Five incredibly accomplished Athabasca University alumni reflect a community like no other
Athabasca University is a university like no other, which is reflected in how alumni make their highest contributions to their families, their workplaces, and their communities.
This year’s Alumni Award winners—four inspiring graduates and one soon-to-be grad, represent the very best of a learning community helps break down barriers to accessing post-secondary education, providing the opportunity for almost anyone, anywhere, to get a university degree.
Get to know this year’s award winners!
Distinguished Alumni Award
Kathy Howe (Bachelor of Nursing ’01, Master of Health Studies ’12)
📍Calgary, Alberta
Over her long and distinguished career, Kathy Howe has been a nurse, a leader, and an advocate.
After getting into nursing in her late 20s, and spending many years as a pediatric nurse, she knew she would need to upgrade her education to advance her career. Completing AU’s Bachelor of Nursing program helped her land a role as a nursing manager, and with a Master of Health Studies under her belt she took on more senior leadership roles—not just leading units or hospitals, but leading multiple facilities as an area director with Alberta Health Services.
During this time, she advocated tirelessly for her staff, patients, and all the communities she served. Now, toward the end of her career, she has taken on a new kind of leadership position as the CEO of the Alberta Association of Nurses, which seeks to provide networking and professional development opportunities and advocate on behalf of nurses.
“It’s kind of the capstone project of my career and has really brought it all together,” she said. “I’m so fired up about nursing, and promoting it, and bringing it to where it needs to be.”
Read Howe’s story
Rising Star Award
Leah Campbell (Bachelor of Arts, Sociology Major ’22)
📍Brandon, Manitoba
For a decade, Leah Campbell didn’t think she needed a university degree. Right out of high school, she had what she felt was a great job and saw herself there in the long term.
These days, with an undergraduate degree completed and a graduate degree in progress, she has set her sights much higher. Combining her on-the-job experience with her educational perspectives, she’s focused on what she describes as “bringing the human aspect back to work.” She explained this means promoting the idea that staff are the source of all business in any organization and the focus should be first on supporting them as humans, rather than focusing first on processes and procedures.
“The ultimate dream for me is to get my own consulting firm from a leadership and organizational behaviour perspective,” she said. “So that's what I'm building towards.”
Read Campbell’s story
Volunteer Service Award
Shelly Philip LaForest (Bachelor of Nursing ’13, Master of Nursing ’20)
📍Brampton, Ontario
When Shelley Philip LaForest was young, she didn’t see a lot of people in her family or in her community in volunteer roles. Mostly, “they were focused on survival.”
That lack of representation is part of what inspires her now, as an adult, to be such an active volunteer with her kids, her community, and with her profession.
Much of her volunteer work, including being a parent volunteer on her kids’ field trips, taking on board governance roles, and her role founding the Ontario Black Nurses Network, has been about serving her community.
“It’s just so important to show the kids these barriers can be surpassed, or you can overcome them,” she said. “You can face them. If I can open doors just by being in a space, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Read LaForest’s story
Future Alumni Award
Alissa MacMullin (Master of Business Administration student)
📍Skidegate, British Columbia
Growing up on Haida Gwaii, an island group off British Columbia’s west coast, Alissa MacMullin learned how important it is to commit to one’s community. Every good recreation opportunity she had came as the result of community members pulling together and putting in the volunteer works to make it happen.
Even when she left the islands to attend university on the mainland, she always knew she wanted to bring what she learned back to Haida Gwaii. Now, in her role as a recreation director that’s exactly what she’s doing.
She still wants to learn and grow so she can better support her community, but said at this point in her life she said she doesn’t want to leave her home for post-secondary education. This made AU’s Master of Business Administration program a perfect fit.
“This program allowed me to stay on Haida Gwaii, do the program eight weeks on, two weeks off, care for my partner, contribute to my community, and still feel like I’m getting a quality education.”
Read MacMullin’s story
Lifelong Learner Award
Judy Obee (Bachelor of General Studies ’25)
📍Calgary, Alberta
Judy Obee has always been inspired to learn—from the time she was a young child, through a mathematics degree and an impressive career in computer science, and most recently as she crossed the AU convocation stage in 2025.
But while learning for its own sake was always part of the equation, the desire to keep her brain actively working become even more important to her after watching both parents suffer from dementia towards the end of their lives. She knew that keeping her brain active was going to be important in her own retirement.
Having always been strong in math, when she started her Bachelor of General Studies degree at AU, she focused first on humanities classes to get her out of her comfort zone. This proved to be the right move, as she thrived in those courses. Even after completing a degree in her 70s, she said she’s not done yet, and is already taking more courses on an audit basis.
“I want to have fun and learn new stuff,” she said. “There’s so much cool stuff to know.”
Read Obee’s story
Be a dream maker for a First in Family student
Some 70% of AU students are breaking new ground without a family member having done it before them. Help support these trailblazers and make the dream of a university graduation a reality.