities for academic excellence, personal growth and career readiness
A look at what’s changing
A look at what’s changing
As we — students, faculty, alumni and staff — work to uplift ASB and each other, we’ll see numerous changes throughout the school. Some of them are already well underway. Here is some of what is changing.
- Broader student inclusion in experiential learning and student clubs.
- Increased options for interdisciplinary programs for students.
- More opportunities for interdisciplinary work and research.
- Improved supports for communicating research findings to multiple audiences.
- More purposeful and inclusive engagement with alumni.
- Creating new spaces for engaging with diverse audiences.
- Cutting edge curricula and tools — including a new analytics lab.
- Engaging students, faculty, alumni and staff as key players in shaping and promoting the ASB brand and strategy.
- More opportunities to create and translate knowledge for business and the community.
