Mission & Values

Our Mission

Ambrose University prepares men and women for wise, joyful and redemptive engagement in the church, society and the created order through excellent Christian post-secondary education.

At Ambrose, students can study arts, sciences and theology alongside professional disciplines such as education, business and Christian ministry. These different disciplines are united by the quest for knowledge, wisdom, virtue, and service.

Our Community

Ambrose is the official post-secondary institution of two Christian denominations: The Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada and the Church of the Nazarene Canada. However, we welcome students of any faith background and our students and faculty come from roughly 50 denominations.

We pursue faith-inspired higher education: ours is a supportive yet challenging learning environment in which students can pursue their academic interests and prepare for their careers while also exploring and deepening their faith.

By integrating faith and advanced learning, we provide an outstanding university education that’s rooted in the Christian intellectual, theological, spiritual, and missional traditions. We encourage students’ personal and spiritual formation, and we make space for students and faculty to explore and express their faith through everything they learn and teach.

Our Values & Policies

We are committed to these enduring mission-related values: 

Christian Faith

• We believe that Christ is the centre of what we do. We seek to live lives devoted to serving Christ, and we pursue His will with bold confidence in His sovereign power and purposes.
• We are ecumenically minded, broadly evangelical, and rooted in the holiness traditions of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Canada and the Church of the Nazarene.
• We believe that every person is created in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect.
• We integrate faith and learning and anchor our teaching and research within the Christian intellectual and spiritual tradition. 

From these beliefs and practices flow the rest of our institutional values:

Pursuing Excellence

• We encourage our students, faculty, and staff to be intellectually curious.
• We promote conversations about difficult issues that are marked by both courage and charity.  
• We provide high-quality education as well as co-curricular experiences that prepare students for their future lives and vocations.
• We pursue excellence in all that we do. Our efforts evidence love, wisdom, thoughtfulness, knowledge, scholarship, and skill.
• We are accountable to the Government of Alberta, our accrediting bodies, and our founding denominations.  We also recognize our obligation to provide students with the learning environment set forth in the Academic Calendar.

Holistic Formation

• We assert that Ambrose is a place where students develop virtues, grow in character, acquire life skills, and prepare for future vocations.
• We wrestle together with the hard questions of life and faith. 
• We create intentional, holistic, formational experiences in and out of the classroom.
• We model lifelong perseverance in intellectual and spiritual formation. 

Service

• We strive to integrate faith and active service to the world.
• We commit to shaping servant leaders who will honour Christ in their vocations. 
• We shape culture through our scholarship, research, and artistic expression. 

Community

• We believe that spiritual, personal, and academic development is best accomplished within the context of a Christian community that worships and glorifies God.   
• We collaborate to foster a welcoming, hospitable, generous, just, and truth-telling community that strives to fulfill the university’s mission.
• We seek the welfare of students, one another, and the external community.

Community Standards
Students who join our community and sign the Community Life Standards document (through the application process) commit themselves to following these standards. Each student must accept these responsibilities in order to remain part of the Ambrose community.

If you’ve been accepted to Ambrose but you feel that you cannot with integrity commit to the standards and responsibilities of Ambrose’s living-learning community, we encourage you to discuss the matter with a member of the Student Life team. It might be best to consider pursuing a learning-living community that better fits your values.

If you’re thinking of applying to Ambrose, we invite you to read through our Community Life Standards document.

Freedom of Expression
As an institution of higher education, Ambrose upholds the principles of freedom of expression and supports the search for truth in an atmosphere of honesty, integrity, and intellectual independence. 

Diversity
Ambrose University is a diverse community of learners from many confessional backgrounds admitted from all walks of life. Ambrose does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, colour, national or ethnic origin, physical or learning disability, or religion in the administration of any of its programs or activities.

Harassment Policy
Ambrose University is committed to providing a community in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity, free from harassment. As a Christian higher education community, Ambrose encourages its members to follow biblical principles of lifestyle and conduct. We work with each other in ways that respect and encourage full acceptance of all persons.

Achieving a community free from harassment depends on mutual respect, co-operation and understanding among students and employees. Attitudes and behaviour that undermine this goal are detrimental to all. The University considers harassment a serious offence and will not tolerate behaviour that may undermine the respect, dignity, self-esteem, or productivity of any student or employee.

Ambrose University encourages students and employees to bring concerns and complaints to a Harassment Policy Contact Person. Unless complaints are reported and resolved, it is very difficult for the University to maintain a harassment-free community. All reports of harassment will be taken seriously, promptly investigated and addressed.

Statement on Sexual Identity
Ambrose University is a full member of Campus Alberta. It is also a distinctly Christian institution of higher education grounded in the Protestant evangelical theological tradition. As such, Ambrose has adopted a Christian sexual ethic based on church tradition and scripture. According to this ethic, sexual activity is designed for full expression in a committed, loving marriage relationship between a man and a woman. 

Ambrose believes that a diverse learning community is a healthy learning community. While Ambrose is in alignment with the position of our founding denominations, we do not require students to agree to this position in order to participate in the life of the university.  In an effort to foster the integrity of the learning environment and out of respect and consideration for Ambrose as a Christian academic community with a vision for human flourishing, while on campus students are expected to refrain from immodest public displays of affection and from sexual intimacy.

The Purpose of an Ambrose Education

Educational Principles
Ambrose’s mission-related values (designated below by italics) provide direction for our teaching and learning practices. Ambrose University follows five guiding principles by which we create learning opportunities for students.

1. Christian Faith
   • We integrate faith and learning and anchor our teaching and research within the Christian intellectual and spiritual tradition.
     • We follow after God, and in so doing we pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful.
     • We educate students for Christian formation, believing that scholarship is a means to wisdom, joy, and love.
   • We believe that every person is created in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect.
2. Pursuing Excellence
   • We provide high-quality education as well as co-curricular experiences that prepare students for their future lives and vocations.
     • We foster learning environments that give students opportunities to:
       • improve their understanding of humanity and the world;
       • become creative and critical thinkers;
       • identify and solve significant problems;
       • communicate effectively in written, oral, and artistic forms;
       • situate their learning in diverse practical contexts (e.g., practica, internships, capstone courses, travel study);
       • grow in curiosity and develop a desire for lifelong learning.
     • Within the breadth of the liberal arts tradition, undergraduate students acquire competence in one particular scholarly or professional discipline.
     • Seminary students acquire competence in theological disciplines, personal formation, and vocational effectiveness for redemptive action in the world.
   • We pursue excellence in all that we do. Our efforts evidence love, wisdom, thoughtfulness, knowledge, scholarship, and skill.
     • We pursue excellence in teaching, scholarship, and artistic expression.
     • We embrace academic freedom to uphold honesty, integrity, and intellectual independence in the pursuit of truth.
   • We are accountable to the Government of Alberta, our accrediting bodies, and our founding denominations. We also recognize our obligation to provide students with the learning environment set forth in the Academic Calendar.
     • We are in good accountability relationships with our stakeholders.
3. Holistic Formation
   • We create intentional, holistic, formational, experiences in and out of the classroom.
     • We help students to discern their vocation.
     • We nurture the development of the whole person: intellectual, creative, relational, physical, and spiritual.
     • We foster character formation and the development of Christian virtue.
   • We model lifelong perseverance in intellectual and spiritual formation.
     • We remain committed to growing intellectually within the scholarly community at Ambrose and within the scholarly communities of our academic and professional disciplines.
     • We remain committed to growing spiritually within the Christian community at Ambrose and within the Christian communities of our church congregations.
4. Service
   • We commit to shaping servant leaders who will honour Christ in their vocations.
     • We prepare students to pursue redemptive engagement in the church, society, and the created order.
     • We foster a commitment to active and engaged citizenship both locally and globally.
   • We shape culture through our scholarship, research, and artistic expression.
     • We pursue partnerships with other organizations: ecclesiastical professional, educational, or community based.
     • We work to bridge theory and practice and to provide opportunity for students to serve others humbly and compassionately in Christ’s name.
5. Community
   • We collaborate to foster a welcoming, hospitable, generous, just, and truthtelling community that strives to fulfill the university’s mission.
     • We are committed to learning in community.
       • We create safe campus environments that value healthy relationships between students, faculty, and staff.
     • We are a vibrant and diverse academic and spiritual community.
       • We welcome students from all walks of life, and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
     • We promote the health and wellness of our community members.
     • We celebrate the flourishing of diversity, and in the face of systemic injustice, we affirm that in Christ there is hope for redemptive change and reconciliation.
       • We work to recognize and repent of systemic injustice so we can adjust behaviours and systems to promote healing, justice, and reconciliation.
       • We listen to, learn from, and support those who are marginalized and suffer injustice