Page 39 - 01-Jan-Feb-2025

Hair and makeup Emily Phung
EDUCATION
“I LIKE
THAT
MACEWAN
IS IN
perpetual
motion.”
Annette Trimbee leads MacEwan University
through times of great change — and growth
A
nnette Trimbee has
a PhD in aquatic
ecology. And, while
Edmonton is far
removed from the ocean, MacEwan
University’s president sees a lot of
symmetry between her fascination with
sea life and the ecosystem that exists on
the downtown campus.
“I was really curious about anything
and everything,” Trimbee says of her time
as a student. “So, what does learning
about blue-green algae, how does that
prepare you to lead a university or a trea-
sury board of a finance department or in
health and wellness? It’s about systems. If
you do something over here, it has an im-
pact over there. There are inputs, there’s
outputs, there are relationships. There
are surprises, things you can’t predict. So,
that way of thinking about connections is
helpful.”
Trimbee, from Winnipeg, came to
Edmonton to study at the University of
Alberta. She spent 25 years in various
portfolios with the provincial govern-
ment, and was a deputy minister in both
Advanced Education and Technology, and
Treasury Board and Finance.
She moved back home to take on the
presidency at the University of Winnipeg.
But, when the chance came to come back
to Edmonton in 2020 to take the reins at
MacEwan University, the opportunity
was too good to pass up. She has two
grown children in Edmonton, so she
could be closer to them. And stewarding
MacEwan through an ambitious expan-
sion was, and is, an incredible opportu-
nity. The school, which currently is home
to about 20,000 students, has a goal to
expand to 30,000 students by 2030. A new
seven-storey School of Business building
will not only add capacity, but create
more traffic north of the campus, an area
which has traditionally been a downtown
dead zone.
Trimbee’s contract was recently extend-
ed till 2030.
“It’s a time of great transformation,
whether you’re 18 years old, 25 or 35, what-
ever,” says Trimbee, from her second-floor
office that overlooks 104th Avenue. “We
have a lot to be excited about. And what’s
it like to lead in a time of great growth?
It’s a lot of fun compared to leading in
times of sliding backwards. I like that
MacEwan is in perpetual motion. I like
scaling up, but scaling up in a way that
doesn’t lose our sense of who we are,
who we were and who we want to be.
We can’t lose those relationships or that
sense of place.”
MacEwan’s downtown buildings are
connected by a series of pathways and
footbridges which Trimbee feels bolster
the sense of community in the school.
The faculties don’t feel separate, as they
would on a campus where the buildings
are spread out. Business students brush
shoulders with arts students. And, when
class changes, Trimbee says the hallways
have the energy of a shopping mall.
As a leader with a background in
biology, maybe it’s not a surprise that
Trimbee uses the word “ecosystem” over
and over to describe MacEwan. And, she
doesn’t see herself as a leader who is a
top-down kind of person; her job is to
ensure that ecosystem flourishes, and that
ideas are born and can come to life in all
corners of the school.
“If people think that I’m something
like a CEO, I’m not, really,” she says. “This
place is full of faculty, staff and students
who have ideas of their own. I can create
an ecosystem where they can run with it,
where their ideas can thrive and where
the best ideas survive — and I don’t mean
that in a Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest
way. It’s about gentle here, gentle there.”
by STEVEN SANDOR
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