Mount Royal University’s community-based research making world a better place

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Research is about breaking boundaries, testing the limits of knowledge, applying expertise for a greater good and changing the world around us. Every researcher is a changemaker, and as a changemaker campus, Mount Royal University is dedicated to celebrating research excellence and how our students and faculty contribute.

Mount Royal is celebrating Research and Scholarship Days, March 25 to April 5, focusing on cutting-edge, student-involved inquiry and the role of a knowledge-seeking community in promoting community-engaged research.

“Research is our faculty and students embracing and advancing the most current thinking and practice in their fields,” says Dr. Connie Van der Byl, PhD, associate vice-president of research, scholarship and community engagement at Mount Royal. “Community-based research is an essential element of making the world a better place.”

Down to earth with the community through soil science

Digging through the soil might not be the first place you’d expect to find community, but for soil scientist Mathew Swallow, PhD, an associate professor in the earth and environmental sciences, that is where the strongest connections are found.

Currently, that involves two outreach projects, one focused on research and another on community engagement. But both are connected through soil and community.

Swallow’s research partnership examines ranching practices, and looks at land management strategy and how ranchers, farmers and agricultural producers can improve the soil health of their land.

From benchmarking sites, soil is tested over several years to determine how specific land management practices affect the land. This involves extensive collaboration, and as Swallow notes, the research is partly an active conversation between academics and ranchers to produce the best solutions.

Swallow also uses soil in community outreach through his participation in the Soil Camp, created in a partnership between University of Calgary Associate Professor Miwa Takeuchi and the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, with Swallow joining the project a year after its creation. Other important collaborators include Sophia Thraya, Dr. Mahati Kopparla and Anita Chowdhury. Soil Camp is a trans-disciplinary project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Swallow does not perform any research on this particular project, but he does help create and teach fun soil-based activities for kids.

“They learn about all the organisms in the soil, and they begin to empathize with the land itself . . . when you learn you have a relationship with something as abstract as soil, it becomes much easier to understand and empathize with other people.”

Improving bone and joint health for all 

Creaky knees and aching shoulders are just a couple unpleasant reminders of the inexorable march of time and the effect it has on the body.

For Breda Eubank, assistant professor in the health and physical education department at Mount Royal University, these common ailments that are often overlooked as simple facts of life are a focus of her research.

Bone and joint health conditions are issues almost everyone will experience in their lifetime. And as Eubank points out, these conditions are often overlooked because they are not life-threatening. However, they can result in detrimental impacts on an individual’s quality of life.

This is why Eubank devotes much of her research to improving care for patients experiencing such issues. Part of that research program is participating in the Musculoskeletal Transformation Program, which is an initiative of the Bone and Joint Health Strategic Clinical Network of Alberta Health Services.

Eubank and her colleagues in the group are dedicated to improving health outcomes for patients living with bone and joint conditions. As Eubank explains, that means “helping the community to better find the right provider, the right treatment, within the right time frame, and with the right outcomes.”

Not just fun and games in community engaged research

Julie Booke’s journey into community-engaged research began one day while simply driving to work. “On the radio, Hockey Calgary was talking about how they were going to require one parent or guardian to complete a program on respect if they wanted their children to play hockey. I thought that was super interesting,” Booke says. Having already researched the impact education programs have on behaviour, Booke thought this would be a perfect opportunity to continue research in that area, and she reached out to Hockey Calgary. “That was my first step into the community in this area of research.”

Booke, an associate professor at Mount Royal in the Department of Health and Physical Education, researches the culture of respect in sports and bully prevention programs. One outcome of the partnership with Hockey Canada was the organization working with Booke on a textbook chapter on discussions surrounding the implementation of the respect in sport program, which is now taught in her department.

Booke’s work also caught the attention of a Calgary swim club that was examining its anti-bullying measures. To help work with the swim club, Booke joined up with anti-bullying organization Dare to Care, resulting in policy implementations for the club.

To learn more, visit mtroyal.ca/research.

THIS STORY WAS PROVIDED BY MOUNT ROYAL UNIVERSITY FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES.