Transforming Lives Transforming Communities
A typical university, with its schedules and lecture halls, is closed to all but a fraction of us. This is because most of us don’t live in the right place, we’re not the right age, or it’s not the right time.
We’re bound by family commitments or we can’t quit our jobs to travel to a campus and sit in classrooms.
Like the river with which it shares a name and a surging spirit, Athabasca University, Canada’s Open University erodes obstacles. It dismantles the barrier between you and your ambition — your best future.
At Athabasca University, you do live in the right place. You are the right age. Your family makes you a better, prouder student. Please, study on your time. The only commute is to your device.
Some of Canada’s finest professors choose Athabasca University for the same reason you study with us. They ensure your classes and degrees are rigorous and challenging and you can connect with them over the dinner table — yours and theirs.
Athabasca is for the leader who wants to build their community without leaving it. It is for the learner who could study on any campus or maybe already does but craves flexibility and control of their time.
It is for learners who were not ready for university when they were teenagers but are ready now.
It is for nurses and accountants and entrepreneurs and teachers and designers who want to go to graduate school but wouldn’t dream of leaving their jobs. It is for you.
Canada’s Open University unleashes your full potential in the places where you can make the most impact: with your families, your workplaces, at home in your villages, towns, and cities.
This is how Athabasca University transforms lives and communities. The real world sees no separation between your education and the rest of your life. Neither does Athabasca.
Athabasca University was North America’s first online university. Its open and flexible environment is built on leveraging technology to enable learning. Athabasca is re-imagining its founding spirit with new investments in digital education. Athabasca University will never stop striving to perfect it.
Up Next Our Pledge to Students
Make your experience seamless and intuitive, so you can focus on what matters — your learning and your life.
Adapt our programs, courses, and services to fit the diverse needs and goals of our learners.
Adapt to changes in the new economy to prepare our focused and self-reliant learners for a world that demands digital literacy.
Partner with employers and with other colleges and universities so Athabasca graduates aren’t only ready to work — they’re ready to lead.
Up Next Our “I-CARE” values
Up Next Our Commitments
Up Next Our Strategic Themes
Adopting Innovative Ideas, Taking Calculated Risks
Transforming Communities Through Belonging And Relationships
Supporting Transformative & Incremental Change Through Agility & Adaptability
Bridging Open & Inclusion
Our future is limited only by our imagination. We build on our rich history by embracing new possibilities and streamlining our existing processes for the betterment of our learners, ourselves, and our partners. We continue to embrace emergent technologies in recognition that technologies enable us to create access and enhance open and distributed learning environments of the highest quality. We take risks, seek out ideas, and adopt innovations to create clearly defined value-added outcomes. A culture of innovation and creativity in action will be the norm. External communities will look to Athabasca University for leadership in accessible, inclusive, innovative, and digitally enabled distributed learning.
In moving beyond the norm, we will transform lives and communities by:
From its home in the town of Athabasca, our University shapes and enables mutually supportive communities, regardless of where those communities exist. We recognize that learning and research strengthen and are strengthened by the communities in which they are embedded. When a learner joins Athabasca University, they become lifelong members of our learning community. Through engagement with each other, learners and employees of Athabasca University create purposeful, meaningful, and safe communities. We welcome new members and engage with existing ones so that individuals and groups can grow and give back to their communities. We recognize and support a geographically diverse team and demonstrate leadership in connecting individuals and teams regardless of their location.
In moving beyond place, we will transform lives and communities by:
In the context of a globally connected and rapidly changing environment, our capacity to be agile and adaptable is fundamental to our success and the success of our learners. Excellence in our technology, operations, and support systems is essential to creating an institution that can respond to change quickly and effectively. Our community creates, monitors, and supports continuous improvement. Through meaningful partnerships, our learning and work environments will come alive and exceed the expectations of learners and our staff.
In moving beyond the now, we will transform lives and communities by:
We are proud to be Canada’s Open University. We lead the way in creating access and accessibility to quality distributed learning. We focus on issues that are important to learners and their communities. We are a flexible partner to learners so that they and their communities can achieve their greatest potential. We create strong connections and enduring relationships with diverse learners with equally diverse needs and goals. To move beyond open does not mean to leave it behind. Rather, we build on it to realize the full potential of bridging open and inclusion. We know that by being open, the quality and rigor of our learning environment is second to none.
By moving beyond open, we will transform lives and communities by:
Up Next Our Foundations
Reciprocity is the equitable maintenance of harmony and balance in the exchange of knowledge, ideas, services, and support between peoples, the land, and all our relations, including creatures and plants. Reciprocity is a way of being and a way of living, it is the central philosophy and tenet of Indigenous peoples worldview that ensures humility, respect, and honour.
kwayskahsatsowin (Conciliation)
We commit to learning from and working in partnership with Indigenous peoples, nations, and communities in our conciliation journey. As part of this journey, we seek to understand how we can more effectively support Indigenous learner success.
Up Next Impact on our Learners, Research, and the University
Up Next Our Institutional Priority Outcomes