Community Engagement Toward Tomorrow

Locate community at the centre of our work and initiatives

Second-year UCalgary nursing students volunteer at One Health in the Park.

Photo by: Amanda O'Rae

The Faculty of Nursing was a collaborator with One Health at UCalgary for One Health in the Park: Pooches, Plants & Pests, a community event in September 2024. Second-year nursing students were part of an interprofessional team along with other UCalgary staff and students. They greeted guests in Fish Creek Provincial Park and provided health tips related to ticks and tick-borne diseases and demonstrated how to remove ticks. In addition, they ran activities and games for children about pet safety.

The Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) has partnered with RadiCare Ventures — a company co-founded by third-year UCalgary Nursing student Bill Zheng — to implement the city’s first dedicated washroom attendant program at the new public washroom facility. The goal: ensuring it is a safe and welcoming space for East Village visitors. To ensure the washrooms are safe, welcoming and inclusive for all visitors, CMLC partnered with RadiCare Ventures to deliver a one-year washroom-attendant pilot program. RadiCare is a for-profit social enterprise, specializing in delivering cleaning services in urban areas, with an emphasis on hiring those facing employment barriers.

Sue Crawford, Manager, Health Systems Transformation Initiative (HIVE) pictured with participants at thePost-Reproductive Women's Health Symposium on May 9, 2025.

Many women enter the menopausal transition unaware of the decades-long hormonal and physical changes it brings, often mislabeling it as a brief phase rather than a significant health shift. In May 2025, the Faculty of Nursing’s Health Systems Transformation Initiative (The HIVE) along with collaborators from UCalgary, the University of Alberta and Mount Royal University hosted the event Post-Reproductive Women's Health and the Menopausal Transition. It raised public awareness misconceptions about the menopause transition and how systemic gaps in awareness, research, and care for women's post-reproductive health affect not just individuals, but workplaces, families, and the broader health-care system.

In February 2025, Term 2 and Term 6 nursing students engaged in peer mentorship and health and wellness education at the Faculty of Social Work’s anti-black racism conference during Black History Month. Thanks to the support of faculty leadership, Bemi Lawal, assistant professor (teaching) from the Faculty of Nursing attended Mobilizing for Change: Addressing Anti-Black Racism Conference with several nursing students.

“Beyond participating in the conference and learning from elders within the community, our students were also able to give back,” says Lawal. “We hosted a vendor table where the students provided blood pressure checks and health education to attendees.”

Bemi Lawal, Assistant Professor (Teaching), Faculty of Nursing, along with a group of nursing student at the Mobilizing for Change Conference on Feb. 27 & 28.

NurseMentor is the Faculty of Nursing’s mentorship program that has been running since 2017. It connects University of Calgary undergraduate student nurses with UCalgary Nursing RN alumni for professional and personal development. During the past academic year mentors brought expertise in upwards of 49 different areas, which you can see illustrated in the word cloud below.

There are so many ways to support a new nurse in navigating their own situations - share wisdom and offer validation but not prescribe what they should do. There are many rewarding parts which include hearing that your mentee finds the relationship meaningful and beneficial. It’s a unique relationship and can give more meaning to your own journey and career.

Karen Lane BN'05, MN'14

Mentor in NurseMentor program

Through community support, the Faculty of Nursing has been able to increase the number of student awards year over year. Thanks to donors who have supported the Faculty of Nursing’s Indigenous initiatives, in 2024-25, six new Indigenous Community Nursing Bursary awards were created, each valued at $3,000. These awards will be offered for the first time in Fall 2025 and are offered to undergraduate Indigenous nursing students registered in the Indigenous or Rural Community Route program or in the main Calgary campus program. There was also increased funding towards the Indigenous Nursing Emergency Student Support Fund to support Indigenous nursing students with emergency or temporary financial assistance.

Kenneth Soohoon Lee, Eng’02, BN’20, skiing at the Monarch Ski Traverse

Photo provided by the family of Kenneth Soohoon Lee

The first Kenneth Soohoon Lee Memorial Scholarship in Nursing was established to honor the life and career of Kenneth Soohoon Lee, Eng’02, BN’20. Created through a generous donation from the Lee family, the fund recognizes Kenneth’s profound dedication to nursing and his commitment to improving the health of vulnerable and Indigenous populations.

Kenneth, who passed away in a kayaking accident in June 2022, was a UCalgary alumnus who returned to his alma mater as a mature student to pursue a new career. He had previously worked as an engineering consultant in Calgary before graduating from the Faculty of Nursing in 2020. After graduation, Kenneth worked in northern Alberta before the call of the mountains drew him to Bella Coola, B.C., where he was preparing to start a new role. Just two months prior, he completed an epic 20-day ski traverse through the Monarch mountains.

An avid outdoors enthusiast, he once wrote, "As a nurse, I gain hints of the topography of peoples’ lives without knowing all the mountain passes they have gone through.”

This deep empathy and respect for others resonates through the scholarship, awarded annually for academic merit in support of an undergraduate nursing student who shares Kenneth’s passion for helping these communities.

2024 Doris M. Taylor Graduate Scholarship in Nursing recipient

Completing my masters while balancing work at Foothills Medical Centre and UCalgary has not been easy, but having part of the financial burden lifted through your scholarship has allowed me to work on my studies while still helping the communities around me.

Cathy Lee, BN’20, MN’25

Sessional instructor

Participants engage with a dog from PALS at our NP Mental Health and Wellness Clinic.

The financial commitment of the Canadian Nurses Foundation to the University of Calgary, Faculty of Nursing NP-Led Mental Health and Wellness Clinic has facilitated the development, and implementation of our student-led Mental Health Peer Wellness Mentorship program. We have supported the mental health of our students thus far by increasing awareness of our NP-Led Mental Health & Wellness Clinic, having open and honest discussions about mental health, and promoting a sense of community.