Mission and mandate

Our mission

Athabasca University, Canada's Open University, is dedicated to the removal of barriers that restrict access to and success in university-level study and to increasing equality of educational opportunities for adult learners worldwide.

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Our mandate

This mandate statement has been developed by The Board of Governors of Athabasca University in consultation with the Minister of Advanced Education pursuant to Section 78 of the Post-secondary Learning Act (PSLA).

Committed to open access and digitally enabled lifelong learning, Athabasca University (est.1970) is Canada’s only public and research-intensive university offering fully accredited distributed learning from its online virtual campus. Athabasca University bridges the learning, scholarship, and research environments to transform the social, economic, and environmental wellness of citizens, their families, their communities, and their places of work in Alberta, Canada, and around the globe.  

The university’s open and digital learning environment coupled with flexible, self-paced and cohort-based enrolments enable learners from all walks and stages of life to transform their own lives and their communities through higher learning. Athabasca University offers credit and non-credit learning experiences that lead to professional, undergraduate, masters, and doctoral credentials across an ever-evolving and comprehensive spectrum of disciplines. As a global leader in digitally enabled and distributed learning, the university’s interactive and lifelong connection to learners is continuously innovating in learning models, course design, pedagogy, learner support services, traditional and non-traditional pathways, and educational technology applications.  

The university’s steadfast commitment to equality and inclusive lifelong learning is demonstrated through its proactive and systemic dismantling of barriers that stand between diverse individuals and their personal learning goals. With a global presence, Athabasca University welcomes people who prefer the university’s innovative and digital-learning environment from urban, rural, and remote locations everywhere. As a leader in inclusion, Athabasca University enables learners from underserved populations, those from Indigenous ancestry, those who by choice or through life circumstance cannot attend a place-based university, and those attending place-based post-secondaries who crave increased flexibility and control. An inspired and willing partner within Alberta’s adult learning system, Athabasca University collaborates with a wide array of stakeholders to amplify the opportunities and success for learners and their communities.

By bringing learning to individuals, Athabasca University’s model of access creates a meaningful and personalized sense of place, affinity, and belonging for learners in their community. Learners are encouraged to embrace and leverage their unique background, history, and community while they learn. Comprehensive learner support services further enable them to focus on their learning and facilitate success in the university’s distributed learning environment from a position of physical and mental wellness.

Athabasca University’s demonstrated excellence in research and scholarship stems from its steadfast commitment to the centrality of research in the creation and mobilization of knowledge, the enhancement of academic programs, the education of learners, and the betterment of communities. Athabasca University’s research environment brings together academics, learners, and key stakeholders in a disciplinary and interdisciplinary tapestry of scholarship and research that optimizes the economic, social, and environmental impact on communities. A combination of researcher-, learner-, and community-led research and innovation initiatives in open and traditional scholarship are supported by the university as well as by local, provincial, federal, and international research grants.

Athabasca University's academic and operational team members help to transform the communities through service leadership in numerous public, not-for-profit, social, and professional environments. Members of the university are encouraged to enable mutually supportive communities through active participation in a wide range of organizations at the local, provincial, national, and international levels.

Approved by: The Governors of Athabasca University June 28, 2021
Approved by: Minister Nicolaides, Minister, Advanced Education, July 7, 2021