Please join Alem, a MacEwan student ambassador, on a tour that looks back and forward at the buildings that make up MacEwan.

MacEwan Means Business

We’re kicking our tour off at the talk of the town – the construction site of the new School of Business building. I’m joined by Dr. Trimbee, president and vice-chancellor of MacEwan University, who will set the stage for us.

“MacEwan has a long history of evolving to ensure we’re developing graduates who help our city and province grow. This building, bolstered by $125 million in provincial support, will be key in helping us increase our student body to 30,000 students by 2030 and meet the needs of our growing province. This ambitious growth will ensure we are better able to meet industry demands for highly skilled, job-ready talent – exactly the type of graduate MacEwan is known for.” 

If you’ve ever heard Dr. Trimbee talk about MacEwan, you’ve likely heard about how much value she puts on connections and relationships. As a student, I see it in how MacEwan supports our learning and success, and in how much of what we learn is connected to the real world. She also often speaks to the importance of our place. 

“Our roots extend beyond our campus, and bring vibrancy to the downtown core,” said Dr. Trimbee. “This will be an engaging building where promoting redevelopment is as important as having state-of-the-art spaces for students. While it will be a beautiful addition to downtown, it will also represent the energy, light, and fluidity of our campus.” 

Peter Osborne of GEC Architecture led the design, and said the building will plant a flag in this area of the city. “The building is unique in that it opens up to the community with spaces for businesses to interact with students, and it’s the first building to open on MacEwan’s campus to the north.” 

When it opens in 2027, the School of Business will add capacity for an additional 7,500 students drawing more people downtown.

“The design choreographs interactions between students and faculty through a central atrium with hubs on each floor where people can run into each other and stop to chat,” he said.

Rob Seidel, co-chair of the MacEwan Means Business campaign cabinet, said the significant impact MacEwan has had on the city is why he’s spearheading the $25 million capital campaign. 

“This building will upgrade the entire core, but what’s most important is it will provide opportunities for people to learn, enhance, and develop their skills in a really warm place focused on educational excellence.”

A strip mall in Cromdale

Let’s go back to where it all began – a vacant strip mall in Cromdale and a former high school in Old Scona. Grant MacEwan Community College opened its doors on February 12, 1971, offering adults programs that weren’t being offered by existing institutions. 

When describing what made MacEwan different, our first president, John L. Haar said a phrase that has stuck with MacEwan all this time: “The City is our campus.”

While President Haar meant having several small campuses, what has endured is the philosophy that MacEwan’s connections with our community are the best way to serve the interests of our students, our city and our province.

The strip mall where MacEwan set roots in 1971. 

Growing pains

By 1976, the College had grown from 400 to 2,500 enrolments. MacEwan expanded to include the downtown Assumption Campus in 1972 and a fourth campus in Jasper Place in 1973. These moves created space for students, but were not ideal. Assumption Campus Director Jack Cooper talked about how the roar of the engines from planes flying over campus would regularly stop classes.

He did have some nostalgia for the old building as they planned to move out in 1979.

“The instructors will never again find sinks in every office, and we’ll probably have less worries with the buckets under the leaks that followed every spring melt and summer shower, but we’ll miss the old place.”

MacEwan builds

Clearly better spaces were needed and in 1976, MacEwan opened its first facility specifically designed and built for the college in Millwoods. This build was joined by the iconic orange building in Jasper Place in 1980. 

I like the story told by Denise Roy, Dean Emerita of Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications, who shared Anne Cooksey-Gurney’s account of how the building got its unusual colour.

“The architect who was designing the new campus …asked Alice Switzer and I to join him and his assistant for lunch at the Saxony to discuss any special needs we might have for the space. He said the building was to be clad in dark maroon-coloured, enameled tiles. I said “how depressing, such a dark colour.” Alice, who was drinking apricot brandy, raised her glass and said “make it the colour of apricot brandy.” And that’s how it became orange.”

These new campuses gave faculty and students a reprieve from old buildings with drafty rooms and leaky pipes, but MacEwan was struggling. Seen as the “school for the underdog,” confusion over what the school offered at its various campuses led to a stall in enrollment.

MacEwan looks downtown

MacEwan took action. Programs and operations were adjusted to better meet community needs, develop a responsiveness to industry and increase relevance for students. Exciting campaigns showed what MacEwan had to offer. Enrollment exploded.

The space crunch got so challenging MacEwan leased rooms in a pool hall for more classroom space. By the 1984-85 school year, the college had 3,700 full-time equivalent students in facilities designed for 2,800.

The small campus model just couldn’t keep up. A major campus in northeast Edmonton was looked at but never received the support it needed. At the time, MacEwan’s second president, Dr. Gerald (Gerry) O. Kelly, said to be successful they needed to tie the new campus to another objective.

That other objective? Downtown revitalization. It took five years of what Kelly called “intensive planning, lobbying, scheming and dreaming” before Premier Don Getty committed $100 million for the City Centre Campus in 1988, to reclaim and breathe new life into the old CNR railway yards.

To solidify support for a downtown campus, MacEwan used lime to outline the City Centre Campus, visible to those landing at the City Centre Airport.

However, political support wavered and MacEwan needed to do something creative to keep the project alive. Bruce Vincent, who maintained MacEwan’s facilities, remembered the unconventional plan: “We had one of our ground staff take a little machine that was filled with lime and do a whole outline of the City Centre Campus. Right from 104th Street down to 109th Street.” 

Visible to MLAs in planes landing at the airport and people in downtown office towers, the ploy worked and the province approved the funding. MacEwan was innovative and edgy then; a thread that continues through to today.

MacEwan builds again - this time downtown

While the downtown campus was being built, MacEwan started offering programs in which students could start their studies at MacEwan then transfer to university. Again, by being responsive to community needs for talent, enrollment continued to explode. 

When the City Centre Campus opened in 1993, the distinctive towers, central clock, and beautiful spaces wowed Edmontonians, but President Kelly reminded people what was most important.

“Amid all of the flurry of facilities planning, and construction, we need to remember that it’s not the facility, but what goes on inside that counts as the measure of success for a community college.”

The clock and towers remain to be an enduring symbol of MacEwan since the City Centre campus opened in 1993.

By 2000 MacEwan had become the number one university transfer institution in Alberta, and sights were set on offering four-year degrees.

Growing by degrees

To prepare for becoming a degree-granting institution, the community college became Grant MacEwan College and the Robbins Health Learning Centre opened in 2007. Dr. Christy Raymond, now Dean of Nursing, vividly remembers move-in day. 

“We were stuffed in an older building and this gave us state-of-the-art spaces for our Bachelor of Nursing program - in a way, this was the pinnacle of that journey. I remember having our carts ready and the excitement as everyone ran across the pedway to get to the new building.”

In 2009 Grant MacEwan College proudly became MacEwan University, and by 2011 it was offering seven four-year degree programs. During this time MacEwan also made the pivotal decision to consolidate the other campuses into a single, sustainable campus downtown.

Carolyn Graham, Chair of MacEwan’s Board of Governors, remembers the opportunities a single sustainable downtown campus strategy presented. “Students at our Millwoods and west-end campuses didn’t have the same access to the library, bookstore, or sport and wellness facilities, and it was challenging to take electives offered by other programs. Years later we’ve found magic in cross program collaborations to provide students a well-rounded education.”

MacEwan then opened Allard Hall in 2017 to better support fine arts and communications programs. Vivian Manasc, principal architect at Reimagine Architects, led community engagement efforts to define the vision for the building.

“It’s designed specifically to MacEwan’s needs. You have visual and performing arts in one building that creates a unique space mix. That creates layers of meaning and interpretation in the ways people interact. Triffo Hall is almost like a building within a building so that noise in the lobby noise can’t be heard in the theatre." 

MacEwan celebrated the opening of Allard Hall in 2017, which brought all MacEwan students to one campus downtown and opened new opportunities for interdisciplinary studies.

Dr. Craig Monk, MacEwan’s provost and vice-president, academic, remembers how the new space sparked new opportunities.

“A university is a community, and MacEwan’s was poorer for having some of our most dynamic programs at another campus. It took a little while for faculty and students to adjust, used to the lived-in spaces of the old building, but now when we see visual arts students hanging out in the Biology department drawing skeletons, we see just a small example of the kinds of opportunities an integrated campus provides.”

Special spaces

When you ask people about their favorite space on campus, many will say it’s the kihêw waciston Indigenous Centre, which opened in 2019. Tai Ziola, Partner at DIALOG, the integrated Architecture and Engineering firm who designed the space, called this her favorite project she’s worked on.

kihêw waciston, which means “eagle’s nest” in Cree, is a friendly and welcoming space for students to connect, share stories and get support.

“Knowledge Keeper Roxanne Tootoosis and the kihêw waciston team really guided the design with advice and stories so we could design a space where Indigenous students could see their culture. Years later we were visiting and heard someone giving a tour, sharing the same stories Roxanne had told us. It was kind of a goosebumps moment that was really beautiful.”

We have one last stop – the Students’ Association of MacEwan University (SAMU) building. Opening just before COVID-19 paused on-campus activity, SAMU President Gabriel Ambutong said the building doesn’t have a lot of mileage, but it’s already a valued space.

“Students made the decision to make this space for students. It’s our space. We added seats for people to hang out. We hold events in the Lookout. There are quiet spots to study. When you see the line-ups for events like the Breakfast Club, you see how it’s a hub right in the heart of campus that’s super cool.”

Before we end the tour, Dr. Trimbee, what does the future of MacEwan look like?

“Student and industry needs keep evolving. We’re looking at ways to strengthen and smooth out pathways for students on their journey from high school to university and then after graduation as well. One idea we are considering is an integrated high school on campus, to help make transition to university smoother and faster. We also know students will need more space for sports and activities.”

“We also need to be creative in addressing student affordability. We’re forging innovative ways to work with our community to address housing availability and food security, and growing MacEwan’s financial aid offerings for students.”

“MacEwan University’s adaptability, focus on student success and strong partnerships make us the right university for the times. We have so much to look forward to.”

Historical information and quotes sourced from the MacEwan Archives and the Jasper Place History Project.